Kodiak Robotics made a financial move that was ubiquitous in 2021. Yup, the self-driving truck startup plans to go public through a merger with Ares Acquisition Corporation II, a special purpose acquisition company. It’s a bold bet in a market where SPACs have lost their shine and the autonomous vehicle space has numerous shutdowns, including Embark and TuSimple.
Today, on TechCrunch’s Equity podcast, hosts Kirsten Korosec, Max Zeff, and Anthony Ha are unpacking the week’s news, including the possible return of the SPAC in an uncertain IPO market. It’s a curious moment for a public debut in general, as Kirsten points out, especially after so much chatter that 2025 would be the big comeback year for blockbuster IPOs; some major players like Klarna and StubHub have already hit pause. And as investor Mark Goldberg put it on this week’s show, folks holding their breath for a fintech IPO wave this year “are going to be blue in the face.”
Listen to the full episode to hear about:
- How Mark Zuckerberg, Elon Musk, and Jeff Bezos’ AI voices could be taking over a crosswalk near you
- Figma’s IPO plans, and questions from the Equity crew ahead of the S-1
- How Hugging Face’s latest acquisition confirms its push into humanoid robotics
- The latest wave of OpenAI models, updates to its o3 and o4-mini reasoning models, and why all eyes are on the bigger launch still to come: GPT-5
Equity will be back next week, so stay tuned!
Equity is TechCrunch’s flagship podcast, produced by Theresa Loconsolo, and posts every Wednesday and Friday.
Subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Spotify and all the casts. You also can follow Equity on X and Threads, at @EquityPod. For the full episode transcript, for those who prefer reading over listening, check out our full archive of episodes here.
Theresa Loconsolo is an audio producer at TechCrunch focusing on Equity, the network’s flagship podcast. Before joining TechCrunch in 2022, she was one of 2 producers at a four-station conglomerate where she wrote, recorded, voiced and edited content, and engineered live performances and interviews from guests like lovelytheband. Theresa is based in New Jersey and holds a bachelors degree in Communication from Monmouth University.
Kirsten Korosec is a reporter and editor who has covered the future of transportation from EVs and autonomous vehicles to urban air mobility and in-car tech for more than a decade. She is currently the transportation editor at TechCrunch and co-host of TechCrunch’s Equity podcast. She is also co-founder and co-host of the podcast, “The Autonocast.” She previously wrote for Fortune, The Verge, Bloomberg, MIT Technology Review and CBS Interactive.
Maxwell Zeff is a senior reporter at TechCrunch specializing in AI and emerging technologies. Previously with Gizmodo, Bloomberg, and MSNBC, Zeff has covered the rise of AI and the Silicon Valley Bank crisis. He is based in San Francisco. When not reporting, he can be found hiking, biking, and exploring the Bay Area’s food scene.
Anthony Ha is TechCrunch’s weekend editor. Previously, he worked as a tech reporter at Adweek, a senior editor at VentureBeat, a local government reporter at the Hollister Free Lance, and vice president of content at a VC firm. He lives in New York City.
