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

Photo via Rover

Blackstone Finds a Diamond in the Ruff With Rover

By Martin Peers · Nov 29, 2023 5:00pm PST

Woof! There is deal-making going on out there that doesn’t have to do with artificial intelligence (unless of course you mean animal intelligence). Blackstone’s $2.3 billion purchase of pet-sitting marketplace Rover Group, unveiled Wednesday, demonstrates that Rover is that rarest of gems, a company that went public via a SPAC merger and turned... Woof! There is deal-making going on out there that doesn’t have to do with artificial...

In March, an AI-generated image of the Pope in a Balenciaga puffer jacket went viral when it fooled social media users into thinking it was a real photo. Image via Midjourney.

Creator Economy

More AI, More Problems

By Kalley Huang · Nov 29, 2023 4:15pm PST

Creators have started using generative artificial intelligence to make their jobs easier, and more startups are looking to provide those tools. At least 19 creator startups center on AI, according to our Creator Economy Database.Still, creators are worried they won’t get credit for their work. Already, some like comedian Sarah Silverman have... Creators have started using generative artificial intelligence to make their jobs easier, and...

Roelof Botha (left) and Neil Shen (right). Photos via Getty.

Sequoia Capital Separates From China Affiliate Ahead of Schedule

By Jing Yang and Kate Clark · Nov 29, 2023 12:20pm PST

Sequoia Capital has finalized a key aspect of its landmark breakup with its Chinese and Indian affiliates one month ahead of schedule. The Menlo Park, Calif.-based venture firm has completed the process of separating IT systems and other back-end functions such as finance and accounting from the Chinese and Indian entities, formerly known as... Sequoia Capital has finalized a key aspect of its landmark breakup with its Chinese and Indian...

Photo by Bloomberg via Getty.

Members of Congress Plan to Grill OCC Over Fintech Regulator Who Faked His Resume

By Michael Roddan · Nov 29, 2023 12:11pm PST · 1 comment

Photo by Bloomberg via Getty.

Members of Congress Plan to Grill OCC Over Fintech Regulator Who Faked His Resume

By Michael Roddan · Nov 29, 2023 12:11pm PST · 1 comment

A congressional committee is preparing to question officials from the federal banking regulator, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, over the appointment of its first chief financial technology officer, who The Information reported fabricated his work history to get the $300,000-a-year job. The House Financial Services... A congressional committee is preparing to question officials from the federal banking regulator,...

CoinDesk CEO Kevin Worth. Photo by Bloomberg via Getty.

CoinDesk Revenue Slowed Before Sale to Bullish

By Aidan Ryan · Nov 29, 2023 10:34am PST

Barry Silbert’s Digital Currency Group announced last week that it sold its crypto news subsidiary CoinDesk to the crypto exchange Bullish. Silbert said in a tweet that the sale made CoinDesk, which DCG bought for $500,000 in 2016, “one of our best investments of all time,” but the sale price was not disclosed and could not be learned.What is... Barry Silbert’s Digital Currency Group announced last week that it sold its crypto news...

Hugging Face CEO Clement Delangue departs the closed-door "AI Insight Forum" on Capitol Hill on Sept. 13. Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty.

Hugging Face CEO on What Comes After Transformers

By Stephanie Palazzolo · Nov 29, 2023 8:10am PST

Clem Delangue‘s got some hot takes on AI, and he’s not afraid to share them.Yesterday, the cofounder and CEO of Hugging Face, a popular large-language model repository, joined the company’s chief ethics scientist Margaret Mitchell and head of global policy Irene Solaiman to share their thoughts during a press briefing on the past year of AI and... Clem Delangue‘s got some hot takes on AI, and he’s not afraid to share them.Yesterday, the...

Bipul Sinha, co-founder and CEO of Rubrik.

Ahead of IPO, Rubrik’s Revenue Growth Slows as It Targets Long-Term Customers

By Cory Weinberg · Nov 29, 2023 7:17am PST · 1 comment

Microsoft-backed cloud startup Rubrik, which has been preparing for an initial public offering, may have the same problem that complicated the recent IPOs of Instacart and Arm: unusually slow revenue growth. Rubrik’s revenue grew about 8% year over year during the six months that ended in July, to nearly $290 million, a person familiar... Microsoft-backed cloud startup Rubrik, which has been preparing for an initial public offering,...

