Democrats’ historic victories in this week’s U.S. midterm elections could also transform the tech industry.
The public voted on 41 data center-related ballot measures on Tuesday — in all but one, the majority voted to impose more restrictions on data center development. And even when data centers weren’t on the ballot directly, they were a major talking point, with newly-elected Democratic governors and congressmembers likely to support additional regulation.
On the latest episode of TechCrunch’s Equity podcast, Kirsten Korosec, Sean O’Kane, and Anthony Ha discuss what the election will mean for the tech industry moving forward — not just when it comes to data centers (which OpenAI is already trying to rebrand), but also increased government scrutiny of Big Tech.
Listen to the full episode to hear more about:
• Whether Google first satellite data center is ushering our orbital data center future
• If major layoffs at design software company Canva and website builder Squarespace can be blamed on AI
• Marvell’s $115 billion acquisition of Lumentum, in one of the largest deals in history
• Why CrowdStrike just acquired of two AI security startups
What NBCUniversal’s investment in Indian microdrama startup Elo • Elo means for the media landscape
Subscribe to Equity on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Spotify, and all the casts. You can also follow Equity on X and Threads, at @EquityPod.
Chapters:
00:00 Intro
0:47 Founder Summit recap and an Equity team update
2:23 Midterm results and the data center backlash
7:49 OpenAI rebrands data centers as “compute campuses”
10:57 Wall Street cools on the data center buildout
13:30 Regulatory certainty and building outside the U.S.
15:45 Canva and Squarespace layoffs
20:37 Can AI chatbots replace products like Squarespace?
23:22 Marvell’s $115B Lumentum acquisition
26:51 CrowdStrike buys Fiddler AI and Dreadnode
30:20 Micro drama startup raises $80M
30:59 Outro
