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

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Recent Editions

Art by Clark Miller

The Wunderkind Issue

Plight of the Wunderkind: The Hidden Struggles of Tech’s Teenage Entrepreneurs

By Margaux MacColl · Mar 3, 2023 9:00am PST

On October 19, 2020, Jai Bhavnani paced around his University of Southern California dorm room in his pajamas, sending nervous Snapchats to his friends. It would either be a night for celebration or one for damage control. Bhavnani, who was just 18 years old at the time, had founded the decentralized finance platform Rari Capital with two other... On October 19, 2020, Jai Bhavnani paced around his University of Southern California dorm room in...

All photos courtesy of the subjects; art by Clark Miller

The Wunderkind Issue

Here Come the Zoomers: Silicon Valley Greets a New Generation of Teen Founders

By Margaux MacColl · Mar 3, 2023 9:00am PST · 2 comments

Eric Zhu, 15, was zooming me from his high school bathroom. “We got kicked out of the janitor’s closet,” he explained, holding up a pink hall pass that lets him leave class anytime he wants. (He said he had to fabricate some “urinary issues” to convince his school to give it to him.) The boys’ room is now... Eric Zhu, 15, was zooming me from his high school bathroom. “We got kicked out of the...

From left, Jamie Xie (Christian Vierig/Getty Images), Alexis Cuban, Phoebe Gates and Eve Jobs (Edward Berthelot/Getty Images). Art by Clark Miller.

The Wunderkind Issue

Their Last Names Are Gates, Jobs, Xie and Cuban. Their Brands Are Still Loading

By Annie Goldsmith · Mar 3, 2023 9:00am PST

The 6-second video (caption: “When dad gets the #boxball for Christmas”) seems like standard TikTok fare. Posted on December 26, it features a white-haired man in glasses punching at a red ball. The ball is attached to the man’s forehead by a bungee cord. The man keeps trying to jab the target, but like a cat... The 6-second video (caption: “When dad gets the #boxball for Christmas”)...

Art by Clark Miller; all photos courtesy of the schools and programs.

So You Want to Raise a Wunderkind: The Tech Parent’s Guide to Alt Education

By Diana Kapp · Mar 3, 2023 9:00am PST · 3 comments

Art by Clark Miller; all photos courtesy of the schools and programs.

The Wunderkind Issue

So You Want to Raise a Wunderkind: The Tech Parent’s Guide to Alt Education

By Diana Kapp · Mar 3, 2023 9:00am PST · 3 comments

Brothers Navid and Nadeem Nathoo are on a quest to create “unicorn people.” That is, young people who want to learn about nanotechnology, blockchain, synthetic biology, artificial intelligence and more, and who welcome questions with no possible solutions. “We want to get kids comfortable with ambiguity,” said Navid. And... Brothers Navid and Nadeem Nathoo are on a quest to create “unicorn people.” That is,...

The Pro Weekly: More Insights From Our Reader Survey

The Pro Weekly: More Insights From Our Reader Survey

By Scott Thurm · Mar 3, 2023 8:00am PST

Welcome back to the Pro Weekly! We hope you’re enjoying The Information Pro and finding insights in our databases. We’ll be updating them as we learn more, so check back often. Next week, look for additions to the Cloud Database. This week, we published results from our reader survey, which will be a monthly feature. By a 51% to 18% margin,... Welcome back to the Pro Weekly! We hope you’re enjoying The Information Pro and finding insights...

A customer holds a Shein bag outside Shein's Tokyo showroom. Photo by Bloomberg.

Shein Had Informal Talks With U.S. Tech Giants About Potential Investment

By Juro Osawa and Shai Oster · Mar 3, 2023 6:00am PST · 1 comment

Shein, the online fashion giant that started in China, recently had an interesting pitch for both Amazon and Google. As it considered buying more advertising on Google properties and more cloud time on either Amazon or Google, Shein executives wondered whether either company might be interested in buying a stake in it, people familiar with the... Shein, the online fashion giant that started in China, recently had an interesting pitch for both...

Andy Jassy, CEO of Amazon and Brian Millham, Chief Operating Officer at Salesforce. Photos by Bloomberg and Salesforce.

Walking Back Remote Work Won’t Woo Wall Street

By Jessica E. Lessin · Mar 2, 2023 5:00pm PST · 6 comments

Technology companies are trying a new way to please Wall Street: Promise to go back to the office. After years of extolling the value of remote work—and long after the rest of the business world has reverted to their in-office ways—tech companies are seeing if they can buck up investors by showing how much more productive they are when they... Technology companies are trying a new way to please Wall Street: Promise to go back to the...

