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 by AP.

Meta Scales Back Ambitions for AR Glasses

By Wayne Ma · Jul 19, 2023 6:00am PDT · 1 comment

In March 2020, as the Covid-19 pandemic began to transform the world, the company then known as Facebook struck a deal to buy all the augmented reality displays made by British firm Plessey. At the time, the deal appeared to be a savvy way of squeezing out Apple in the competition to develop AR glasses, as Plessey was one of the few makers of AR... In March 2020, as the Covid-19 pandemic began to transform the world, the company then known as...

Jensen Huang, CEO of Nvidia. Photo by Getty.

The Venture Capitalist Who Holds All the GPUs

By Jessica E. Lessin · Jul 18, 2023 5:00pm PDT

If there is anything venture capitalists love more than making money, it’s opining on the best and worst ways to make money. And so the debate over how to make money (or not) investing in artificial intelligence is raging throughout Silicon Valley. There are the believers who are banking on AI to mint the next supercycle of venture profits.... If there is anything venture capitalists love more than making money, it’s opining on the best...

SAG-AFTRA members and supporters protest on July 18 in New York City. Photo by Getty.

Creator Economy

Influencers Walk a Fine Line as Hollywood Strikes

By Kaya Yurieff · Jul 18, 2023 2:57pm PDT

Before we get into today’s column, some breaking news: Cameo, the video shout-out app that once employed nearly 400 workers, enacted at least its third round of job cuts Tuesday, my colleague Natasha and I reported. The company told laid off employees it was a financial decision. Cameo got popular in 2020 as a creator platform that seemed to... Before we get into today’s column, some breaking news: Cameo, the video shout-out app that once...

Cameo CEO and founder Steven Galanis with co-founders Devon Townsend and Martin Blencowe at a Cameo-hosted Super Bowl watch party in 2022. Photo by Getty.

Cameo Cuts Staff to Fewer Than 50 After Financial Stumble

By Natasha Mascarenhas and Kaya Yurieff · Jul 18, 2023 11:54am PDT · 5 comments

Cameo CEO and founder Steven Galanis with co-founders Devon Townsend and Martin Blencowe at a Cameo-hosted Super Bowl watch party in 2022. Photo by Getty.

Cameo Cuts Staff to Fewer Than 50 After Financial Stumble

By Natasha Mascarenhas and Kaya Yurieff · Jul 18, 2023 11:54am PDT · 5 comments

Cameo, the video shoutout app that gained in popularity during the pandemic shutdowns, told employees on Tuesday that it was laying off at least 80 workers because of financial pressures, according to two former employees involved in the layoffs. The cuts leave fewer than 50 people at the startup, according to the employees, or down nearly 90%... Cameo, the video shoutout app that gained in popularity during the pandemic shutdowns, told...

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang. Art by Clark Miller

Nvidia Accelerates AI Startup Investments, Nears Deal With Cloud Provider Lambda Labs

By Maria Heeter, Kate Clark and Stephanie Palazzolo · Jul 18, 2023 5:00am PDT

Nvidia is known for its stranglehold over the market for the data center chips that power ChatGPT and other artificial intelligence software. But in a matter of a few months, Nvidia has also become one of the biggest venture capital investors in an important class of customers who need its chips: cloud and AI software startups. In the latest... Nvidia is known for its stranglehold over the market for the data center chips that power ChatGPT...

Photo by Getty.

Musk’s Twitter Should Bite the Bullet on Equity Raising

By Martin Peers · Jul 17, 2023 5:00pm PDT · 1 comment

Elon Musk’s tweet early Saturday morning that Twitter is “still cash flow negative”—as in spending more than it is taking in—was, by Musk standards, a bit of a yawn. We’ve heard so much about Twitter’s precarious financial position over the past few months—as Musk acknowledged in the tweet, it’s due to both a roughly 50% drop in ad revenue and a... Elon Musk’s tweet early Saturday morning that Twitter is “still cash flow negative”—as in...

Photo via Shutterstock

Creator Economy

How Instagram Can Keep Threads Growth Going

By Kaya Yurieff · Jul 17, 2023 2:46pm PDT

On Friday, my colleague Sylvia and I published a behind-the-scenes report on how Instagram, after mulling a Twitter-type rival years ago, quickly moved to launch its text-based app Threads after Elon Musk took over Twitter. What struck me from our reporting is how much Instagram focused on creators from the start—even more so, according to some... On Friday, my colleague Sylvia and I published a behind-the-scenes report on how Instagram, after...

