When do layoffs matter? Trick question – always

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

This was a live week on the podcast, meaning that Mary Ann and Alex and Natasha and Grace teamed up with the fine audio and visual folks from our mothership Yahoo to not only record the show, but to do so in front of, well, all of you! It’s fun to record live, and we’ll do it again in two weeks!

What did we get into? The following:

• Deals of the Week: HomeLister wants to make selling your home more of a DIY affair, and cheaper; Degreed’s co-founder is coming back to the company he helped found, via a different company that he helped found; and can chat bots not suck in the future?
• Coalition: What happens when you cross a small venture capital fund, a large operator network, and shared upside? Coalition wants to find out.
• Layoffs: Backstage has cut its staff to the quick, while we saw smaller cuts at Substack this week in percentage terms. Both rounds of layoffs were launching points for questions, and discussion on the show.
• Robinhood: Will the company, beleaguered with a rock-bottom share price and slipping consumer mindshare, sell?

Equity is off Monday for the holiday, but back three times in the following four days. Chat then!