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

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The Briefing

By Martin Peers, Jessica 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.

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Recent Editions

Industrial conglomerate Huntsman Corp. says it halted a $50 million battery investment after Chinese companies flooded the market with the component it planned to manufacture. Photo: Courtesy Huntsman.

The Electric: A Battery Chemical Company Falls Victim to the China Playbook

By Steve LeVine · Aug 26, 2024 4:30am PDT

In 2021, Peter Huntsman, CEO of industrial conglomerate Huntsman Corp., decided to invest $50 million in the expansion of a chemicals plant in Conroe, Texas. The move would significantly boost the plant’s production of ethylene carbonate, an essential ingredient in the batteries that power electric vehicles, at the time viewed as a juggernaut of... In 2021, Peter Huntsman, CEO of industrial conglomerate Huntsman Corp., decided to invest $50...

The Information's Martin Peers. Art by Shane Burke

The Information’s Martin Peers Honored with Loeb Editing Award

By Nick Wingfield · Aug 24, 2024 8:30am PDT · 9 comments

This week, The Information's Co-Executive Editor Martin Peers was announced as a winner of a Loeb award—one of the highest honors in business journalism—for his career in editing. The Loeb Foundation asked The Information to write an article about Martin's impact on the industry. We were delighted to do so and hope you enjoy... This week, The Information's Co-Executive Editor Martin Peers was announced as a winner of a...

Art by Clark Miller

An Anti-DEI Crusader to Pay Attention To

By Abram Brown · Aug 24, 2024 7:00am PDT · 1 comment

Welcome, Weekenders! In this newsletter:• The Big Read: Inside an AI nightmare that tore apart a school• The Top 5: Our favorite THC drinks Plus: A chaotic AI bill; the philosophers with advice for childless millennials; and Shyamalan and the Swifties.Say, have you heard about a young fellow named Robby Starbuck? If you haven’t, write... Welcome, Weekenders! In this newsletter:• The Big Read: Inside an AI nightmare that tore apart a...

Art by Clark Miller

THC Drinks Are a Fizzy Market. They Taste Pretty Good, Too

By Ryan Sutton · Aug 24, 2024 5:00am PDT · 1 comment

Art by Clark Miller

THC Drinks Are a Fizzy Market. They Taste Pretty Good, Too

By Ryan Sutton · Aug 24, 2024 5:00am PDT · 1 comment

Jake Bullock, a former Bain consultant in San Francisco turned cannabis entrepreneur, has bet tens of millions in venture capital on his bold vision for making drinks that get you just a little bit high. “I hope one day you’ll walk into a Costco and you’ll see the liquor, the wine and the beer, and maybe there’s some hard... Jake Bullock, a former Bain consultant in San Francisco turned cannabis entrepreneur, has bet...

Nvidia CEO, Jensen Huang. Photo via Shutterstock.

All Eyes on Nvidia’s Numbers

By Martin Peers · Aug 23, 2024 3:30pm PDT

Summer is winding down—Labor Day is just a week away! But we’ve still got plenty of business news. Next week is particularly important: Nvidia will report earnings for its July fiscal quarter on Wednesday. In a note to clients yesterday, Wedbush analyst Dan Ives described the Nvidia report as “the most important tech earnings in years,” one... Summer is winding down—Labor Day is just a week away! But we’ve still got plenty of business...

The Venture Capital Reset Era

By Jessica E. Lessin · Aug 23, 2024 12:33pm PDT · 4 comments

"This is a time for serious people, people who take this business seriously." The gang was back to business this week discussing the latest in the venture shakeout. Plus, the energy is back in the Bay again. And a fierce debate over the Starlink Mini. Also, we continue to experiment with transcripts and chapters for subscribers... "This is a time for serious people, people who take this business seriously." The gang...

Coatue founder, Philippe Laffont, at The Information Private Capital Conference in April. Photo by Nicole Pereira.

Coatue Considers Selling Part of ByteDance Stake as IPO Remains Uncertain

By Jing Yang, Erin Woo and Juro Osawa · Aug 23, 2024 9:53am PDT · 1 comment

New York investment firm Coatue Management, an early and substantial backer of ByteDance that has a seat on the TikTok parent’s board, is discussing selling part of its stake, according to three people with knowledge of the talks. The firm has talked to brokers in the secondary market for private stocks to gauge the interest of potential... New York investment firm Coatue Management, an early and substantial backer of ByteDance that has...

