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The long road to driverless with Aurora’s Chris Urmson (Live at HumanX) | Equity Podcast

Self-driving has been “almost here” for over a decade. But somewhere between DARPA challenges and a handful of driverless trucks hauling freight between Dallas and Houston, Aurora co-founder and CEO Chris Urmson’s story changed. The self-driving truck company started commercial driverless operations last April and is now scaling from a handful of trucks to hundreds…

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Self-driving has been “almost here” for over a decade. But somewhere between DARPA challenges and a handful of driverless trucks hauling freight between Dallas and Houston, Aurora co-founder and CEO Chris Urmson’s story changed. The self-driving truck company started commercial driverless operations last April and is now scaling from a handful of trucks to hundreds this year.

On this episode of TechCrunch’s Equity podcast, we’re bringing you a conversation Rebecca Bellan had with Urmson at the HumanX conference in San Francisco. The pair dug into the long road from lab to highway and how physical AI differs from the LLM boom everyone else is chasing.

Subscribe to Equity on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Spotify and all the casts. You also can follow Equity on X and Threads, at @EquityPod.

Chapters:

00:00 Intro

00:49 Urmson’s self-driving journey from DARPA to Aurora

03:30 How macro headwinds and supply constraints are shaping Aurora’s roadmap

06:08 Why trucking beats robotaxis as a business

13:46 How Aurora’s path diverged from Waymo’s

18:09 What 24 years in physical AI teaches you about building a startup

19:33 Why safety hits different when there’s no human in the loop

23:38 Verifiable AI vs. end-to-end systems: why it matters for safety

27:11 Other autonomy companies worth watching

29:04 Real-world data vs. simulation: do you still need both?

30:03 Outro

Science & Technology

Google just broke SEO. Here’s what replaces it. | Equity Podcast

Google I/O made it official: AI-generated answers are now front and center in search, and most brands have almost no visibility into how AI is describing them to their customers. For anyone who has spent years building a strategy around 10 blue links, the rules just changed in a pretty significant way. On this episode…

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Google I/O made it official: AI-generated answers are now front and center in search, and most brands have almost no visibility into how AI is describing them to their customers. For anyone who has spent years building a strategy around 10 blue links, the rules just changed in a pretty significant way.

On this episode of TechCrunch’s Equity podcast, Rebecca Bellan caught up with Matt Thompson, VP of partnerships at Scrunch, a startup positioning itself at the center of the AI search shift, to talk about what Google’s changes mean and marketers and founders should actually do about it.

Subscribe to Equity on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Spotify and all the casts. You also can follow Equity on X and Threads, at @EquityPod.

Chapters

00:00 Intro

01:15 Why Google is going all-in on AI search

03:25 Meet Scrunch

09:00 Personalized agents, shopping, and Google’s advantage

12:13 What advertisers need to track now

13:48 How websites become “agent ready”

15:34 AI search vs. traditional SEO

22:33 “Scrunching” webpages down for AI agents

23:47 Google’s SEO guidance vs. Scrunch’s approach

27:17 Why unique human content still matters

28:51 Advice for startups adapting to AI search

29:52 Outro

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CNET

The World’s Largest Artificial Sun Gave Me Hope

Take a look inside ITER, the world’s largest fusion reactor, to see how scientists from around the world are working tirelessly to re-create the sun’s superpower on Earth and fuel a clean energy revolution. Read more about the Fusion Reactor on CNET.com Inside the World’s Biggest Bet on Fusion Energy 0:00 Welcome to ITER 1:21…

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Take a look inside ITER, the world’s largest fusion reactor, to see how scientists from around the world are working tirelessly to re-create the sun’s superpower on Earth and fuel a clean energy revolution.

Read more about the Fusion Reactor on CNET.com
Inside the World’s Biggest Bet on Fusion Energy

0:00 Welcome to ITER
1:21 Meet Plasma
1:38 ITER’s Magnets
2:28 ITER’s Goals
3:31 Hotter than the sun
3:57 Setbacks
4:46 International collaboration
5:18 ITER’s Tokamak Hall
5:38 The heart of ITER
6:08 ITER’s fuel
6:38 The walls of the tokamak
7:00 Tritium breeding
7:20 “The knowledge of the world”

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Science & Technology

Why Humans Should Merge with AI | D. Scott Phoenix | TED

Deep tech entrepreneur D. Scott Phoenix spent years building AI — now, he believes we’re on the cusp of a profound merger between humans and machines. Reframing the AI debate through the lens of evolutionary biology, he shifts the question from whether we should fear or embrace AI to whether we understand what’s at stake…

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Deep tech entrepreneur D. Scott Phoenix spent years building AI — now, he believes we’re on the cusp of a profound merger between humans and machines. Reframing the AI debate through the lens of evolutionary biology, he shifts the question from whether we should fear or embrace AI to whether we understand what’s at stake if we get it wrong. Hear his provocative case for why we need to “eat the AI.” (Recorded at TED2026 on April 15, 2026)

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The TED Talks channel features the best talks and performances from the TED Conference, where the world’s leading thinkers and doers give the talk of their lives in 18 minutes (or less) — plus originals, podcasts and exclusive content. Look for videos on Technology, Entertainment and Design as well as science, business, global issues, the arts and more. Visit for our entire library, transcripts, translations and personalized recommendations.

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