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

The Stargate AI data center in Abilene, Tex. in September. Getty Images.

Oracle-Linked Borrowing Binge Worries Lenders

By Miles Kruppa · Nov 25, 2025 6:00am PST

Construction lending was a relatively sleepy corner of Wall Street until Oracle stepped up to become one of OpenAI’s biggest cloud providers, leading to a flood of debt to help build new data centers for the database giant. The volume of borrowing is making some lenders leery. Companies building data centers for Oracle have borrowed at least... Construction lending was a relatively sleepy corner of Wall Street until Oracle stepped up to...

Getty Images

Grindr’s Control Issues

By Cory Weinberg · Nov 24, 2025 5:00pm PST

It’s not too often that a controlling shareholder can’t get their way at a public company. But an attempt by the two biggest investors in Grindr to take the gay dating and hookup app private went south on Monday. The reason? They didn’t come up with the money. It’s the latest chapter in a long-running corporate finance saga surrounding Grindr,... It’s not too often that a controlling shareholder can’t get their way at a public company. But an...

Art by Clark Miller

Google Further Encroaches on Nvidia’s Turf With New AI Chip Push

By Amir Efrati, Erin Woo and Anissa Gardizy · Nov 24, 2025 2:43pm PST · 19 comments

Google is picking up the pace of its efforts to compete directly with Nvidia in the AI chip business. For years, the search giant has rented its own AI chips, known as tensor processing units, to cloud customers who use them in its Google Cloud data centers. Now, though, Google has begun pitching some of those customers—including Meta... Google is picking up the pace of its efforts to compete directly with Nvidia in the AI chip...

Screenshot of Adam Sullivan, left, via YouTube. Photo of Mike Intrator by Getty Images.

As AI Data Centers Face Delays, the Blame Game Begins

By Anissa Gardizy · Nov 24, 2025 10:11am PST · 1 comment

Screenshot of Adam Sullivan, left, via YouTube. Photo of Mike Intrator by Getty Images.

AI Infrastructure

As AI Data Centers Face Delays, the Blame Game Begins

By Anissa Gardizy · Nov 24, 2025 10:11am PST · 1 comment

The mood is shifting in AI data center circles. The euphoria of record-setting, multi-gigawatt deals has given way to finger pointing as deadlines to get AI servers online slip or get dangerously close to falling behind.For months, data center builders have told me many of the gigawatt-size AI server facilities are running behind schedule... The mood is shifting in AI data center circles. The euphoria of record-setting, multi-gigawatt...

Art by Getty Images/Mike Sullivan

Why OpenAI Should Worry About Google’s Pretraining Prowess

By Stephanie Palazzolo · Nov 24, 2025 7:00am PST · 4 comments

Google’s breakthrough with Gemini 3, its latest AI model, has lit a fire under OpenAI and its CEO Sam Altman, who told thousands of his researchers to buckle down and prepare for “rough vibes” and “temporary economic headwinds,” Erin and I reported.What might particularly worry Altman about Google’s latest model is how the tech company got... Google’s breakthrough with Gemini 3, its latest AI model, has lit a fire under OpenAI and its CEO...

Art by Mike Sullivan

The Twins Pushing Elon Musk’s Plans to Replace X Staff With Grok

By Theo Wayt · Nov 24, 2025 6:00am PST · 1 comment

Last month, Elon Musk’s X laid off half of the engineering team tasked with building and running systems to fight spam, influence campaigns and illegal content, among other trust and safety issues, according to two people with direct knowledge of the cuts. The team had already been whittled down to less than 20 people before the layoffs,... Last month, Elon Musk’s X laid off half of the engineering team tasked with building and running...

A Base Power home battery. Photo: Courtesy Base.

The Electric: Zach Dell Joins a Group of Tech Scions Seeking to Shake Up Big Industries

By Steve LeVine · Nov 24, 2025 4:30am PST

Zach Dell’s father, Michael Dell, is one of his era’s most disruptive entrepreneurs—a visionary who shook up the personal computer business four decades ago. But that’s not who Zach speaks of emulating with Base Power, a Texas startup he co-founded to lease home backup batteries to consumers. Zach Dell’s father, Michael Dell, is one of his era’s most disruptive entrepreneurs—a visionary...

