# AI IPOs, AV Regulation, and Behavioral Product Strategy

**Podcast:** TechCrunch Daily Crunch
**Published:** 2026-07-10

## Transcript

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Anthropics' new Claude feature is quietly selling you on AI.
I'm Iran Shaikh, and your Friday Daily Crunch featuring three big tech headlines starts right now.
We've talked before about the hot IPO summer, but with SpaceX just launched to public markets and Anthropic and maybe OpenAI soon to come, it can be easy to miss the sheer scale of what's happening here.
I mean, we got a good reminder of it in Wednesday's NCVA PitchBook Venture Monitor report.
Not surprisingly, all of the money in private markets is flooding into...
You guessed it, AI.
But one particular figure stood out.
Taking the measure of the pending open AI and anthropic IPOs, the report drops this little nugget.
Along with the SpaceX IPO, these exits will generate more value than all US VC-backed exits since 2000.
That's quite a claim.
And when you add up the numbers, it's hard to disagree.
You see, SpaceX has already gone public at a $1.77 trillion valuation, and with both Anthropic and OpenAI pushing into the trillions, it's likely the trio together will land somewhere north of $4 trillion.
By comparison, the U.S.
Securities and Exchange Commission counted just $70 billion in U.S.-based IPO proceeds last year.
Careful listeners will notice a few caveats in the language here.
It doesn't include non-US companies like Alibaba, and we're measuring value created as opposed to strictly liquid cash.
A lot of the major tech developments happened at companies that had already gone public.
The iPhone, the debut of Android, and the launches of YouTube and Instagram, so they wouldn't be captured in the IPO figures.
Still, that was a pretty eventful 25 years.
Among other things, that period saw IPOs from Google 2004, Tesla 2010, and Meta 2012, which are now among the most valuable companies in the world.
During the same period, LinkedIn, Slack, and WhatsApp were all acquired for more than $20 billion.
Uber's $84 billion IPO seemed like a lot of money in 2019, but it's less than 5% of what SpaceX just drummed up.
One factor here is that companies are staying private for longer.
The sheer scale of the public offerings is still way beyond anything the industry has ever done and is already pushing the financial infrastructure to its limit.
National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, or our favorite acronym NHTSA, Administrator Jonathan Morrison issued a directive Wednesday to autonomous vehicle AV developers, stating that it is unacceptable for their vehicles to interfere with first responders or law enforcement.
Morrison noted in the letter that the agency has identified a clear pattern of driverless AVs interfering with law enforcement and other first responders, citing instances in which these vehicles drove into active emergency scenes, blocked the paths of ambulances and firefighters, or failed to recognize and respond to basic safety conditions like flashing lights, flares, smoke, fire, and that lovable obstacle.
traffic cones.
The agency has demanded that AV developers present their solutions to this problem by the end of the month.
Now, the agency doesn't explicitly call out any particular company in the letter.
However, the details suggest it is directed at robo-taxi operators like Waymo.
Waymo declined to comment, by the way.
A previous TechCrunch investigation found that Waymo, which operates the largest robo-taxi fleet in the good old US of A, with vehicles in cities including Los Angeles, Phoenix, and San Francisco, has had repeated run-ins with first responders.
In at least six, count them six, incidents identified by TechCrunch through March of this year, First responders had to take control of Waymo vehicles and move them out of traffic during emergency situations.
In one instance, an officer was in the middle of responding to a mass shooting.
In June, an officer was recorded moving a Waymo to unblock a roadway for first responders headed to a natural gas explosion at an apartment building.
The agency's letter to AV developers doesn't say what the consequences would be if the request is ignored, nor does it outline what the acceptable solutions would be.
But the agency does imply it would hold companies accountable, just as it does human drivers who impede law enforcement.
At a time when AI backlash and data center protests are making headlines, Anthropics Cloud is rolling out a new feature that subtly makes the case for why you should keep using it.
You see, on Thursday, the company introduced Reflect, a built-in dashboard that lets you track and visualize how you use Claude and your broader AI habits.
On the surface, it's an analytics feature that offers insights into what sort of topics you've discussed, your overall usage patterns, and what kinds of tasks you tend to turn to AI for help with, but reflects larger purpose.
is about shaping how users think about AI itself.
It does so by framing Claude as both a highly utilized productivity tool and a part of your everyday workflow, as well as a technology that can be used mindfully.
Now, while Claude Reflect doesn't go so far as to quantify how much time you've saved on manual tasks by switching your workflows to AI, there is something about having all the work Claude helped with laid out in front of you that will likely make you see Claude as a tool you've come to rely on and one very much a part of your everyday life.
Meanwhile, Anthropic will push you to think critically about your AI usage as Reflect will pop up questions from time to time like...
What's one thing you want to keep doing yourself, even if Claude could do it faster?
The app additionally offers tools to set quiet hours or schedule nudges to take a break from AI, Anthropic Notes in its announcement, a nod to the potentially addictive nature of working with AI chatbots, which never fail to respond to your questions and prompt follow-ups to keep the conversation going.
And folks, that's your Daily Crunch.
Today's stories were reported by Russell Brandom, Kirsten Karosik, Sarah Perez.
and more awesome TechCrunch journalists.
We'll see you here tomorrow, same Tech Time, same Crunch channel.
And until then, find us at TechCrunch.com.
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