Dropbox hearts AI, the creator-platform wars and why we’re bullish on fake booze

Hello, and welcome back to Equity, a podcast about the business of startups, where we unpack the numbers and nuance behind the headlines.

Mary Ann and Alex are back, and once again they tapped the TechCrunch roster for expert input. This week, we’re lucky enough to have Kirsten Korosec back on the podcast. She’s TechCrunch’s mobility lead, hosts a podcast of her own and is one of our favorite humans.

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The summer slowdown is far from happening yet, so we had a whole raft of stuff to chew through. It was a good thing that we had six hands on deck! Here’s the rundown:

• Deals of the Week: Mary Ann wanted to talk about Robinhood buying X1, a deal that seemed inexpensive but we lack enough numbers for full confidence; Alex wanted to riff on Dropbox’s new AI fund, even if it does feel a little small; and Kirsten had notes for the team on Cruise’s latest app rollout. Even if Mary Ann and Alex cannot find a way to agree on self-driving cars, we all thought that the Cruise bus is cute.
• Twitch and Reddit try to balance corporate requirements with community power: Building off our recent show digging into the creator economy, the crew tackled the latest from Twitch (a new creator-corporate revenue split of sorts) and Reddit (where the battle between the company and its power-users continues to blaze). It’s feeling more hot war than cold war lately on the internet, with platforms struggling to find a way to keep revenue growth coming while not estranging the folks who make their services tick.
• The power of Not Boozing: How big is the market for non-alcoholic drinks? Smaller than the market for vodka, certainly, but we’re curious. Also there’s a new app in the market that is helping folks find non-booze bevies, which we dig.

A big thanks to Kirsten for swinging by, and we’ll chat with you Monday morning!