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

Pro Weekly: Readers Temper Their Optimism About Tech

Pro Weekly: Readers Temper Their Optimism About Tech

By Akash Pasricha · Sep 22, 2023 8:00am PDT

Readers of The Information are feeling the back-to-school blues. In our latest monthly survey, around 30% of the 680 respondents said they anticipate conditions for technology companies will improve in the next six months, roughly the same as the percentage of people who think conditions will worsen. The rest don’t think much will change.... Readers of The Information are feeling the back-to-school blues. In our latest monthly...

Art by Clark Miller

SpaceX’s Starship Setback Could Hold Up Cellphone Ambitions

By Becky Peterson · Sep 22, 2023 6:28am PDT

When SpaceX’s new Starship rocket exploded during a test flight in April, the company largely painted it as a success to have even gotten the 400-foot-tall behemoth off the ground. But inside the company, some employees were worried that the setback could delay, among other things, a SpaceX plan to provide wireless coverage to cellphones... When SpaceX’s new Starship rocket exploded during a test flight in April, the company...

Photo by Bloomberg via Getty.

Google’s Standoff with AI Chip 'Shark' Broadcom

By Amir Efrati · Sep 21, 2023 5:01pm PDT · 1 comment

Jim Cramer, CNBC’s “Mad Money” host, took a swipe at our report today that Google has set an internal goal to break from Broadcom, its supplier of artificial intelligence chips. Cramer called the story “patently false” on X. Cramer, who has been particularly bullish on Broadcom lately, is often criticized for dispensing bad advice—for example,... Jim Cramer, CNBC’s “Mad Money” host, took a swipe at our report today that Google has set an...

YouTube's new generative AI feature, Dream Screen, creates photos and videos based on creators' prompts. Photo via YouTube

YouTube Ushers in Fresh Wave of Creator AI Tools

By Kaya Yurieff · Sep 21, 2023 2:42pm PDT

YouTube's new generative AI feature, Dream Screen, creates photos and videos based on creators' prompts. Photo via YouTube

Creator Economy

YouTube Ushers in Fresh Wave of Creator AI Tools

By Kaya Yurieff · Sep 21, 2023 2:42pm PDT

Startups this year have been busy launching artificial intelligence tools, from chatbots to editing features, aimed at lightening creators’ workloads. Now YouTube is the first of the major social platforms to go hard on its own AI offerings for creators. At its Made on YouTube event in New York on Thursday, the Google-owned company made... Startups this year have been busy launching artificial intelligence tools, from chatbots to...

Photo via Shutterstock

The New VC Mantra: It's ‘Time to IPO’

By Kate Clark · Sep 21, 2023 12:57pm PDT

“It’s time to build” became the rallying cry of venture capitalists after Marc Andreessen published his blog post in 2020, as the economy was reeling from the pandemic’s outbreak. More than three years later, a new one has entered the mix: It’s “time to IPO,” wrote Brad Gerstner, founder and CEO of investment firm Altimeter Capital, in a post on... “It’s time to build” became the rallying cry of venture capitalists after Marc Andreessen...

GGV Capital partners Jeff Richards, Jenny Lee, Hans Tung and Glenn Solomon. Photos by Getty

Another Major Venture Firm to Separate China Investment Partners Following U.S. Pressure

By Juro Osawa and Kate Clark · Sep 21, 2023 9:49am PDT

GGV Capital, a prominent venture capital firm managing $9.2 billion in assets, plans to separate its China and U.S. teams following scrutiny from lawmakers in Washington about the national security implications of the firm’s investments in Chinese artificial intelligence and semiconductor firms, according to a notice the firm sent to its... GGV Capital, a prominent venture capital firm managing $9.2 billion in assets, plans to separate...

Subscriber Survey

The Information Readers Are Wary of Doing Business With China

By Akash Pasricha · Sep 21, 2023 9:20am PDT

Readers of The Information are hesitant to do business with China and also have grown more pessimistic about the global outlook for technology companies, according to our most recent survey. More than one-third of survey respondents think President Joe Biden’s China policies aren’t tough enough, even after Biden last month banned... Readers of The Information are hesitant to do business with China and also have grown more...

Photo via Jacopo Pantaleoni.