Art by Clark Miller

Welcome to Fakesville: Inside an AI Nightmare That Tore Apart a School

By David Kushner · Aug 23, 2024 9:10am PDT · 6 comments

Art by Clark Miller

Welcome to Fakesville: Inside an AI Nightmare That Tore Apart a School

By David Kushner · Aug 23, 2024 9:10am PDT · 6 comments

On January 17, @murder_ink_bmore, a Baltimore-based Instagram account with 240,000 followers, posted what it said was a voice recording of Eric Eiswert, principal of Pikesville High School outside Baltimore, denigrating Black students and faculty as well as Jews. “I seriously don’t understand why I have to constantly put up... On January 17, @murder_ink_bmore, a Baltimore-based Instagram account with 240,000...

An attendee of an event by The Washington AI Network tries out the Meta Quest 3 in April. Photo by Paul Morigi/Getty Images.

Meta Cancels High-End Mixed-Reality Headset

By Sylvia Varnham O'Regan and Wayne Ma · Aug 23, 2024 8:15am PDT · 3 comments

Meta Platforms has canceled plans for a premium mixed-reality headset intended to compete with Apple’s Vision Pro, according to two Meta employees. Meta told employees at the company’s Reality Labs division to stop work on the device this week after a product review meeting attended by Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, Chief Technology... Meta Platforms has canceled plans for a premium mixed-reality headset intended to compete with...

Kajabi CEO Ahad Khan and Linktree founders Anthony Zaccaria, Alex Zaccaria and Nick Humphreys. Photos via Kajabi/Getty.

Pro Weekly: Creator Economy M&A Isn't As Quiet as It Might Appear

By Akash Pasricha · Aug 23, 2024 8:03am PDT · 1 comment

As I’ve been updating our Creator Economy Database lately, I’ve been closely monitoring acquisitions in the sector. Last year, 37 companies were acquired, a number of which were fire sales, my colleague Kaya Yurieff reported. But so far in 2024, we’ve seen just 13 acquisitions, suggesting the year will end up quieter.That said, there might... As I’ve been updating our Creator Economy Database lately, I’ve been closely monitoring...

As Stripe, Ramp Valuations Rise, Some Fintechs Face Likely Down Rounds

By Julia Hornstein · Aug 23, 2024 6:00am PDT

The fintech world is a tale of two cities. After a thrashing over the last two years, some big fintech startups, such as Stripe and Ramp, have seen their valuations rebound from the lows, as business improves and investor demand rises. Many other fintechs, including Brex, Chime and Plaid, have yet to crystallize a lower valuation in new... The fintech world is a tale of two cities. After a thrashing over the last two years, some big...

Snowflake CEO, Sridhar Ramaswamy. Photo by Bloomberg via Getty.

Snowflake’s AI Winter

By Anita Ramaswamy · Aug 22, 2024 5:00pm PDT

Snowflake CEO, Sridhar Ramaswamy. Photo by Bloomberg via Getty.

Snowflake’s AI Winter

By Anita Ramaswamy · Aug 22, 2024 5:00pm PDT

Investors are certainly giving Snowflake the cold shoulder. On Wednesday, the data analytics firm delivered an earnings update that showed July-quarter revenue above the company’s own projections and increased its estimate of full-year revenue growth for fiscal 2025 by two percentage points, to 26%. As Deutsche Bank analyst Brad Zelnick pointed... Investors are certainly giving Snowflake the cold shoulder. On Wednesday, the data analytics firm...

Photo via Adobe

The M&A Matchmaking in VC Portfolios

By Natasha Mascarenhas · Aug 22, 2024 3:44pm PDT

A merger in the works between two struggling startups, online pharmacy Truepill and health test provider LetsGetChecked, signals a growing trend in an era of tough financing: deals between companies that share major shareholders. Dublin-based LetsGetChecked has offered to buy California-based Truepill for $500 million in stock and $25... A merger in the works between two struggling startups, online pharmacy Truepill and health test...

Photos via Set Active

Creator Economy

An Athleisure Startup’s Creator-Centric Investor Pitch

By Ann Gehan and Kaya Yurieff · Aug 22, 2024 2:00pm PDT · 2 comments

Ever since the pandemic trapped shoppers at home in 2020, the athleisure market has gotten crowded. Startup brands like Alo Yoga and Skims have quickly scaled up to hundreds of millions of dollars in annual sales, and retail giants like Nike and Lululemon have tried to keep up with customers’ changing tastes by adding trendier styles. One... Ever since the pandemic trapped shoppers at home in 2020, the athleisure market has gotten...