Oracle, Warner Bros. Discovery and the Ellisons

Oracle, Warner Bros. Discovery and the Ellisons

By Martin Peers · Nov 23, 2025 3:00pm PST

Oracle, Warner Bros. Discovery and the Ellisons

Oracle, Warner Bros. Discovery and the Ellisons

By Martin Peers · Nov 23, 2025 3:00pm PST

The Ellison family will have plenty to talk about when they convene for Thanksgiving this week (assuming they do!). The price of Oracle has plummeted in the past six weeks, for one thing, reflecting AI bubble jitters centering on Oracle. In the same period of time, Larry Ellison and his son David have been—by all accounts—busy plotting the... The Ellison family will have plenty to talk about when they convene for Thanksgiving this week...

Sunday Insights

Nvidia’s Mushrooming Cash Pile Spotlights Spending Choices

By Martin Peers · Nov 23, 2025 8:00am PST · 4 comments

All of the big tech companies have long been cash geysers. But the rate at which Nvidia’s cash production has exploded in the past couple of years is on a whole different level than other companies have experienced. And that’s raising questions about how Nvidia will spend its fast-expanding cash pile. Nvidia’s free cash flow has mushroomed from... All of the big tech companies have long been cash geysers. But the rate at which Nvidia’s cash...

Art by Clark Miller

Maybe Google Does Win It All

By Abram Brown · Nov 22, 2025 7:00am PST · 2 comments

Welcome, Weekenders! In this newsletter:• The Big Read: Zach Dell’s Texas-size dream • The Arena: Figure skating launches a comeback—with AI• Plus, our Recommendations: “Allison After NXIVM,” “The Finest Hotel in Kabul” and “Bugonia”A horrifying thought has lately been immovable from my mind: Am I gonna have to dump ChatGPT for Gemini?Well,... Welcome, Weekenders! In this newsletter:• The Big Read: Zach Dell’s Texas-size dream • The...

Art by Clark Miller

Zach Dell Thinks He Can Solve America’s Energy Crisis

By Steve LeVine · Nov 22, 2025 4:59am PST · 1 comment

To get inside why Zach Dell believes he will shake up the half-trillion-dollar U.S. power industry and then go global, it helps to take account of who’s inspiring the moves. That would be his father, Michael Dell, who sold computer parts out of his college dorm at 19, took Dell Computer public four years later and by age 26 had entirely... To get inside why Zach Dell believes he will shake up the half-trillion-dollar U.S. power...

Veza CEO Tarun Thakur. Screenshot via YouTube.

Cyber Startup Veza in Talks With Potential Buyers for $1 Billion-Plus Sale

By Valida Pau and Katie Roof · Nov 21, 2025 6:01pm PST

Veza CEO Tarun Thakur. Screenshot via YouTube.

Cyber Startup Veza in Talks With Potential Buyers for $1 Billion-Plus Sale

By Valida Pau and Katie Roof · Nov 21, 2025 6:01pm PST

Veza, whose software helps businesses monitor employees’ and AI agents’ access to internal data, has been talking to potential buyers about a sale that could value the startup at more than $1 billion, according to people familiar with the discussions. A sale at that level would be a premium to its price in April, when investors led by New... Veza, whose software helps businesses monitor employees’ and AI agents’ access to internal data,...

Art by Clark Miller

Figure Skating Aims to Get Its Groove Back—With AI Music and the Spice Girls

By Sara Germano · Nov 21, 2025 10:25am PST

Of all the places AI is seeping into, a program by a pair of Czech ice dancers angling for a spot at the Winter Olympics in February may be one of the most unexpected. Yet, at last weekend’s Skate America tournament, a major international competition ahead of Milano Cortina 2026, Kateřina Mrázková and Daniel Mrázek performed... Of all the places AI is seeping into, a program by a pair of Czech ice dancers angling for a spot...

Art by Clark Miller.

