OpenAI gears up for a big announcement, and Apple Store workers authorize a strike

Last week was a busy one for some Apple Store employees. Over the weekend, workers at Apple’s Townson, Maryland store — the first Apple retail store to have a formally recognized union — voted to authorize a strike. While the date of the strike is still being determined, the union has been negotiating with Apple since January 2023 over work-life balance, unpredictable scheduling, and wages, among other issues.

But that wasn't all we discussed on today’s episode of Equity. This morning, Rebecca Szkutak also broke down what we can and can’t expect from OpenAI’s livestream event later today. On Friday, Sam Altman put a stop to rumors that the company will release a Google search competitor, but he did say OpenAI could announce a search feature within ChatGPT. 

To close out, Haje took the reins with another Pitch Deck Teardown. This time, we’re highlighting Cloudsmith, which secured $15 million for its cloud platform. The startup's 2021 round was the largest Series A for a company from Northern Ireland since 2005, so clearly they got a thing or two right. Listen through to the end to find out how the company pulled it off! 

Equity is TechCrunch’s flagship podcast, produced by Theresa Loconsolo, and posts every Monday, 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. For the full episode transcript, for those who prefer reading over listening, check out our full archive of episodes over at Simplecast.

Credits: Equity is produced by Theresa Loconsolo with editing by Kell. Bryce Durbin is our Illustrator. We'd also like to thank the audience development team and Henry Pickavet, who manages TechCrunch audio products.