The Briefing by Martin Peers, Jessica E. Lessin and the team at The Information

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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.

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Recent Editions

Sunday Insights

Walmart’s Amazon-Sized Ads Opportunity

By Catherine Perloff · Jul 5, 2026 8:01am PDT

Walmart isn’t generally thought of as an advertising business, but the retail giant now makes more money selling ads than small social media firms like Snap or Pinterest do. And judging by the growth of its ad business in recent years, along with its acquisition of companies aimed at bolstering that business, it’s positioned to become an even... Walmart isn’t generally thought of as an advertising business, but the retail giant now makes...

Art: Clark Miller (photos: Getty Images)

Alex Karp, Open Source AI and a Neocloud Heyday

By Abram Brown · Jul 4, 2026 7:00am PDT

Welcome, Weekenders! In this newsletter:• The Big Read: Pickleball is the past—the tech elite is obsessed with padel. • Plus, an Americana-themed batch of Recommendations—our weekly pop culture picks: “The Americans,” “East of Eden,” “High Desert Daydream,” “Lonesome Dove,” USA vs. Belgium, and “The Twilight Zone.” The year’s midpoint is an... Welcome, Weekenders! In this newsletter:• The Big Read: Pickleball is the past—the tech elite is...

Art: Clark Miller (photos: Getty Images)

Pickleball Is the Past. The Tech Elite Is Obsessed With Padel

By Jemima McEvoy · Jul 4, 2026 6:00am PDT

Back in 2023, Matias Gandulfo and Lucas Tepman set out to build the first club in San Francisco devoted to padel, a racket sport that combines elements of tennis and squash. It originated in Mexico and is popular in their native Argentina, attracting millions of players. But potential California landlords for the club thought they were nuts: No... Back in 2023, Matias Gandulfo and Lucas Tepman set out to build the first club in San Francisco...

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Nvidia and the Neocloud Gold Rush

By Martin Peers · Jul 2, 2026 3:31pm PDT

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Nvidia and the Neocloud Gold Rush

By Martin Peers · Jul 2, 2026 3:31pm PDT

Hands up if you’ve got a neocloud going up in your backyard! I’m joking, of course, but it almost feels like some people must be putting AI chip servers in their gardens, given the rush of people wanting to start a neocloud business. (That’s the tech world’s term for firms that rent AI servers to others.)SoftBank on Thursday announced the... Hands up if you’ve got a neocloud going up in your backyard! I’m joking, of course, but it almost...

Art by Clark Miller

Freshfields’ Anthropic Win; A Squeeze of Lime Returns

By Valida Pau, Cory Weinberg and Julia Hornstein · Jul 2, 2026 3:18pm PDT

A British law firm has scored a big win: a role in the Anthropic initial public offering, expected to raise tens of billions at a valuation of more than $1 trillion.Anthropic’s bankers have brought on U.K. law firm Freshfields to work on the IPO, according to people familiar with the matter.The London-based law firm is a relative newcomer to the... A British law firm has scored a big win: a role in the Anthropic initial public offering,...

Palantir CEO Alex Karp. David Dee Delgado/Getty Images.

Palantir CEO Says Some U.S. Government Customers Switched to Open Source AI

By Laura Bratton and Phoebe Liu · Jul 2, 2026 12:31pm PDT

Like other software leaders these days, Palantir CEO Alex Karp is on a mission to convince businesses they need a trusted intermediary between their wallets and Anthropic or OpenAI, rather than dealing directly with the two AI firms.I spoke to Karp shortly after his fiery appearance on CNBC, where he appeared to accuse OpenAI and Anthropic of... Like other software leaders these days, Palantir CEO Alex Karp is on a mission to convince...

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Tesla Caps Employee AI Spend at $200 per Week After Adoption Push

By Grace Kay · Jul 2, 2026 12:08pm PDT · 2 comments

Tesla told employees last month it would impose a $200 per week limit for staff’s AI spending beginning July 6, according to an internal memo, a sign that even companies committed to using the technology to transform their operations and products are having to watch their costs. Over the past few months, software engineers at Tesla were often... Tesla told employees last month it would impose a $200 per week limit for staff’s AI spending...

