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

Pro Weekly: Pessimism Permeates Our Survey

Pro Weekly: Pessimism Permeates Our Survey

By Akash Pasricha · Dec 13, 2024 8:00am PST

After a November full of optimism, The Information’s readers have turned decidedly pessimistic. Nearly 39% of respondents to our monthly survey expect conditions for technology companies to worsen over the next six months, outnumbering the 27% who expect conditions to improve. (The remainder expect conditions to stay the same.) Last... After a November full of optimism, The Information’s readers have turned decidedly...

AppLovin CEO, Adam Foroughi. Photo via AppLovin.

Why DTC Brands Suddenly Love AppLovin Ads

By Ann Gehan · Dec 13, 2024 6:00am PST

Direct-to-consumer retailers burned by higher digital ad prices over the past three years have grown desperate to reduce their dependency on Meta Platforms. So this fall, when mobile game giant AppLovin started letting retail brands buy ads that run within games like Legend of Slime and Sushi Roll 3D, the results seemed almost too good to be... Direct-to-consumer retailers burned by higher digital ad prices over the past three years have...

Vahe Kuzoyan, President & Co-Founder of ServiceTitan, at the Nasdaq MarketSite today in New York City. Photo by Getty.

ServiceTitan Runs With the Bulls in Well-Timed IPO

By Martin Peers · Dec 12, 2024 5:00pm PST · 1 comment

Timing is everything. ServiceTitan, a smallish tech firm that specializes in selling software for plumbers, roofers and other tradespeople, demonstrated that on Thursday when its shares debuted on the public markets at $101 apiece, a 42% premium to its IPO price of $71. That translates to a market capitalization of about $9 billion, which is not... Timing is everything. ServiceTitan, a smallish tech firm that specializes in selling software for...

President-elect Donald Trump. Photo by Getty.

The Tech Insiders Who Could Join Trump’s Orbit

By Natasha Mascarenhas · Dec 12, 2024 4:37pm PST

President-elect Donald Trump. Photo by Getty.

The Tech Insiders Who Could Join Trump’s Orbit

By Natasha Mascarenhas · Dec 12, 2024 4:37pm PST

The list of venture capitalists and Silicon Valley insiders joining the next presidential administration is growing. Just this week, President-elect Donald Trump named Jacob Helberg, an adviser to Palantir Technologies and husband to Keith Rabois, a Khosla Ventures managing director, as a top economic policy and trade official. Helberg follows... The list of venture capitalists and Silicon Valley insiders joining the next presidential...

Perplexity CEO Aravind Srinivas. Photo via Getty.

Google Challenger Perplexity Promises Booming Growth, Rosy Margins

By Sri Muppidi · Dec 12, 2024 3:10pm PST · 1 comment

Google Search challenger Perplexity AI recently projected it will more than double its annualized revenue in 2025 to $127 million, implying it would be generating $10.5 million per month, according to three people who have seen the projections. Perplexity also projected it would quintuple annualized revenue to $656 million by the end of the... Google Search challenger Perplexity AI recently projected it will more than double its annualized...

Art by Mike Sullivan via Midjourney.

Creator Economy

Music AI Startups Get Creative to Avoid Copyright Lawsuits

By Rocket Drew · Dec 12, 2024 2:40pm PST

With the Grammys on the horizon, let’s talk about the growing number of startups that are using generative AI to make music. There’s been a wave of investor and founder interest in this technology. But creating music from other music faces major copyright risk. Already, companies including Universal Music Group, Sony Music Entertainment and... With the Grammys on the horizon, let’s talk about the growing number of startups that are using ...

Bobby Kotick. Photo by Getty.

TikTok Suitor Bobby Kotick Waits for Trump

By Jing Yang, Nick Wingfield and Juro Osawa · Dec 12, 2024 11:55am PST · 1 comment

Former Activision Blizzard CEO Bobby Kotick remains interested in buying TikTok, said people familiar with Kotick’s thinking, but he is expected to wait until Donald Trump takes office before moving ahead with an offer. Barring a last minute court intervention, TikTok has until Jan. 19 to sever its ties with its Chinese parent ByteDance or... Former Activision Blizzard CEO Bobby Kotick remains interested in buying TikTok, said people...