Nvidia Engineer’s Message to Google AI Researchers: Leave Your Company

By Stephanie Palazzolo · Sep 21, 2023 7:00am PDT · 7 comments

Photo via Jacopo Pantaleoni.

Nvidia Engineer’s Message to Google AI Researchers: Leave Your Company

By Stephanie Palazzolo · Sep 21, 2023 7:00am PDT · 7 comments

Jacopo Pantaleoni joined Nvidia in 2001 when the company had less than 500 employees. He worked on what was then a small research project to improve Nvidia’s graphics processing units so they could better render images on computers and gaming consoles.More than two decades later, Nvidia has more than 26,000 employees and its GPUs are at the... Jacopo Pantaleoni joined Nvidia in 2001 when the company had less than 500 employees. He worked...

Photo via Getty

TikTok Plans Seattle Beachhead for Shopping Expansion

By Erin Woo · Sep 21, 2023 6:00am PDT · 2 comments

As TikTok seeks to compete with Amazon, it’s planting a flag in the e-commerce giant’s backyard. The video app company is using the Seattle area as the base for an aggressive expansion into online shopping, the company confirmed. TikTok is offering existing employees in other TikTok offices, such as Los Angeles and New York... As TikTok seeks to compete with Amazon, it’s planting a flag in the e-commerce...

A lithium brine operation in Chile's Salar de Atacama. Photo: Lucas Aguayo Araos/Anadolu/Getty

The Electric: Lower Metals Costs Invite Risky Forecasts of More-Robust EV Sales

By Steve LeVine · Sep 21, 2023 4:49am PDT

Recent declines in the cost of batteries have persuaded some analysts to significantly increase their forecasts of electric vehicle sales later this decade. But the sales projections partly depend on the prices of battery metals like lithium and nickel staying comparatively low, a considerable risk given wild price swings over the last two... Recent declines in the cost of batteries have persuaded some analysts to significantly increase...

From left, a Google TPU, Broadcom CEO Hock Tan and Google Cloud chief Thomas Kurian. Photos via Getty, Google and YouTube.

To Reduce AI Costs, Google Wants to Ditch Broadcom as Its TPU Server Chip Supplier

By Wayne Ma, Anissa Gardizy and Jon Victor · Sep 21, 2023 1:22am PDT · 1 comment

Google executives have extensively discussed dropping Broadcom as a supplier of artificial intelligence chips as early as 2027, according to a person with direct knowledge of the effort. In that scenario, Google would fully design the chips, known as tensor processing units, in-house, the person said. The move could help Google save billions of... Google executives have extensively discussed dropping Broadcom as a supplier of artificial...

Andrew Bialecki, CEO and co-founder of Klaviyo. Photo by the Boston Globe via Getty.

A Boring—but Important—IPO

By Cory Weinberg · Sep 20, 2023 5:00pm PDT

Andrew Bialecki, CEO and co-founder of Klaviyo. Photo by the Boston Globe via Getty.

A Boring—but Important—IPO

By Cory Weinberg · Sep 20, 2023 5:00pm PDT

We tend to lionize founders who start companies with the splashiest, most far-reaching consumer products. So Andrew Bialecki of $10 billion marketing tech startup Klaviyo—a name few people even know how to pronounce (it’s “clay-vee-oh”)—isn’t exactly a favorite to headline the next Code Conference.But Bialecki—a Boston-based, 37-year-old... We tend to lionize founders who start companies with the splashiest, most far-reaching consumer...

Comedian Cat Alvarado reported early issues with Meta Verified. Photo: Kim Newmoney

Creator Economy

Meta Verified Works Out the Kinks in Public

By Kaya Yurieff · Sep 20, 2023 3:05pm PDT

As we detailed in a story on Tuesday, subscribers to new paid offering Meta Verified have complained about their frustrating experiences with human customer support, a key draw of the service. The Facebook and Instagram parent has fixed another early snag, which prevented creators from changing their photo or name once they paid for the $12 a... As we detailed in a story on Tuesday, subscribers to new paid offering Meta Verified have ...

Paradigm co-founders Matt Huang and Fred Ehrsam. Photos via Paradigm and Flickr.

