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-TikTok demonstrators outside of the Capitol building on March 13. Photo by AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite.

Creator Economy

Creators Fear Sale of TikTok Without Its Algorithm

By Kaya Yurieff · May 1, 2024 2:24pm PDT · 1 comment

Last week, we reported ByteDance is internally exploring scenarios for selling a majority stake in TikTok’s U.S. business. Any such sale would happen without a crucial benefit: its powerful recommendation algorithm.That possibility makes creators particularly nervous. TikTok’s algorithm, which quickly figures out a user’s interests, makes it... Last week, we reported ByteDance is internally exploring scenarios for selling a majority stake...

A Tesla Supercharging station in Austin. Photo by Getty Images

A Tesla Executive Reassured Supercharger Team Days Before Musk Fired Its Staff

By Becky Peterson · May 1, 2024 1:27pm PDT · 5 comments

Earlier this week, Elon Musk laid off a 500-person team overseeing Tesla’s Supercharger Network, a move that stunned many employees and industry observers who consider the electrical charging stations one of Tesla’s key advantages. But just a couple weeks ago, one of Musk’s lieutenants reassured members of Tesla’s energy... Earlier this week, Elon Musk laid off a 500-person team overseeing Tesla’s Supercharger...

Photo via Adobe Stock/Shane Burke

Are Publishers Fighting For ‘The Right To Be Forgotten?’

By Stephanie Palazzolo · May 1, 2024 7:10am PDT · 1 comment

When news broke on Tuesday of a new copyright infringement lawsuit filed against OpenAI and Microsoft, this time by eight daily newspapers, I was reminded of a conversation I had a month ago with Rich Skrenta, executive director at the Common Crawl, a nonprofit that supplies open-source web crawl data.He argued that in the future, consumers... When news broke on Tuesday of a new copyright infringement lawsuit filed against OpenAI and ...

Google's new office at St. John's Terminal in New York City. Photo via AP.

What Google Investors Should Really Be Cheering

By Jon Victor · May 1, 2024 6:00am PDT

Google's new office at St. John's Terminal in New York City. Photo via AP.

What Google Investors Should Really Be Cheering

By Jon Victor · May 1, 2024 6:00am PDT

Last week’s rally in stock of Google parent Alphabet was attributed to the company’s introduction of a dividend, its big improvement in its operating profit margin and faster growth at Google Cloud. But investors might have been also responding to another piece of good news that got little attention: Google has managed to lower the... Last week’s rally in stock of Google parent Alphabet was attributed to the company’s...

Amazon CEO, Andy Jassy. Photo by Thos Robinson/Getty Images.

Amazon’s Profit Surge Will Pay for AI-Driven Capex Push

By Martin Peers · Apr 30, 2024 5:00pm PDT

Take a bow, Andy Jassy! The spate of healthy big tech earnings continued on Tuesday, as Amazon reported what have to be described as robust first-quarter results. Its e-commerce business made money both in North America and overseas—that hasn’t been true since 2021—while cloud giant Amazon Web Services posted accelerating sales growth and much... Take a bow, Andy Jassy! The spate of healthy big tech earnings continued on Tuesday, as Amazon...

Photo via Getty Images.

More VC Firms Are Investing in AI Rivals

By Natasha Mascarenhas · Apr 30, 2024 3:22pm PDT · 1 comment

Does it make sense to back rival language model companies Anthropic and OpenAI (and Cohere and Mistral)? Some investors seem to think so, taking an approach to startup investing that looks a little like buying an index fund with an array of tech stocks.Last week my colleagues and I broke the news that Sequoia Capital was among the investors in a... Does it make sense to back rival language model companies Anthropic and OpenAI (and Cohere and...

Beehiiv co-founders from left to right: Tyler Denk, Benjamin Hargett and Jacob Hurd.