Google CEO Sundar Pichai, left, and Donald Trump. Photos by Getty

Google CEO Expected to Meet with Trump Thursday

By Aaron Holmes and Sylvia Varnham O'Regan · Dec 12, 2024 10:52am PST · 1 comment

Google CEO Sundar Pichai, left, and Donald Trump. Photos by Getty

Google CEO Expected to Meet with Trump Thursday

By Aaron Holmes and Sylvia Varnham O'Regan · Dec 12, 2024 10:52am PST · 1 comment

Google CEO Sundar Pichai is expected to fly to the Mar-a-Lago Club in Palm Beach, Fla., Thursday to meet with President-elect Donald Trump, according to a person briefed on the plans. The meeting comes as Trump has signaled a desire to crack down on Google and other big tech companies that he has claimed are biased against him and... Google CEO Sundar Pichai is expected to fly to the Mar-a-Lago Club in Palm Beach,...

Photo via Getty

Tech IPOs Shift Focus to Rewarding Early Backers

By Anita Ramaswamy and Cory Weinberg · Dec 12, 2024 8:00am PST · 5 comments

Initial public offerings were once about financing a tech company’s future hopes and dreams. More and more, however, IPOs are about looking backward—paying down debt or allowing early backers to sell some of their shares. Take ServiceTitan, which makes business software for tradespeople and is set to go public Thursday on the Nasdaq.... Initial public offerings were once about financing a tech company’s future hopes and...

Subscriber Survey

Don’t Raise Tariffs, The Information’s Readers Say

By Scott Thurm · Dec 12, 2024 8:00am PST

Readers of The Information overwhelmingly oppose President-elect Donald Trump’s plans to increase tariffs and believe they will hurt the technology industry, according to our most recent survey. Survey respondents also turned pessimistic about the outlook for tech, despite a rising stock market since Trump won reelection last month. For... Readers of The Information overwhelmingly oppose President-elect Donald Trump’s plans to...

Photo by Getty

Developers Are Cautiously Optimistic About Google AI

By Stephanie Palazzolo · Dec 12, 2024 7:00am PST · 1 comment

A year after Google first gave developers a look at its Gemini AI—the search giant’s answer to OpenAI’s popular GPT models—the company has now revealed the second generation of its conversational AI models, Gemini 2.0.Google announced on Wednesday a new, experimental version of Flash, its smaller and cheaper AI, as well as new AI assistants and... A year after Google first gave developers a look at its Gemini AI—the search giant’s answer to ...

From left, OpenAI's Sam Altman and Greg Brockman, Anthropic's Dario and Daniela Amodei. Photos via Getty.

How Anthropic Got Inside OpenAI’s Head

By Stephanie Palazzolo, Erin Woo and Amir Efrati · Dec 12, 2024 6:00am PST · 6 comments

From left, OpenAI's Sam Altman and Greg Brockman, Anthropic's Dario and Daniela Amodei. Photos via Getty.

How Anthropic Got Inside OpenAI’s Head

By Stephanie Palazzolo, Erin Woo and Amir Efrati · Dec 12, 2024 6:00am PST · 6 comments

OpenAI has a lot of rivals nipping at its heels. None of them has given the company’s executives the jitters quite like Anthropic has, though. Earlier this fall, OpenAI leaders got a shock when they saw the performance of Anthropic’s artificial intelligence model for automating computer programming tasks, which had gained an edge on... OpenAI has a lot of rivals nipping at its heels. None of them has given the company’s...

Photo by Gary Hershorn via Getty

The Electric: Low-Cost Batteries Have Made Some EVs as Cheap as Gas Cars

By Steve LeVine · Dec 12, 2024 4:30am PST

The price of lithium-ion batteries fell below a long-sought threshold this year—but prices need to fall still further to make most electric vehicles competitive with similar gas-powered cars, according to BloombergNEF, a renewable energy research firm.BNEF said in its annual price survey that the average global price for EV battery packs fell... The price of lithium-ion batteries fell below a long-sought threshold this year—but prices need...

