Wordle, hurdles and Sally’s early retirement – TechCrunch

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

Alex, Natasha and Mary Ann enjoyed yet another edition of Equity Live this week, hopping on Twitter Spaces to chat everything from Musk’s meme suit to a new take on Wordle that landed Spotify’s attention. When we stopped recording the episode, news broke that Stripe is cutting its internal valuation by 28%. Luckily, we do this three times a week to stay tuned for our take soon.

In the mean time, here’s what we got to in today’s episode:

• Spotify acquired Heardle, which felt like a throwback to trivia and of course a nod at its famous predecessor, NY Times-owned Wordle. Only one of us has played the music guessing game so far, so tweet @equitypod your thoughts on if it’s actually fun.
• We also spoke about a startup that is trying to address male infertility in a personalized, engaging way. It caught investors attention, and ours too.
• Our last deal of the week, Continuum, gave us a chance to talk about productizing one of the worst jobs in startups: laying folks off. The fractional work play feels even more important given the volatility of startups across all stages right now. Hopin, for example, conducted its second layoff within four months this week and parted ways with its COO, CFO and other executives. Medium had an executive shake up, with Ev Williams stepping down.
• The last two themes of the episode were built around Instacart and the future of grocery delivery, as well as the latest of the Twitter and Elon Musk saga.

Equity drops every Monday at 7 a.m. PDT and Wednesday and Friday at 6 a.m. PDT, so subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Spotify and all the casts.