Hello and welcome back to Equity, a podcast about the business of startups, where we unravel the numbers and nuances behind the headlines. We warmly welcome you to start the year off right Rebecca Szkutak as a returning host who will accompany us while Alex is on paternity leave. We are lucky enough to have her for a few months so give her a warm welcome!

With that, Natasha, Mary Ann and Becca returned to the mic to unpack the latest and greatest in this first week back. 2022 has been a gloomy, unforgiving storm at times, but it also surprised us with how much innovation continues to perk up this recession. The start of 2023 has been no different.

This is what we started:

• Some early highlights from CES, the annual consumer electronics show that is currently taking over Las Vegas. Yes, we’re talking comfort cushions that are even more comfortable than you think, a smarter smart washing machine and a safety dash cam for drivers who ride along.
• Then we jumped into the deals of the week, which included Doorstead and USV’s $200 million climate fund.
• Our first theme came in the latest development in the FTX and SBF saga. If you’re like us, so much has happened that it’s hard to keep track of all the twists and turns. But it’s also increasingly important as Becca gives us a Real Housewives angle to consider.
• We end with a talk about layoffs that came in this week and impacted employees at Stitch Fix, Amazon, Salesforce and others. We dived into Natasha’s latest feature film story as she explores how laid-off talent rethinks the risks of their next job.

As always, we’ll be back on Monday to chat with you! In the meantime, you can follow us on Twitter @EquityPod.

Equity drops every Monday at 10am PT and at 7am PT on Wednesdays and Fridays, so subscribe to us at Apple podcasts, Cloudy, Spotify and all casts. australiabusinessblog.com also has one great show on cryptoa show founders being intervieweda dat describes how our stories come togetherand more!