The Briefing by Martin Peers, Jessica E. Lessin and the team at The Information

Five times/week

The Briefing

By Martin Peers, Jessica E. Lessin and the team at The Information

Get smarter about the day’s news in tech, media and finance by following Silicon Valley’s most-read executive newsletter.

By providing your email, you agree to The Information’s Privacy Policy

Recent Editions

Art by Mike Sullivan/Midjourney

Why Net Retention Rates Are All the Rage for AI Investors

By Sri Muppidi · Feb 5, 2025 6:00am PST

Investors in artificial intelligence startups have been wowed by the growth of many young AI startups, which are hitting revenue milestones years earlier than a previous generation of software companies did. But they are worried many of those startups won’t be able to hang on to this phenomenal growth—and are hunting for clues on... Investors in artificial intelligence startups have been wowed by the growth of many young AI...

A Google Cloud data center. Photo via Google.

DeepSeek Doesn't Slow Tech’s AI Capex Splurge

By Martin Peers · Feb 4, 2025 5:00pm PST

Tech’s AI-driven capex splurge lives! Google parent Alphabet today said it expected to lay out $75 billion on capital expenditures this year, a 43% lift over 2024. That puts Google very close to Microsoft, which has said it will spend $80 billion building artificial intelligence data centers in its fiscal year ending June. Meta Platforms, with... Tech’s AI-driven capex splurge lives! Google parent Alphabet today said it expected to lay out...

YouTube CEO Neal Mohan. Photo via Flickr/Fortune.

Creator Economy

YouTube’s Election Boost; Spiegel Goes Public on Snapchat

By Kaya Yurieff · Feb 4, 2025 3:50pm PST

We’re hearing a lot of YouTube creators and media executives have already descended on New Orleans ahead of Super Bowl Sunday. Back at home in rainy Mountain View, Google leaders have been talking up the last national event that boosted YouTube—the 2024 presidential election. In a call with investors late Tuesday, Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai... We’re hearing a lot of YouTube creators and media executives have already descended on New...

President Trump, center, signs an executive action to create a sovereign wealth fund for the U.S. Photo by Getty

What Trump’s Sovereign Wealth Fund Could Mean for Tech

By Cory Weinberg and Ken Brown · Feb 4, 2025 3:30pm PST · 1 comment

President Trump, center, signs an executive action to create a sovereign wealth fund for the U.S. Photo by Getty

What Trump’s Sovereign Wealth Fund Could Mean for Tech

By Cory Weinberg and Ken Brown · Feb 4, 2025 3:30pm PST · 1 comment

The U.S. should start a sovereign wealth fund and maybe it should invest in TikTok, President Trump suggested earlier this week. Well, maybe. But if the fund ever does come to life, its money would be arguably better spent on a bigger, more speculative investment: Stargate, the $500 billion OpenAI-SoftBank-Oracle data center expansion that Trump... The U.S. should start a sovereign wealth fund and maybe it should invest in TikTok, President...

Outside DeepSeek's office in Beijing. Photo via Getty.

Eyeing Higher Margins, AWS and Other Cloud Providers Embrace DeepSeek

By Jon Victor · Feb 4, 2025 10:25am PST

The DeepSeek reasoning artificial intelligence, R1, isn’t just a gift to businesses eager to cut their AI costs. American cloud providers looking to boost their server rental businesses moved quickly last week to make R1 available to their customers.So far, however, Amazon Web Services, Microsoft and Google aren’t charging cloud customers to use... The DeepSeek reasoning artificial intelligence, R1, isn’t just a gift to businesses eager to cut...

Photo by Getty

ChatGPT’s New ‘Research’ Feature: The Good and the Bad

By Stephanie Palazzolo · Feb 4, 2025 7:00am PST

It’s been barely a day since OpenAI released Deep Research, a new ChatGPT feature that helps customers conduct multi-step research. And already it’s gotten at least one rave review.Derya Unutmaz, a professor of immunology at the Jackson Laboratory for Genomic Medicine who’s been testing the feature since he was granted early access on Friday,... It’s been barely a day since OpenAI released Deep Research, a new ChatGPT feature that helps...