Matthias Balk/Getty Images

Microsoft Memo Details AI App Overhaul to ‘Earn the Right to Exist’

By Aaron Holmes and Erin Woo · Jul 2, 2026 10:36am PDT · 1 comment

Matthias Balk/Getty Images

Microsoft Memo Details AI App Overhaul to ‘Earn the Right to Exist’

By Aaron Holmes and Erin Woo · Jul 2, 2026 10:36am PDT · 1 comment

Microsoft is merging its consumer and enterprise Copilot apps and cutting unwanted features to ‘earn the right to exist’ in the eyes of customers, an executive told staff Thursday morning. In a 1,200-word memo, Jacob Andreou, an executive vice president, said the new unified app will also feature AI coding tools and new AI agents that... Microsoft is merging its consumer and enterprise Copilot apps and cutting unwanted features...

Volkswagen's new electric ID.Unyx.08, designed with China's XPeng for the Chinese market. Photo: Johannes Neudecker/picture alliance/Getty

In China, Volkswagen Decides It Already Knows How to Make EVs As Fast as the Locals

By Steve LeVine · Jul 2, 2026 9:00am PDT · 1 comment

In Beijing recently, Lan Shanbin, a China-based senior manager of strategy and planning for Volkswagen, was showing off the company’s plush new electric vehicle, which went on sale in mid-April. Dubbed the ID.Unyx 08, it was the first product of a joint venture between VW and a local Chinese startup it had cozied up to—premium EV maker XPeng. In Beijing recently, Lan Shanbin, a China-based senior manager of strategy and planning for...

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The Five Kinds of Model Routers That Cut AI Costs

By Rocket Drew and Laura Bratton · Jul 2, 2026 7:00am PDT · 1 comment

Before we get to today’s agenda, check out Phoebe’s report Wednesday night that Nvidia has launched a new program to financially backstop customers’ purchases of its AI chips. It’s yet another way Nvidia is leveraging its powerful balance sheet to keep the GPU data center party going.On to the column…As more companies reassess rising prices for... Before we get to today’s agenda, check out Phoebe’s report Wednesday night that Nvidia has...

Art by Clark Miller.

Anthropic in Talks With Samsung to Manufacture Custom AI Chip

By Qianer Liu · Jul 2, 2026 6:50am PDT · 1 comment

Anthropic has begun early-stage work on its own AI chip and held talks with Samsung Electronics as a potential manufacturing partner, following the lead of rival OpenAI in trying to get more control over the costly computing systems behind its models, according to three people with direct knowledge of the project. If the Claude maker goes ahead... Anthropic has begun early-stage work on its own AI chip and held talks with Samsung Electronics...

Why Microsoft’s Real Value Is Close to $3.8 Trillion, or $500 a Share

By Anita Ramaswamy · Jul 2, 2026 6:00am PDT · 2 comments

Why Microsoft’s Real Value Is Close to $3.8 Trillion, or $500 a Share

By Anita Ramaswamy · Jul 2, 2026 6:00am PDT · 2 comments

Signs that Microsoft is open to spinning off its struggling Xbox gaming unit have put the spotlight on the tech conglomerate’s vast mix of businesses. Investors typically don’t like conglomerates, and that’s as true for Microsoft as for any other such company. We calculated what Microsoft’s three main businesses—cloud, software and... Signs that Microsoft is open to spinning off its struggling Xbox gaming unit have put the...

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang via Getty

Nvidia Says It Will Take a Cut of Some Customers’ Cloud Revenues

By Phoebe Liu · Jul 1, 2026 8:31pm PDT · 3 comments

Nvidia is using its powerful balance sheet to help more companies buy its expensive AI chips, and possibly make some money back too. It’s promising to financially backstop young cloud providers that rent out its graphics processing units in exchange for a share of their revenues. The backstop would come in the form of promising to rent back... Nvidia is using its powerful balance sheet to help more companies buy its expensive AI chips, and...