Creator Economy

The 6 Biggest Creator Startup Deals as Funding Rebounds

By Kaya Yurieff · Apr 30, 2024 2:14pm PDT

Today we report on more signs that investor appetite for creator economy startups seems to be returning. The latest example: newsletter publishing startup Beehiiv on Tuesday announced it closed $33 million in Series B funding led by NEA earlier this month. Existing investors such as Lightspeed Venture Partners also joined the round. ... Today we report on more signs that investor appetite for creator economy startups seems to be...

Art by Shane Burke

Are We Running Out of Training Data?

By Stephanie Palazzolo · Apr 30, 2024 7:00am PDT · 1 comment

Art by Shane Burke

Are We Running Out of Training Data?

By Stephanie Palazzolo · Apr 30, 2024 7:00am PDT · 1 comment

I was catching up with the new AI Index Report from Stanford’s Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence Institute when one section caught my eye. That was a forecast that we’ll likely run out of high-quality language data needed for train AI models sometime this year.That’s a worrying timeline. So far, AI companies have improved their large... I was catching up with the new AI Index Report from Stanford’s Human-Centered Artificial...

Photo via Getty Images/Shane Burke.

As Tech Firms Prioritize AI in News Dealings, Other Deals Get Cut

By Sahil Patel · Apr 30, 2024 6:00am PDT

Google has agreed to pay Wall Street Journal owner News Corp between $5 million and $6 million annually to fund the news organization's development of new artificial intelligence–related content and products, according to a News Corp staffer and another person close to the deal. The new and previously unreported arrangement follows... Google has agreed to pay Wall Street Journal owner News Corp between $5 million and $6 million...

Photo by Getty

Musk Plans More Layoffs as Two Senior Tesla Executives Depart

By Steve LeVine · Apr 29, 2024 9:48pm PDT · 11 comments

Frustrated by falling sales and the pace of layoffs carried out by his lieutenants, Tesla CEO Elon Musk is thinning his senior management team and laying off hundreds more employees. In an email late Monday to senior Tesla executives, Musk said Rebecca Tinucci, senior director of the company’s Supercharger group and Daniel Ho, head of new... Frustrated by falling sales and the pace of layoffs carried out by his lieutenants, Tesla CEO...

A Tesla showroom in Shanghai ahead of Elon Musk's visit to China. Photo by Bloomberg via Getty Images.

Musk’s China Visit Cheers Tesla Investors, Wrongly

By Martin Peers · Apr 29, 2024 5:00pm PDT · 1 comment

Maybe Elon Musk should visit China more often. Today’s 15% rally in Tesla stock follows his quick visit there on Sunday (which incidentally also confirmed his statement last week that his seven-day-a-week work schedule means he rarely takes even Sunday afternoons off). The big news that came out of the visit, according to Bloomberg, was that... Maybe Elon Musk should visit China more often. Today’s 15% rally in Tesla stock follows his quick...

Mistral CEO Arthur Mensch. Photo by Toby Melville via Getty Images.

How Will Open-Source AI Make Money?

By Stephanie Palazzolo · Apr 29, 2024 7:10am PDT · 1 comment

Mistral CEO Arthur Mensch. Photo by Toby Melville via Getty Images.

How Will Open-Source AI Make Money?

By Stephanie Palazzolo · Apr 29, 2024 7:10am PDT · 1 comment

Last week, we spent a lot of time talking about Meta Platforms’ new open-source Llama 3 models. However, the one question that still remains unanswered is how Meta and other developers of open-source AI software will make money from it—an uncertainty that likely contributed to Meta’s stock drop on Thursday.Take Paris-based startup Mistral, for... Last week, we spent a lot of time talking about Meta Platforms’ new open-source Llama 3 models....

Art by Mike Sullivan/Midjourney

How Tesla Used a San Francisco Neighborhood to Improve Its Driverless Technology

By Becky Peterson · Apr 29, 2024 6:00am PDT · 1 comment

Last week, Elon Musk told Tesla investors they should think about the electric vehicle maker “almost entirely” in terms of a single goal: figuring out how to make its cars drive themselves, without human supervision. Whether Tesla is successful in that objective could come down to its efforts to perfect autonomous driving in places... Last week, Elon Musk told Tesla investors they should think about the electric vehicle maker...

