Intel backs robotics startup, Twitter loses money, and fintech shows signs of life

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

Our Monday show covers the latest in tech news from the weekend and what’s making headlines early in the week. Here’s the rundown from this morning!

Stocks are largely down around the world following weak Chinese economic data for the second quarter. We’re also heading back into an earnings cycle, so get ready to hear from Tesla and Netflix this week, among other major names.
In crypto-land, the XRP/Ripple partial victory drove a short-lived boomlet for many crypto tokens; XRP is the clear winner from last week.
Twitter is cash-flow negative, per its CEO, but the company intends to double-down on paying individual tweeters for their high-view activities.
While Twitter molts, Threads continues to grow like a weed. Speaking of Meta, the company is in trouble in Norway.
On the startup front, Intel invested in Figure, which we think is quite neat, and Thunes is now nearly a unicorn!

We will be back on Wednesday and Friday. Talk to you soon!