Big Tech’s Capex Gusher Tops Last Oil Spree

By Anita Ramaswamy · Feb 4, 2025 6:00am PST

The tech industry’s project to build out artificial intelligence is proving even more capital intensive than the peak of the last investment supercycle by oil and gas firms in the mid-2010s. Microsoft, Meta Platforms, Amazon and Alphabet spent an estimated average of 17.2% of their revenues on capital expenditures in 2024, up from 12.7% in... The tech industry’s project to build out artificial intelligence is proving even more...

Photo via Getty.

What Trump’s Order Means for Temu and Shein

By Theo Wayt · Feb 3, 2025 5:00pm PST

Photo via Getty.

What Trump’s Order Means for Temu and Shein

By Theo Wayt · Feb 3, 2025 5:00pm PST

If you’re planning on buying your significant other a Valentine’s Day gift on Temu, Shein or Amazon’s low-cost rival to those services, Haul, make sure you have a backup plan so you don’t wind up in the doghouse. A (perhaps unintended) consequence of a Trump administration executive order issued over the weekend means packages from the... If you’re planning on buying your significant other a Valentine’s Day gift on Temu, Shein or...

Photo via Getty

OpenAI’s DeepSeek Response: Catch Us If You Can

By Stephanie Palazzolo and Rocket Drew · Feb 3, 2025 7:17am PST · 1 comment

OpenAI’s release on Friday of o3-mini, its latest artificial intelligence reasoning model, wasn’t a surprise. CEO Sam Altman had previously said it would drop by then.But it was impossible to ignore the coincidence of the release coming a few days after a blaze of news erupted over DeepSeek R1, a Chinese reasoning model that has matched or even... OpenAI’s release on Friday of o3-mini, its latest artificial intelligence reasoning model, wasn’t...

Art by Clark Miller

How Google Cleaned Up Its Cloud Act

By Kevin McLaughlin and Catherine Perloff · Feb 3, 2025 6:00am PST · 5 comments

In the months after Thomas Kurian became CEO of Google Cloud in early 2019, he made a discovery: Another Google team that oversaw the company’s centrally managed information technology services had been overcharging the cloud unit for its use of software and other computing resources, according to a former Google Cloud manager who saw the... In the months after Thomas Kurian became CEO of Google Cloud in early 2019, he made a discovery:...

Inside Natron Energy's Holland, Mich. factory. Photo: Courtesy Natron.

The Electric: Why This Next-Gen Battery Startup Isn’t Afraid of DeepSeek

By Steve LeVine · Feb 3, 2025 4:30am PST

The DeepSeek earthquake shook developers of nuclear and natural gas power plants, pummeling their share prices and triggering doubts about billions of dollars of existing and planned investments to power artificial intelligence data centers. The DeepSeek earthquake shook developers of nuclear and natural gas power plants, pummeling their...

Art by Clark Miller

Why Debanking Fears Could Benefit Trump

By Abram Brown · Feb 1, 2025 7:01am PST

Art by Clark Miller

Why Debanking Fears Could Benefit Trump

By Abram Brown · Feb 1, 2025 7:01am PST

Welcome, Weekenders! In this newsletter:• The Big Read: As Microsoft and Google move in, a battle over hallowed ground erupts• The Arena: The NFL and Netflix likely share a supersize dream• Artificial Intelligence: our new Glossary of AI Jargon • Plus, our Recommendations: Trackers of Gilded Age glam; requiem for the rock stars;... Welcome, Weekenders! In this newsletter:• The Big Read: As Microsoft and Google move in, a ...

Art by Clark Miller

What the NFL and Netflix Could Both Want: An Overseas Super Bowl

By Sara Germano · Feb 1, 2025 5:00am PST

When selecting the venue for next weekend’s Super Bowl between the Kansas City Chiefs and Philadelphia Eagles, the NFL went with a traditional choice: New Orleans. It’ll be the 11th time the Big Easy has hosted the Big Game, tying it with Miami for hosting the most Super Bowls ever. Recently, however, the world’s richest... When selecting the venue for next weekend’s Super Bowl between the Kansas City Chiefs and...