Behind the Scenes at Paradigm

By Aidan Ryan · Sep 20, 2023 9:06am PDT

Paradigm has established itself as one of the premier crypto-focused investors. More recently, though, it’s had to navigate the blowup of FTX and faced criticism from the crypto community, who took a website redesign to mean the firm was ditching crypto in favor of AI. I took a look at what’s next for Paradigm in a deep dive published... Paradigm has established itself as one of the premier crypto-focused investors. More recently,...

Photos via Eiso Kant (left) and YouTube/VMWare Tanzu (right)

How GitHub Copilot’s Co-Creator Raised $126 Million to Compete with His Former Employer

By Stephanie Palazzolo · Sep 20, 2023 7:00am PDT · 2 comments

Recent interest in artificial intelligence has focused on large-language models that aim to do everything from writing Shakespearean poetry to solving math riddles. But more entrepreneurs and investors have begun to wonder if LLMs that specialize in one field or another can be better than general purpose LLMs like OpenAI’s.One of those... Recent interest in artificial intelligence has focused on large-language models that aim to do...

Andrew Bialecki, CEO of Klaviyo (left), and Tobias Lütke, CEO of Shopify (right). Photos via Klaviyo and Getty.

Shopify Scores a Quick Win in Klaviyo IPO

By Ann Gehan and Cory Weinberg · Sep 20, 2023 6:36am PDT

Andrew Bialecki, CEO of Klaviyo (left), and Tobias Lütke, CEO of Shopify (right). Photos via Klaviyo and Getty.

Shopify Scores a Quick Win in Klaviyo IPO

By Ann Gehan and Cory Weinberg · Sep 20, 2023 6:36am PDT

Count Shopify as one of the beneficiaries of the thawing market for initial public offerings. The e-commerce software giant is set for a windfall from a successful debut of Klaviyo, the marketing and data automation startup that priced its IPO at a fully diluted valuation of $9.2 billion late Tuesday. Shopify stands to gain a quick $295 million... Count Shopify as one of the beneficiaries of the thawing market for initial public offerings. The...

Instacart CEO Fidji Simo. Photo by Bloomberg via Getty.

The Instacart IPO’s Fine Print

By Cory Weinberg · Sep 19, 2023 5:00pm PDT

It’s been nearly two years since the last major IPO of a venture-backed company, so in case you forgot what one looked like, Instacart’s big day had many familiar beats. The ringing of the bell. The debate about stock pops. Early investors taking victory laps on TV.The celebration of the long-awaited listing obscured one fact. At the end of the... It’s been nearly two years since the last major IPO of a venture-backed company, so in case you...

Afterparty co-founders David Fields and Robert Graham. Photo: Afterparty

Creator Economy

Afterparty Launches AI-Generated Creator Clones With New Funding

By Kaya Yurieff · Sep 19, 2023 3:10pm PDT

Two years ago, VC hype for the creator economy started to merge with excitement for another hot sector: crypto. Companies that focused on creators and incorporated blockchain technologies garnered millions of dollars in new funding. While many of those companies are now flailing, some have still been able to raise capital, especially those... Two years ago, VC hype for the creator economy started to merge with excitement for another hot...

Photo via Midjourney.

The Rise of Startups That Help Other Startups Evaluate LLMs

By Stephanie Palazzolo · Sep 19, 2023 7:00am PDT · 1 comment

All but a handful of artificial intelligence startups typically fall into one of two camps.The first group uses a single large-language model, typically OpenAI’s GPT-4, to power their applications. These startups, which have often raised millions in venture capital, usually say, “If you’ve got the cash, why not use the top-of-the-line model?”But... All but a handful of artificial intelligence startups typically fall into one of two camps.The...

Art by Mike Sullivan

Instagram Power Users Are Fuming Over Its $12-a-Month Subscription

By Kaya Yurieff · Sep 19, 2023 6:00am PDT · 4 comments

Art by Mike Sullivan

Instagram Power Users Are Fuming Over Its $12-a-Month Subscription

By Kaya Yurieff · Sep 19, 2023 6:00am PDT · 4 comments

In late August, Jenny French discovered Instagram had disabled her account. That was a blow, since nearly half the prospects for her U.K. business, which trains physical therapists, jewelry boutiques and other clients on how to increase their Instagram reach, came from the account. But French figured she had an in with Instagram that would allow... In late August, Jenny French discovered Instagram had disabled her account. That was a blow,...