Tim Cook and Masayoshi Son. Photos via Getty

How a Lopsided Apple Deal Got Under Arm’s Skin

By Wayne Ma and Cory Weinberg · Nov 29, 2023 6:00am PST · 2 comments

Tim Cook and Masayoshi Son. Photos via Getty

How a Lopsided Apple Deal Got Under Arm’s Skin

By Wayne Ma and Cory Weinberg · Nov 29, 2023 6:00am PST · 2 comments

In 2017, SoftBank CEO Masayoshi Son gathered a group of executives from Arm Holdings, the British chip designer SoftBank had just bought, to complain about one of its most important customers: Apple. In a conference room in Tokyo, Son told the group that Apple paid more for the piece of plastic that protects the screens of new iPhones than it... In 2017, SoftBank CEO Masayoshi Son gathered a group of executives from Arm Holdings, the British...

Photo via Getty

OpenAI’s Troubled Youth

By Cory Weinberg · Nov 28, 2023 5:00pm PST · 1 comment

OpenAI’s board appointment of two rhetorical graybeards—tech veteran Bret Taylor and, for some reason, former U.S. Treasury Secretary Larry Summers—mercifully helped avert its pre-Thanksgiving leadership crisis. It has more board vacancies to fill (but not with investors), governance rules to set and a CEO to investigate.I’d pose another... OpenAI’s board appointment of two rhetorical graybeards—tech veteran Bret Taylor and, for some...

Celebrity chef Andre Rush (left) and Aura CEO Hari Ravichandran. Photo: Aura

Creator Economy

Why a Cybersecurity Startup Is Boosting Its Influencer Marketing Budget

By Kaya Yurieff · Nov 28, 2023 2:52pm PST

Even cybersecurity startups are starting to use influencers to market their products.Aura, a five-year-old cybersecurity startup last valued at $2.5 billion, started working with influencers about two years ago as a way to raise awareness about its AI-powered product that protects families against online fraud, such as identity theft. In 2024,... Even cybersecurity startups are starting to use influencers to market their products.Aura, a...

A NASA crew lands in the Atlantic Ocean aboard a SpaceX spacecraft in Oct. 2022. Bill Ingalls/NASA via Getty Images

SpaceX Acquires Parachute Maker Pioneer Aerospace for $2.2 Million

By Becky Peterson · Nov 28, 2023 2:32pm PST

Elon Musk’s SpaceX is parachuting in to rescue one of its vendors from bankruptcy. The rocket company is acquiring Pioneer Aerospace—which makes parachutes for space vehicles as they return to Earth—for $2.2 million, according to a Florida bankruptcy filing by the parent company of Pioneer. The acquisition, which was approved... Elon Musk’s SpaceX is parachuting in to rescue one of its vendors from bankruptcy. The...

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman. Photo via Getty

OpenAI Isn’t Expected to Offer Microsoft, Other Investors a Board Seat

By Amir Efrati, Jessica E. Lessin and Aaron Holmes · Nov 28, 2023 1:52pm PST · 19 comments

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman. Photo via Getty

OpenAI Isn’t Expected to Offer Microsoft, Other Investors a Board Seat

By Amir Efrati, Jessica E. Lessin and Aaron Holmes · Nov 28, 2023 1:52pm PST · 19 comments

OpenAI’s revamped board of directors doesn’t plan to include representatives from outside investors, according to a person familiar with the situation. It’s a sign that the board will prioritize safety practices ahead of investor returns. The new board hasn’t been officially seated and things could change. But the person... OpenAI’s revamped board of directors doesn’t plan to include representatives from...

Photo via Getty

Be Like Microsoft: How OpenAI Customers Bend the Rules to Save Money

By Stephanie Palazzolo · Nov 28, 2023 7:15am PST

This might not be at the top of Sam Altman’s priority list now that he’s back at OpenAI, but the CEO may soon have to deal with a looming threat to the business. Customers, such as fintech startup Ramp, are using OpenAI models like GPT-4 to customize cheaper-to-run open-source alternatives. Technically, that behavior goes against OpenAI’s... This might not be at the top of Sam Altman’s priority list now that he’s back at OpenAI, but the...

Jeff Lawson, CEO of Twilio. Photo by Getty.