Photo by Shane Burke/Shutterstock

At Clubhouse, Many Notable Hires Have Departed

By Kaya Yurieff · Mar 2, 2023 3:58pm PST

Photo by Shane Burke/Shutterstock

Creator Economy

At Clubhouse, Many Notable Hires Have Departed

By Kaya Yurieff · Mar 2, 2023 3:58pm PST

Roughly 20 leaders have departed Clubhouse over the past year or so, including many of the notable hires the social audio app recruited from major companies such as Meta Platforms, Google, TikTok, Spotify and Netflix. All these ex-staffers had vice president, head or lead in their titles or job descriptions (most were heads of something).The... Roughly 20 leaders have departed Clubhouse over the past year or so, including many of the...

Josh Kushner and Marc Andreessen. Photos by Getty and Bloomberg

What Josh Kushner Can Learn From Marc Andreessen

By Kate Clark · Mar 2, 2023 3:19pm PST · 4 comments

There are different ways to ascend venture capital’s top ranks. Move fast, be loud and raise a lot of money. Or, build slowly, stay quiet and let the deals speak for themselves.For examples of these two approaches, just look at Andreessen Horowitz and Thrive Capital. Both launched near the depths of the 2009 financial crisis and both have... There are different ways to ascend venture capital’s top ranks. Move fast, be loud and raise a...

Art via Shutterstock.

Disney’s Hulu Deal Ain’t Over Till It’s Over

By Andrew A. Rosen · Mar 2, 2023 9:00am PST · 1 comment

Sign up for Rosen’s newsletter, Parqor, part of The Information’s newsletter network. Among many newsmaking statements during his debut earnings season as Disney’s recently returned CEO, Robert Iger declared that “everything is on the table” concerning the Hulu-Disney relationship. Over the years, Disney has... Sign up for Rosen’s newsletter, Parqor, part of The Information’s newsletter...

Art by Clark Miller.

NFT Wars: How a Zero-Fee Upstart Is Roiling Big Marketplaces Like OpenSea

By Akash Pasricha · Mar 2, 2023 6:00am PST · 2 comments

Revenue has evaporated nearly overnight at non-fungible token marketplaces like OpenSea, thanks to a fierce price war that’s sent many NFT trading fees tumbling to zero. Now it’s a waiting game to see who can survive the drought. Blur, a marketplace that has no transaction fees, started picking up steam in October and eclipsed... Revenue has evaporated nearly overnight at non-fungible token marketplaces like OpenSea, thanks...

Photo by Shutterstock

Crypto VCs Aren’t Celebrating This Rally Just Yet

By Akash Pasricha · Mar 1, 2023 5:10pm PST · 1 comment

Photo by Shutterstock

Crypto VCs Aren’t Celebrating This Rally Just Yet

By Akash Pasricha · Mar 1, 2023 5:10pm PST · 1 comment

Here are some staggering numbers for you. Year to date, bitcoin is up 43%, ether is up 39%, and Coinbase shares are up more than 92%. In fact, Coinbase is now trading around 5 times its projected next 12 month sales, up from 2.1 times when 2023 began, according to Koyfin. Where’s all this coming from?It turns out, startups and venture... Here are some staggering numbers for you. Year to date, bitcoin is up 43%, ether is up 39%, and...

Marc Benioff. Photo by Bloomberg.

Benioff Discovers Efficiency (and Profits)

By Martin Peers · Mar 1, 2023 5:00pm PST

Some people are easily pleased. Salesforce stock jumped 15% in after-hours trading after the enterprise software firm reported fourth-quarter results that were a little better than it had projected. Free cash flow was solid. And Salesforce announced it was doubling its stock buyback program. Wall Street will enjoy those goodies—and the... Some people are easily pleased. Salesforce stock jumped 15% in after-hours trading after the...

TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew via Getty

Creator Economy

Apple Could Trip Up TikTok If Politicians Do Not

By Kaya Yurieff · Mar 1, 2023 2:41pm PST

Could Apple and Google trip up TikTok even if saber-rattling politicians do not? It’s an intriguing idea sparked by a story we published today, especially as it resurfaces a perennial gripe of many startup founders: the iron grip the two tech giants have on smartphone apps. According to new reporting from my colleague Juro on Wednesday, the... Could Apple and Google trip up TikTok even if saber-rattling politicians do not? It’s an...