Michael Nagle/Bloomberg via Getty Images.

Bending Spoons’ Big Pop a Good Sign for IPO Candidates

By Martin Peers · Jul 1, 2026 5:00pm PDT

Could it be that Wall Street has a soft spot for refurbished internet brands? Bending Spoons, the Italian company whose stated mission is buying and overhauling left-for-dead digital businesses—such as AOL, Evernote and Vimeo—got a 40% pop on its first day as a public company on Wednesday. It was a much more impressive debut than the 4% pop... Could it be that Wall Street has a soft spot for refurbished internet brands? Bending Spoons, the...

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The Information Finance

AI Tokenomics Come For Wall Street

By Meredith Mazzilli · Jul 1, 2026 12:28pm PDT

Financial data companies such as FactSet and Moody’s appear to have made progress reassuring investors that they won’t be replaced by finance-focused AI tools. But investors may have new questions these days around how the uncertainty of AI costs will affect usage of these businesses’ products.Investors were spooked when Anthropic and others... Financial data companies such as FactSet and Moody’s appear to have made progress reassuring...

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Customer Support Tickets That Code

By Stephanie Palazzolo · Jul 1, 2026 7:01am PDT

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Customer Support Tickets That Code

By Stephanie Palazzolo · Jul 1, 2026 7:01am PDT

Software developers are starting to combine the two most successful uses of large language models: coding and customer support.Specifically, they’re using AI to automate the process of turning customer complaints about software issues or feature requests into new code. Previously, that could be a long and tedious process, which involved sending... Software developers are starting to combine the two most successful uses of large language...

How Elon Musk Is Building the Terafab Team Inside Tesla

By Grace Kay · Jul 1, 2026 6:01am PDT · 3 comments

Expectations are growing that Elon Musk will propose a merger of SpaceX and Tesla. But a close look at Tesla’s org chart, including the $55 billion Terafab semiconductor manufacturing project, a Tesla and SpaceX collaboration, shows that the two companies are already operating as one entity in key ways. Several people, aside from Musk himself,... Expectations are growing that Elon Musk will propose a merger of SpaceX and Tesla. But a close...

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Stripe and Co. Take On Circle and Tether in Stablecoins

By Yueqi Yang · Jun 30, 2026 5:01pm PDT

A year after the passage of the Genius Act legalized stablecoins, a bunch of big financial players have teamed up to launch a new, impressive-sounding stablecoin. Stripe, Visa, Mastercard, Coinbase, BlackRock and BNY are forming a consortium with over 140 firms to launch Open USD, which will debut later this year. This is a big deal. Open... A year after the passage of the Genius Act legalized stablecoins, a bunch of big financial...

Mark Wade, Co-founder & CEO, Ayar Labs. Photo By Ramsey Cardy/Getty Images

Optical Networking Startup Taps Into Investors’ Chip Envy

By Julia Hornstein and Cory Weinberg · Jun 30, 2026 4:16pm PDT

Call it a hot chip summer. Investors are flocking to startups making semiconductors and components to run AI more efficiently, minting high valuations for businesses looking to compete with Nvidia and other stalwarts. Etched, a four-year-old startup run by young Harvard dropouts trying to develop a specialized AI chip, announced it had raised... Call it a hot chip summer. Investors are flocking to startups making semiconductors and...

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang shows off the Vera Rubin chip system. Getty Images

Why GPU Server Prices Are Unpredictable

By Phoebe Liu · Jun 30, 2026 3:05pm PDT

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang shows off the Vera Rubin chip system. Getty Images

AI Infrastructure

Why GPU Server Prices Are Unpredictable

By Phoebe Liu · Jun 30, 2026 3:05pm PDT

Soaring demand for a limited supply of memory chips and other components has quickly pushed up prices for the Nvidia AI servers those chips go into, particularly over the last few months. That’s made it more difficult for cloud providers that buy the servers to create budgets and predict future costs, and has prompted many of them to raise... Soaring demand for a limited supply of memory chips and other components has quickly pushed up...