Hedge Fund Anson Builds Stake in Twilio, Pushes for Sale

By Maria Heeter · Nov 28, 2023 5:00am PST

Twilio CEO Jeff Lawson might have breathed a sigh of relief when the leader of tech investing at Legion Partners, an activist hedge fund that had agitated for change at Lawson’s software company, left for another fund. But the investor picked up where he left off, leading his new employer, Anson Funds, to buy a stake in Twilio. Anson is... Twilio CEO Jeff Lawson might have breathed a sigh of relief when the leader of tech investing at...

Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (center) takes Elon Musk (left) on a tour of Kibbutz Kfar Aza after the October 7th Massacre took place there, on November 27, 2023 in Kfar Aza, Israel. Photo by Amos Ben-Gershom (GPO)/Handout via Getty Images.

Israel Gets Sensible and Thoughtful Musk

By Martin Peers · Nov 27, 2023 5:00pm PST · 3 comments

After a week of OpenAI and Thanksgiving, we’re back to regularly scheduled tech programming. That means Elon Musk is once again all over the news, this time visiting Israel in what appears to be an effort to counter perceptions, rekindled by this tweet from two weeks ago, that he is antisemitic. Not surprisingly, we got the respectable version... After a week of OpenAI and Thanksgiving, we’re back to regularly scheduled tech programming. That...

Photo by AFP via Getty

Why Your TikTok Feed Is Looking More Like YouTube

By Kaya Yurieff · Nov 27, 2023 2:00pm PST

Photo by AFP via Getty

Creator Economy

Why Your TikTok Feed Is Looking More Like YouTube

By Kaya Yurieff · Nov 27, 2023 2:00pm PST

This morning, I published a deep dive into TikTok’s push into longer videos. While TikTok popularized 15-second clips, last month it began testing videos that are 15 minutes. It’s also incentivizing creators to post longer videos with a new creator fund that only rewards videos that are more than a minute. And it’s been testing full-screen... This morning, I published a deep dive into TikTok’s push into longer videos. While TikTok...

Gary Marcus. Photo by Bloomberg via Getty.

Why OpenAI’s Breakthrough Isn’t a Harbinger for Humanity-Ending AGI

By Stephanie Palazzolo · Nov 27, 2023 7:00am PST · 4 comments

OpenAI’s boardroom drama was barely resolved on Thanksgiving Eve last week when forums and news sites exploded in speculation at the implications of a scientific breakthrough that the company was reported to have made. A Reuters report suggested this discovery could “threaten humanity,” although our article was a tad more circumspect (you... OpenAI’s boardroom drama was barely resolved on Thanksgiving Eve last week when forums and...

Art by Clark Miller

TikTok Ignited a Frenzy for Short Videos. Now It Wants Longer Ones

By Kaya Yurieff · Nov 27, 2023 6:00am PST · 4 comments

YouTube, Instagram and other apps have spent years trying to compete against the TikTok juggernaut by offering short videos resembling the 15-second clips that made TikTok famous. Now TikTok is stepping up a push to get its creators to make longer videos like the ones found on other apps. In late October, TikTok invited dozens of creators to its... YouTube, Instagram and other apps have spent years trying to compete against the TikTok...

Ford's flagship electric Mustang Mach-E SUV. Photo: Alex Wong/Getty Images

The Electric: In 2024, a New Reality for the EV and Battery Industries

By Steve LeVine · Nov 27, 2023 4:30am PST

For automakers, 2023 began with chronic shortages and soaring prices of key metals used in batteries. Electric vehicles were in short supply and consumers seemed prepared to buy any EV they could get their hands on almost regardless of the price.The year could hardly be ending more differently: The world is unexpectedly awash in battery-grade... For automakers, 2023 began with chronic shortages and soaring prices of key metals used in...

Art by Clark Miller.

While One Crypto Party Was Ruined, Another Raged On in Amsterdam

By Kari McMahon · Nov 25, 2023 6:00am PST · 3 comments

Art by Clark Miller.

Scene and Heard

While One Crypto Party Was Ruined, Another Raged On in Amsterdam

By Kari McMahon · Nov 25, 2023 6:00am PST · 3 comments

In the final week of October, over 3,000 crypto believers descended into woods on the outskirts of Amsterdam, arriving by shuttle bus to a gritty campus emblazoned in purple neon lights. Gaggles of hoodie-clad developers wandered the halls of industrial warehouses packed with lavish lounges, ball pits and barista stands where attendees could... In the final week of October, over 3,000 crypto believers descended into woods on the outskirts...