Equity podcast: Netflix soars, Twitter loses a big bird, Lyft isn’t woke and more ICOs

Hello and welcome back to Equity, TechCrunch’s venture capital-focused podcast where we unpack the numbers behind the headlines.

This week we once again had the full crew on set: Matthew Lynley, Katie Roof, and myself. And even better, we were joined by Sarah Tavel from Benchmark, who helped us unspool a topic or three.

And topics we had. This being earnings season, we had little choice but to talk about at least one public company’s results. Obviously we picked Netflix, a firm whose stock has gone parabolic as its cashflow has moved in the opposite direction.

But as we discuss, in the era of infinite money for land grabs, why slow down?

Next up was Twitter, from which a bird has flown the nest right into the arms of SoFi. Yes, SoFi is picking up Twitter’s COO for its CEO role. Regular listeners will know why SoFi, a heavily funded unicorn, needs a new CEO in the first place.

Next up was the venture world. How much money did VCs disburse in 2017? Quite a lot as it turns out. In the United States and the world, the numbers were quite large — records since the dot-com boom. (More here if you are so inclined). We also noodled over the ICO landscape, including the Telegram offering.

All that and it turns out that Lyft is not woke. Alas.

And one last thing. Equity is recording a live episode on February 6 at SaaStr, which is cool.

Equity drops every Friday at 6:00 am PT, so subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Pocketcast, Downcast and all the casts.