A Waymo prototype robotaxi in San Francisco. Credit: Waymo

Alphabet’s Robotaxi Unit Waymo Says it Laid Off 8%

By Jon Victor · Mar 1, 2023 8:37am PST

Alphabet’s robotaxi developer Waymo laid off 137 employees on Wednesday, its second round of cuts this year as the parent company reins in spending across its subsidiaries. The layoffs mean around 8% of Waymo employees, or 209 employees, have been cut this year, Waymo’s co-CEOs told staff in an internal email viewed by The... Alphabet’s robotaxi developer Waymo laid off 137 employees on Wednesday, its second round...

Shou Zi Chew, CEO of TikTok. Photo by Bloomberg

TikTok’s U.S. Survival Plan Faces Potential Hurdle: Apple’s App Store Rules

By Juro Osawa · Mar 1, 2023 7:32am PST · 3 comments

Shou Zi Chew, CEO of TikTok. Photo by Bloomberg

TikTok’s U.S. Survival Plan Faces Potential Hurdle: Apple’s App Store Rules

By Juro Osawa · Mar 1, 2023 7:32am PST · 3 comments

TikTok faces a new potential hurdle to overcoming national security concerns in the U.S.: Apple and Google. TikTok, the popular video app owned by Chinese internet giant ByteDance, has begun talks with Apple and Google to ensure its proposed data security plan doesn’t get derailed by their app store rules, according to a person with direct... TikTok faces a new potential hurdle to overcoming national security concerns in the U.S.: Apple...

The People Who Matter at Microsoft as it Deepens Pact with OpenAI

By Kevin McLaughlin and Aaron Holmes · Mar 1, 2023 6:00am PST

Bill Gates is back at Microsoft—at least on the company’s internal organizational chart, if not as an employee. Although Gates recently said he is a part-time adviser, the co-founder’s inclusion in the above chart of more than 160 top managers is among the most striking of roughly 100 changes we’ve made since our... Bill Gates is back at Microsoft—at least on the company’s internal organizational...

A direct lithium extraction pilot in Amboy, CA. There is no commercial-scale DLE production anywhere in the world. Photo: David McNew/Getty

The Electric: The Rock Inside the Debate Over the Future Price of Lithium

By Steve LeVine · Mar 1, 2023 5:01am PST

A crackdown on illegal lithium mining and pollution in the Southern Chinese province of Jiangxi, the source of about 10% of the world’s supply of the metal, adds fresh drama to a raging debate in the battery industry and on Wall Street: Is lithium in a decadelong shortage or a surplus?Last week, Chinese authorities shut down most lithium mining... A crackdown on illegal lithium mining and pollution in the Southern Chinese province of Jiangxi,...

Elon Musk. Photo by Bloomberg.

Elon Musk’s BasedAI and the AI Culture Wars

By Jessica E. Lessin · Feb 28, 2023 5:00pm PST · 1 comment

Elon Musk today confirmed our big story from yesterday that he’s been recruiting a team to build an AI and chatbot that is “anti-woke.” Jon Victor and I wrote that his aim was to build a chatbot that “would have fewer restrictions on divisive subjects compared to ChatGPT and a related chatbot Microsoft recently launched.”Today, Musk tweeted out... Elon Musk today confirmed our big story from yesterday that he’s been recruiting a team to build...

Patrick Collison, CEO and co-founder of Stripe, left, and John Collison, president and co-founder of Stripe. Photo by Bloomberg.

Stripe Cuts Valuation to $50 Billion After Facing Fundraising Hurdles

By Maria Heeter and Cory Weinberg · Feb 28, 2023 4:43pm PST · 5 comments

Patrick Collison, CEO and co-founder of Stripe, left, and John Collison, president and co-founder of Stripe. Photo by Bloomberg.

Stripe Cuts Valuation to $50 Billion After Facing Fundraising Hurdles

By Maria Heeter and Cory Weinberg · Feb 28, 2023 4:43pm PST · 5 comments

Stripe has cut the valuation for its multi-billion-dollar fundraising by about 10% to around $50 billion, according to two people familiar with the situation, underlining the challenges that Stripe has faced in completing the fundraising. While Stripe is still expected to complete the funding round, it is now setting the per-share price at about... Stripe has cut the valuation for its multi-billion-dollar fundraising by about 10% to around $50...