International 
Politics 
Local 
Finance 
Sports 
Entertainment 
Lifestyle 
Technology 
Literature 
Science 
Health 
11 months ago
37
Hugging Face’s new programmable Reachy Mini bots launched this week. The AI robots are open source, Raspberry Pi-powered, and come with cartoonish antennae and big googly eyes. They don’t do much out of the box. And that’s kind of the point.
Today, on TechCrunch’s Equity podcast, hosts Kirsten Korosec, Max Zeff, and Anthony Ha dig into the launch of Reachy Mini, which pulled in a surprising $500,000 in sales in its first 24 hours. As open source companies like Hugging Face explore physical products, Kirsten and Max agree that Reachy Mini might be the Seinfeld of AI hardware: the bots might do nothing in particular, but they’re still captivating.
Listen to the full episode to hear more news from the week, including:
- Grok’s wild week and Linda Yaccarino’s abrupt exit from X
- How Rivian’s micromobility spinoff, Also, snagged another $200 million to build e-bikes, even though it hasn’t launched a product yet.
- LangChain reportedly closing a new round that would push its valuation to $1 billion, thanks in part to a pivot toward monetizing its developer tools
Equity will be back next week, so stay tuned!
Equity is TechCrunch’s flagship podcast, produced by Theresa Loconsolo, and posts every Wednesday and Friday.
Subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Spotify and all the casts. You also can follow Equity on X and Threads, at @EquityPod.
Kirsten Korosec is a reporter and editor who has covered the future of transportation from EVs and autonomous vehicles to urban air mobility and in-car tech for more than a decade. She is currently the transportation editor at TechCrunch and co-host of TechCrunch’s Equity podcast. She is also co-founder and co-host of the podcast, “The Autonocast.” She previously wrote for Fortune, The Verge, Bloomberg, MIT Technology Review and CBS Interactive.
Maxwell Zeff is a senior reporter at TechCrunch specializing in AI. Previously with Gizmodo, Bloomberg, and MSNBC, Zeff has covered the rise of AI and the Silicon Valley Bank crisis. He is based in San Francisco. When not reporting, he can be found hiking, biking, and exploring the Bay Area’s food scene.
Anthony Ha is TechCrunch’s weekend editor. Previously, he worked as a tech reporter at Adweek, a senior editor at VentureBeat, a local government reporter at the Hollister Free Lance, and vice president of content at a VC firm. He lives in New York City.
Theresa Loconsolo is an audio producer at TechCrunch focusing on Equity, the network’s flagship podcast. Before joining TechCrunch in 2022, she was one of 2 producers at a four-station conglomerate where she wrote, recorded, voiced and edited content, and engineered live performances and interviews from guests like lovelytheband. Theresa is based in New Jersey and holds a bachelors degree in Communication from Monmouth University.
English (US)