A SpaceX rocket lifts off in Florida in May. Photo by Getty

SpaceX Forecasts Doubling of Revenue to $8 Billion

By Becky Peterson and Cory Weinberg · Jul 17, 2023 1:12pm PDT

A SpaceX rocket lifts off in Florida in May. Photo by Getty

SpaceX Forecasts Doubling of Revenue to $8 Billion

By Becky Peterson and Cory Weinberg · Jul 17, 2023 1:12pm PDT

Elon Musk’s Space Exploration Technologies, the most highly valued private tech company in the U.S., has told some investors it expects to bring in about $8 billion in revenue in 2023, roughly doubling its revenue from the previous year, according to people familiar with the discussions. The expectation for rapid growth helps explain the... Elon Musk’s Space Exploration Technologies, the most highly valued private tech company in...

Pat Bajari, Amazon's former chief economist. Photo by Getty.

Architect of Amazon’s Economist Army Exits

By Theo Wayt · Jul 17, 2023 6:01am PDT · 3 comments

Over the past decade, Amazon has built an army of several hundred economists with doctorates who inform executives’ decisions in e-commerce, cloud computing and other businesses—an approach other tech giants have copied. The architect of that buildout, Chief Economist Pat Bajari, quietly left in March, he confirmed to The... Over the past decade, Amazon has built an army of several hundred economists with doctorates who...

China's Byd, which sells most of its EVs at home, is attempting to carve out a market for its electric Tang in Europe. Photo: Sjoerd van der Wal/Getty

The Electric: An EV Sales Warning for Major Automakers

By Steve LeVine · Jul 17, 2023 4:31am PDT · 1 comment

Over the next three years, General Motors, Toyota and other automakers plan to launch dozens of new electric vehicles, hoping to capture serious market share from industry leaders Tesla and Byd. But sales growth is slowing and unsold EVs are multiplying on dealer lots, casting doubt on the pace of the EV transition and some automakers’ chances... Over the next three years, General Motors, Toyota and other automakers plan to launch dozens of...

Character.AI's cofounders Noam Shazeer and Daniel de Freitas. Photos by Getty. Art by Shane Burke.

Character.AI in Talks to Raise Funding as Meta Platforms Tests Rival

By Jon Victor and Kate Clark · Jul 15, 2023 7:00am PDT

Character.AI, which lets users create artificial intelligence–powered chatbots modeled after figures like TV character Tony Soprano and Tesla CEO Elon Musk, is in talks with investors about raising an additional round of funding, according to a person with direct knowledge. The discussions come just four months after Character.AI said... Character.AI, which lets users create artificial intelligence–powered chatbots modeled...

Animation by Clark Miller

The New Mavericks: Mark Zuckerberg Joins Pilot–CEOs Elon Musk, Sam Altman in Pursuing Flying License

By Andrew Zucker · Jul 15, 2023 6:01am PDT · 6 comments

Animation by Clark Miller

The New Mavericks: Mark Zuckerberg Joins Pilot–CEOs Elon Musk, Sam Altman in Pursuing Flying License

By Andrew Zucker · Jul 15, 2023 6:01am PDT · 6 comments

When tech’s biggest names head home from the Allen and Co. mogul fest in Sun Valley, Idaho, this week, most will walk up the airstairs of their private jet and turn right toward their cream-colored cabin seats. But an increasing number could take a left and sit in the cockpit. Every top gun in tech, it seems, wants to become a pilot. The... When tech’s biggest names head home from the Allen and Co. mogul fest in Sun Valley, Idaho,...

Tech's Proudest Workforce No Longer

Tech's Proudest Workforce No Longer

By Jon Steinberg · Jul 15, 2023 6:00am PDT

Hi, welcome to your Weekend.The problems that have afflicted Google over the past 12 months are not unique to the search giant or its parent company Alphabet. The entire tech industry has been in correction mode after the hyper-growth years of 2020-2021, with more than 218,000 jobs slashed thus far in 2023, according to Layoffs.fyi.But Google’s... Hi, welcome to your Weekend.The problems that have afflicted Google over the past 12 months are...

