The Merge is upon us and other TC news

Welcome Back to the TechCrunch Podcast! This week we have an extra special guest host, Haje Jan Kamps walking us through the top TC stories of the week and talking to the writers who wrote them. He talks with Natasha Mascarenhas about YC demo day, executive changes, and the shrinking diversity in the accelerator’s cohort. He’s also joined by Anita Ramaswamy to talk about Ethereum’s impending Merge and what it means for its users and the world of blockchains at large.  And of course, Haje will catch you up on the tech news you may have missed this week.

Articles from the episode:

• Garry Tan’s return is a full circle moment for Y Combinator
• Delving into YC’s diversity data following a category shakeup
• Catch up on all of TechCrunch’s YC demo day coverage here.
• How the upcoming Ethereum Merge could change crypto’s rewards, costs and reputation

Other news from the week:

• Check out all the TechCrunch coverage of the Apple iPhone event here
• Juul agrees to pay $438.5M in a record settlement, while a newer vape maker gains steam
• Elon Musk can lean on the Twitter whistleblower but he can’t push the trial date back

Credits: The TechCrunch Podcast is produced by Maggie Stamets, hosted by Darrell Etherington, and edited by Kell.