Databricks office in San Francisco. Photo by Getty

Kleiner Perkins, Founders Fund, SoftBank to Invest in Databricks’ $7 Billion Fundraising

By Natasha Mascarenhas and Cory Weinberg · Dec 11, 2024 5:54pm PST · 1 comment

Silicon Valley investors often pride themselves on writing one of the first few checks in a startup, then doubling down if a winner takes off. But Databricks, an 11-year-old seller of databases and analytics software that’s raising billions of dollars, has prompted some elite investment firms to place a few very late bets as well. Kleiner... Silicon Valley investors often pride themselves on writing one of the first few checks in a...

Stock traders. Photo via Getty

Wall Street Loves Tech Again

By Martin Peers · Dec 11, 2024 5:00pm PST

Where have all the bears gone? (They can’t all be at Lake Tahoe!) The Nasdaq Composite Index passed 20,000 on Wednesday, up 1.8% on the day but 36% from where it started the year. As a benchmark, its November 2021 high—before the 2022 selloff—was 16,057. Among the individual standout stocks today was Tesla, which rose 6% to a new all-time high... Where have all the bears gone? (They can’t all be at Lake Tahoe!) The Nasdaq Composite Index...

Spotter CEO Aaron DeBevoise. Photo via Spotter

Spotter, a Startup that Funds YouTubers, Lays Off Staff Following Amazon Deal

By Kaya Yurieff · Dec 11, 2024 2:04pm PST

Spotter CEO Aaron DeBevoise. Photo via Spotter

Creator Economy

Spotter, a Startup that Funds YouTubers, Lays Off Staff Following Amazon Deal

By Kaya Yurieff · Dec 11, 2024 2:04pm PST

Creator startups are still trying to figure out how to grow their businesses—and that process sometimes results in layoffs as they revamp their strategies. One of the latest is Spotter, a five-year old startup that’s best known for offering upfront financing to YouTubers. It cut staff in early November across different parts of the Los... Creator startups are still trying to figure out how to grow their businesses—and that process...

Art by Clark Miller

Special Funds Offer Shares of SpaceX and OpenAI—for a Price

By Sri Muppidi · Dec 11, 2024 9:30am PST · 1 comment

In the fall, a Miami-based firm called Sand Hill Road Technologies Fund offered its customers a hot opportunity: a chance to invest in SpaceX, which was arranging a deal for employees to sell some of their shares. But Sand Hill’s prospective investors, wealthy individuals whom the fund reached through online ads on Google and Meta Platforms... In the fall, a Miami-based firm called Sand Hill Road Technologies Fund offered its customers a...

Art by Mike Sullivan.

Stablecoin Startups Seek Fresh Cash Amid Crypto Payments Frenzy

By Yueqi Yang and Natasha Mascarenhas · Dec 11, 2024 8:45am PST · 4 comments

Stablecoins are suddenly all the rage, as crypto investors and founders tout how the tokens can transform sending money internationally. At least three startups that focus on international payments are seeking fresh funding, according to people familiar with the companies, emboldened in part by Stripe’s recent deal to acquire stablecoin... Stablecoins are suddenly all the rage, as crypto investors and founders tout how the tokens can...

Kate Rouch. Photo via Coinbase.

AI Firms Hunt For CMOs

By Akash Pasricha · Dec 11, 2024 7:32am PST

Before we get to our main item of the day, a note to readers to tune in here tomorrow for reactions to Google’s Gemini 2.0 large language model, which was announced this morning.Now onto our main item…Artificial intelligence developers are realizing they need help standing out in an increasingly crowded market.OpenAI last week hired Kate Rouch... Before we get to our main item of the day, a note to readers to tune in here tomorrow for...

Art by Mike Sullivan

Apple Is Working on AI Chip With Broadcom

By Wayne Ma and Qianer Liu · Dec 11, 2024 6:00am PST

Art by Mike Sullivan

Apple Is Working on AI Chip With Broadcom

By Wayne Ma and Qianer Liu · Dec 11, 2024 6:00am PST

Apple is developing its first server chip specially designed for artificial intelligence, according to three people with direct knowledge of the project, as the iPhone maker prepares to deal with the intense computing demands of its new AI features. Apple is working with Broadcom on the chip’s networking technology, which is crucial for AI... Apple is developing its first server chip specially designed for artificial intelligence,...