Stripe CEO, Patrick Collison. Photo by Bloomberg via Getty.

Stripe, Now Gushing Money, Plans New Employee Tender

By Cory Weinberg · Aug 22, 2024 10:52am PDT · 3 comments

Stripe is planning a new tender offer to buy back shares held by employees, but it will finance this one entirely with its own cash, unlike in previous employee tenders. The financing approach shows how much the payment processing firm’s business has improved from the slump it experienced a couple of years ago. The company had about $615... Stripe is planning a new tender offer to buy back shares held by employees, but it will finance...

Photo via AP.

Is Enthusiasm For Meta’s Llama Slowing Down?

By Kalley Huang · Aug 22, 2024 7:00am PDT · 5 comments

Photo via AP.

Is Enthusiasm For Meta’s Llama Slowing Down?

By Kalley Huang · Aug 22, 2024 7:00am PDT · 5 comments

To compete with OpenAI and other artificial intelligence developers, Meta Platforms CEO Mark Zuckerberg needs cloud providers like Amazon Web Services to convince businesses to use Meta’s AI model Llama.So far, that has been a mixed bag, as my colleagues reported on Wednesday. And we just noticed another potentially troubling sign about Llama’s... To compete with OpenAI and other artificial intelligence developers, Meta Platforms CEO Mark...

Photos via Adobe/Getty.

E-commerce Startups Switch Gears as Shakeout Looms

By Ann Gehan · Aug 22, 2024 6:00am PDT

Last fall, after marketing software company Klaviyo went public at a market value of more than $9 billion, leaders at rival Attentive were cheerful about their own initial public offering prospects. At an all-hands meeting, executives told staff the Klaviyo debut showed that public markets could understand a company in the wonky business of... Last fall, after marketing software company Klaviyo went public at a market value of more than $9...

Former Cuberg CEO Richard Wang, who was let go in February. Photo: David Paul Morris/Bloomberg/Getty

The Electric: The Death of Cuberg Reflects a Battery Industry Shakeout

By Steve LeVine · Aug 22, 2024 4:30am PDT

Northvolt’s decision this week to shut down Cuberg, its lithium-metal battery division, is another dramatic sign of a shakeout in the next-generation battery industry—a business that was so hot a few years ago that it seemed almost any startup could attract venture investment. It’s the second U.S. lithium-metal battery startup to fail in the... Northvolt’s decision this week to shut down Cuberg, its lithium-metal battery division, is...

Jim Gorman. Photo via Getty.

Ex-Morgan Stanley Chief Gorman Gets Hardest Job in Business: Finding Iger Successor

By Martin Peers · Aug 21, 2024 5:00pm PDT

Uh-oh. This doesn’t seem good. Disney on Wednesday announced that board member Jim Gorman, a former CEO of Morgan Stanley, would take the reins of the board’s succession planning committee from Disney chair Mark Parker. This is the committee charged with what is apparently the hardest job in the Western world: finding a lasting successor for CEO... Uh-oh. This doesn’t seem good. Disney on Wednesday announced that board member Jim Gorman, a...

Loren Gray has a part in the upcoming Netflix film “Incoming,” which comes out on Friday. Photo: Spyglass Media Group, LLC and Artists Road, LLC/Courtesy of Netflix

TikTok Queen Loren Gray on Landing Her First Netflix Role

By Kaya Yurieff · Aug 21, 2024 2:05pm PDT

Loren Gray has a part in the upcoming Netflix film “Incoming,” which comes out on Friday. Photo: Spyglass Media Group, LLC and Artists Road, LLC/Courtesy of Netflix

Creator Economy

TikTok Queen Loren Gray on Landing Her First Netflix Role

By Kaya Yurieff · Aug 21, 2024 2:05pm PDT

Loren Gray is one of the original queens of TikTok, finding early success on its predecessor app Musical.ly in 2015 when she was just 13 years old. Now Gray is the latest social media star to break into traditional acting. She was cast in Netflix’s new film “Incoming,” slated for release Friday, which centers on a group of high school... Loren Gray is one of the original queens of TikTok, finding early success on its predecessor app...