Introducing the Tesla Diaspora Database

By Steve LeVine · Apr 29, 2024 4:30am PDT

When Tesla’s head of powertrain, Drew Baglino, resigned this month, along with Rohan Patel, vice president of public policy, and Martin Viecha, vice president of investor relations, they joined hundreds of senior and midlevel executives who have left the company over the years. As we show in the Tesla Diaspora Database we are publishing... When Tesla’s head of powertrain, Drew Baglino, resigned this month, along with Rohan Patel,...

Photo by Getty

The Electric: A New Database of 90 Tesla Veterans Running Other Companies

By Steve LeVine · Apr 29, 2024 4:30am PDT · 1 comment

When Tesla’s head of powertrain, Drew Baglino, resigned this month, along with Rohan Patel, vice president of public policy, and Martin Viecha, vice president of investor relations, they joined hundreds of senior and midlevel executives who have left the company over the years. As we show in the searchable Tesla Diaspora Database we are... When Tesla’s head of powertrain, Drew Baglino, resigned this month, along with Rohan Patel, vice...

How to Really Save TikTok

How to Really Save TikTok

By Abram Brown · Apr 27, 2024 7:00am PDT

How to Really Save TikTok

How to Really Save TikTok

By Abram Brown · Apr 27, 2024 7:00am PDT

Welcome, Weekenders! In this newsletter:The great Tokyo gamble.Our favorite interior designers…for rescuing boring offices. Billionaire nerd buys The Onion, thinks he can solve media’s problems (yes, we’re serious!). Plus: Yo-Yo Ma, Apple and global politics; a videogame legend’s unexpected new work; and Michael Douglas as our nation’s... Welcome, Weekenders! In this newsletter:The great Tokyo gamble.Our favorite interior designers…...

Art by Clark Miller. Lawson via Getty Images.

Twilio Founder Jeff Lawson Has Some Serious Plans for The Onion

By Abram Brown · Apr 27, 2024 6:00am PDT · 9 comments

For quite some time, Jeff Lawson has kept up a running joke among friends and family. “Bezos bought The Post, Benioff bought Time—well, Jeff Lawson is going to buy The Onion,” said Lawson, billionaire founder of Twilio, an unsexy enterprise software company that he ran until a recent series of battles with activist investors... For quite some time, Jeff Lawson has kept up a running joke among friends and family....

Art by Clark Miller

Our Favorite Interior Designers…for Rescuing a Boring Office

By Annie Goldsmith · Apr 27, 2024 5:00am PDT · 2 comments

When Molly Martell, vice president of brand at San Francisco venture capital firm Headline, was tasked with revamping the company’s offices in 2021, she sought out a design that “felt like the antidote to Zoom” and could fulfill a mandate for a “cozy” space that wasn’t “cold, gridded boxes,” she... When Molly Martell, vice president of brand at San Francisco venture capital firm Headline, was...

Photo by Brandon Sloter via Getty Images.

What We Heard From Tech CEO Calls This Week

By Martin Peers · Apr 26, 2024 2:30pm PDT

Phew, what a week! We got a blizzard of quarterly earnings updates from tech firms, most of them followed by investor calls that were full of artificial intelligence talk. Much of that was corporate blather, of course, but there were a few moments when actual information was transmitted. Not all of that was relevant to the subject at hand, to be... Phew, what a week! We got a blizzard of quarterly earnings updates from tech firms, most of them...

The Tortured Venture Capitalists Department

By Jessica Lessin · Apr 26, 2024 10:43am PDT

The Tortured Venture Capitalists Department

By Jessica Lessin · Apr 26, 2024 10:43am PDT

As the only non-venture capitalist on the More or Less podcast, I sometimes view these episodes as my window into VC therapy. And so, with Taylor Swift on my mind, I felt the angst of my VC compatriots as we recorded this week. We spent most of the time talking about another asset class: hedge funds and why there isn't likely to be another... As the only non-venture capitalist on the More or Less podcast, I sometimes view these episodes...