Sam Altman. Photo by Getty

ChatGPT Subscribers Nearly Tripled to 15.5 Million in 2024

By Stephanie Palazzolo and Amir Efrati · Jan 31, 2025 4:41pm PST · 8 comments

Paid subscribers to ChatGPT nearly tripled to 15.5 million last year from 5.8 million a year earlier, OpenAI recently told some shareholders, despite competition from chatbots made by Google, Anthropic and Meta Platforms. Based on what OpenAI charges for the chatbot subscriptions, the increase means ChatGPT was likely generating at least $4... Paid subscribers to ChatGPT nearly tripled to 15.5 million last year from 5.8 million a year...

Art by Clark Miller; Images via Getty.

The Zuckerberg-Musk Double Act

By Martin Peers · Jan 31, 2025 3:23pm PST

Is Mark Zuckerberg auditioning for the role of Elon Musk’s Mini-Me? We’re kidding, but it is uncanny how much Zuckerberg seems to be following Musk’s lead lately. In the latest example, The Wall Street Journal reported on Friday that Meta Platforms is considering moving its legal incorporation to Texas, out of Delaware, just as Tesla did last... Is Mark Zuckerberg auditioning for the role of Elon Musk’s Mini-Me? We’re kidding, but it is...

China’s DeepSeek Shakes the Tech World

By Jessica E. Lessin · Jan 31, 2025 2:29pm PST

China’s DeepSeek Shakes the Tech World

By Jessica E. Lessin · Jan 31, 2025 2:29pm PST

This week on More or Less: DeepSeek, memes and Dave quits social media. Apple Spotify This week on More or Less: DeepSeek, memes and Dave quits social media. Apple Spotify YouTube ...

Photo via Getty

Meta Taps Ad Agencies to Help Devise AI Ad Tools

By Catherine Perloff · Jan 31, 2025 1:25pm PST · 2 comments

As Meta Platforms sets about turning its massive investment in artificial intelligence into ways to make money, it’s asking ad agencies for help. Meta has been sending its engineers to work with ad agencies on developing AI tools designed to do everything from tweaking videos and static images in ads to evaluating the effectiveness of such... As Meta Platforms sets about turning its massive investment in artificial intelligence into ways...

Art by Clark Miller

With Google and Microsoft Moving In, a Battle Over Hallowed Ground Erupts

By Theo Wayt · Jan 31, 2025 9:14am PST

In 1862, from a hill in northern Virginia, troops under Confederate General Stonewall Jackson rained artillery fire upon a column of Union soldiers on a dirt road about a thousand feet away, in the opening shots of the Second Battle of Manassas. When I visited a farmhouse on the site on a frigid day earlier this month, I saw the signs of a... In 1862, from a hill in northern Virginia, troops under Confederate General Stonewall Jackson...

Left to right: Atomicwork's founders Kiran Darisi, Vijay Rayapati and Parsuram Vijay. Photo via Atomicwork.

Pro Weekly: Freshly Funded AI Founders Go Deep on DeepSeek

By Akash Pasricha · Jan 31, 2025 8:00am PST

China’s DeepSeek rocked the technology world this week with its innovative and cheaper large language model. The founders of companies we’ve newly added to our Generative AI Database tell me they’ve been studying DeepSeek’s approach and thinking about how it could help their businesses.Geraldo Ramos, co-founder and CEO of Music AI—which... China’s DeepSeek rocked the technology world this week with its innovative and cheaper large...

Art by Mike Sullivan

DeepSeek’s Success Contrasts With China AI Startups’ Struggles

By Juro Osawa · Jan 31, 2025 6:00am PST · 4 comments

Art by Mike Sullivan

DeepSeek’s Success Contrasts With China AI Startups’ Struggles

By Juro Osawa · Jan 31, 2025 6:00am PST · 4 comments

DeepSeek has shaken up Silicon Valley and Wall Street with its stunning advances in artificial intelligence. But its technological success doesn’t mean China’s AI industry has figured out how to make money. The rise of DeepSeek contrasts with the struggles of other Chinese competitors, especially the best-known AI unicorns dubbed the... DeepSeek has shaken up Silicon Valley and Wall Street with its stunning advances in artificial...