Visa and Mastercard Are Moving Fast Into Stablecoins

By Yueqi Yang · Nov 21, 2025 6:00am PST

Visa and Mastercard are moving quickly to embrace cryptocurrencies for payments, to take advantage of the rising popularity of stablecoins in developing countries and fend off competition from merchants trying to circumvent their networks. The companies ramped up their crypto payments business overseas and have been looking for acquisitions or... Visa and Mastercard are moving quickly to embrace cryptocurrencies for payments, to take...

Florida governor Ron DeSantis. Getty Images

Ron DeSantis Spotlights Key AI Question

By Martin Peers · Nov 20, 2025 5:00pm PST

We’re moving off the (unresolved) AI bubble debate to a much more fundamental question about AI. That is whether decisions about an enormously costly technology, which threatens to put many people out of work, should be left to tech leaders or discussed more broadly. It turns out Republicans may have the best handle on this issue, most obviously... We’re moving off the (unresolved) AI bubble debate to a much more fundamental question about AI....

OpenAI’s Sam Altman and Google’s Sundar Pichai. Getty Images.

Altman Memo Forecasts ‘Rough Vibes’ Due to Resurgent Google

By Stephanie Palazzolo and Erin Woo · Nov 20, 2025 4:00pm PST · 14 comments

OpenAI’s Sam Altman and Google’s Sundar Pichai. Getty Images.

Altman Memo Forecasts ‘Rough Vibes’ Due to Resurgent Google

By Stephanie Palazzolo and Erin Woo · Nov 20, 2025 4:00pm PST · 14 comments

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman told colleagues last month that Google’s recent progress in artificial intelligence could “create some temporary economic headwinds for our company,” though he added that OpenAI would emerge ahead. After OpenAI researchers heard that Google had created a new AI that appears to have leapfrogged OpenAI’s in the way it was... OpenAI CEO Sam Altman told colleagues last month that Google’s recent progress in artificial...

Ivan Zhao, CEO of Notion, and Jane Dunlevie, chief operating officer of tech investment banking at Goldman Sachs

In Las Vegas, Kalshi Is King

By Cory Weinberg · Nov 20, 2025 3:43pm PST · 1 comment

For 15 years, Goldman Sachs’ private tech conference in Las Vegas has been the event for taking the pulse of startup dealmaking. Years ago, it was possible to run into founders such as Uber’s Travis Kalanick and Instagram’s Kevin Systrom raising money for their then-small startups. The conference is much bigger now (which makes some investors... For 15 years, Goldman Sachs’ private tech conference in Las Vegas has been the event for taking...

Chaos and Competition: The Future of AI Agents in 2026

By The Information Staff · Nov 20, 2025 11:00am PST

The race to launch and successfully sell AI agents in 2026 will be decided by which companies can create a differentiated product in an environment where every firm is offering nearly identical AI agents. We asked Deep Research to explain how this competition will unfold. Here is the response. The race to launch and successfully sell AI agents in 2026 will be decided by which companies can...

Businesses Still Dream of Using AI to Replace Enterprise Apps

Businesses Still Dream of Using AI to Replace Enterprise Apps

By Kevin McLaughlin and Aaron Holmes · Nov 20, 2025 10:45am PST · 1 comment

We’ve been hearing for years about the theoretical threat AI poses to enterprise software apps like Salesforce, ServiceNow and Workday. While a disaster scenario for these firms hasn’t happened because AI generally isn’t reliable enough to duplicate what they do, some customers are still trying to use the latest AI models to replace those apps... We’ve been hearing for years about the theoretical threat AI poses to enterprise software apps...

President Donald Trump, left, and White House AI "czar" David Sacks. Photo by Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images.

What’s Next for State AI Laws After Trump Order

By Rocket Drew · Nov 20, 2025 7:00am PST · 1 comment

President Donald Trump, left, and White House AI "czar" David Sacks. Photo by Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images.

What’s Next for State AI Laws After Trump Order

By Rocket Drew · Nov 20, 2025 7:00am PST · 1 comment

The White House plans an executive order to block states from passing laws regulating AI, as we reported Wednesday. Instead of state laws, the order suggests there should be a federal law governing the information that AI companies have to disclose and how they handle potential bias in models. Specifically, it directs White House AI “czar”... The White House plans an executive order to block states from passing laws regulating AI, as we...