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang

With Nvidia’s Help, Revenue Surges at Smaller Cloud Providers

By Aaron Holmes, Anissa Gardizy and Amir Efrati · Jul 14, 2023 2:22pm PDT · 9 comments

The demand for artificial intelligence chips is turning into a boom for several upstart cloud-server providers, thanks to the complicated politics of the tech industry. Consider the case of one young cloud provider, CoreWeave. The company has received a generous allotment of the latest AI server chips from Nvidia, the dominant force behind... The demand for artificial intelligence chips is turning into a boom for several upstart...

Art by Mike Sullivan

Why Meta Finally Went for Twitter’s Throat

By Sylvia Varnham O'Regan and Kaya Yurieff · Jul 14, 2023 11:42am PDT · 5 comments

Meta Platforms’ successful launch of its Twitter-like app, Threads, came together in just six months of furious work by a tiny team of engineers. But the desire within Meta’s top ranks to take on Twitter goes back years. The company’s Instagram unit even began building a text-based prototype similar to Twitter, which they... Meta Platforms’ successful launch of its Twitter-like app, Threads, came together in just...

Art by Mike Sullivan

American Cricket, Anyone? Behind a New Pro Sports League, a Lineup of Elite Tech CEOs

By Daniel Kaplan · Jul 14, 2023 10:00am PDT · 2 comments

Art by Mike Sullivan

The New Ballgame

American Cricket, Anyone? Behind a New Pro Sports League, a Lineup of Elite Tech CEOs

By Daniel Kaplan · Jul 14, 2023 10:00am PDT · 2 comments

Ordinarily, a new joint venture backed by executives from Microsoft, Adobe, Meta Platforms, Akamai and Accenture would grab major headlines in the U.S. tech press. But when that venture is a pro cricket league, well…it’s crickets. Still, this week’s launch of Major League Cricket marks a seminal moment for American cricket... Ordinarily, a new joint venture backed by executives from Microsoft, Adobe, Meta Platforms,...

Art by Clark Miller

Google’s Darkest Days: After Three Deaths, a Workforce Reckons with a Changed Company

By Becky Peterson · Jul 14, 2023 8:21am PDT · 22 comments

For Google employees, the news was a devastating turn in an already disorienting year. In May, a 31-year-old senior engineer at the company, later identified by police as Kevin Rawlings, died at Google’s New York office late at night in an apparent suicide. Rawlings’ death followed that of another Google employee in New York, a... For Google employees, the news was a devastating turn in an already disorienting year. In...

Photo by Unsplash.

Pro Weekly: Google's Influence on Generative AI

By Kalley Huang · Jul 14, 2023 8:00am PDT

Welcome back!Since we last wrote about The Information’s Generative AI Database, we added eight companies. We now track 55 companies building generative artificial intelligence technology or services. At least 10 of these companies have at least one founder who previously worked at Alphabet, including at its AI labs, Google Brain and... Welcome back!Since we last wrote about The Information’s Generative AI Database, we added eight...

Deal Activity on the Rise as Bankers Say Merger Conversations Are Picking Up

By Rachel Graf · Jul 14, 2023 6:00am PDT · 4 comments

After more than a year of stalled merger and acquisition activity, the deals market is showing signs of life. Bankers, lawyers and private equity dealmakers say they’ve had more discussions about potential acquisitions in the past several weeks than in the past year. And “it’s not just kicking tires,” said Brian McPeake,... After more than a year of stalled merger and acquisition activity, the deals market is showing...

Photo by Getty.

Court Ruling Will Create Ripples for Individual Crypto Investors

By Akash Pasricha · Jul 13, 2023 5:00pm PDT

Photo by Getty.

Court Ruling Will Create Ripples for Individual Crypto Investors

By Akash Pasricha · Jul 13, 2023 5:00pm PDT

Good news for institutional crypto investors: The courts have your back. But as for individual traders: You’re on your own. That was the spirit of a New York district judge’s ruling on an SEC lawsuit against Ripple Labs, which alleged that the crypto firm illegally sold securities. In a split-the-crypto decision, the judge ruled that Ripple... Good news for institutional crypto investors: The courts have your back. But as for individual...