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

Art by Clark Miller.

Amazon Hands Out ‘Small Business’ Label to Huge Sellers

By Theo Wayt · Apr 4, 2023 6:00am PDT · 2 comments

What do a bottle of shampoo made by Johnson & Johnson, a lamp from a Chinese seller and an Arc’Teryx jacket all have in common? Amazon has labeled them all as coming from American small businesses. Amazon began adding a “Small Business” badge to items on its U.S. site about a year ago, pitching it as an effort to... What do a bottle of shampoo made by Johnson & Johnson, a lamp from a Chinese seller and an...

Photo by Getty.

Wall Street Greets WWE-UFC Deal With a Smackdown

By Martin Peers · Apr 3, 2023 5:00pm PDT

There’s no AI (and perhaps not too much human intelligence) involved in either World Wrestling Entertainment or Endeavor’s Ultimate Fighting Championship. But for sheer spectacle, today’s proposed merger of the two companies beats anything going on right now in tech—and we’re not talking just about what’s on the screen. Vince McMahon’s maneuvers... There’s no AI (and perhaps not too much human intelligence) involved in either World Wrestling...

Illustration by Shane Burke

Creator Economy

The Twitter Verification Purge That Wasn’t

By Kaya Yurieff · Apr 3, 2023 2:00pm PDT · 1 comment

Public figures ranging from celebrities to journalists braced for their blue check marks on Twitter to disappear over the weekend if they weren’t paying for Twitter Blue, its subscription service. For the most part, this didn’t happen. Instead, the social network simply decided to update the description of verified accounts. But some rivals are... Public figures ranging from celebrities to journalists braced for their blue check marks on ...

Ben Horowitz (left) and Marc Andreessen at the Future Investment Initiative Institute conference in Miami in late March. Photo courtesy of FII Institute

Saudi Arabia Discloses Ties to Andreessen Horowitz, Dozens of Other Venture Funds

By Becky Peterson and Kate Clark · Apr 3, 2023 12:49pm PDT · 10 comments

Ben Horowitz (left) and Marc Andreessen at the Future Investment Initiative Institute conference in Miami in late March. Photo courtesy of FII Institute

Saudi Arabia Discloses Ties to Andreessen Horowitz, Dozens of Other Venture Funds

By Becky Peterson and Kate Clark · Apr 3, 2023 12:49pm PDT · 10 comments

For several years, venture capital firms have been cagey about whether they have raised money from Saudi Arabia, following the 2018 murder of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi in one of the country’s consulates. The Saudis, for their part, are no longer keeping quiet. The venture arm of the Saudi Public Investment Fund, the... For several years, venture capital firms have been cagey about whether they have raised money...

Art by Mike Sullivan

Birth of a Salesman: OpenAI Sheds Its Lab Coat to Seek Big Deals

By Aaron Holmes and Isabelle Sarraf · Apr 3, 2023 9:26am PDT

OpenAI has for years relied on a small, nimble team, composed primarily of researchers, to develop impressive artificial intelligence models rivaling those from Google and Microsoft. Now the seven-year-old startup is acting more like a traditional enterprise software company by building a sales team and aggressively courting customers to use its... OpenAI has for years relied on a small, nimble team, composed primarily of researchers, to...

Salesforce’s Benioff Discussing Management Reorg

By Kevin McLaughlin · Apr 3, 2023 6:00am PDT · 1 comment

Salesforce has always been known for internal power struggles. Now, as the dust settles from the January departure of Bret Taylor as co-CEO, at least two senior executives are vying for a wider range of responsibilities, perhaps anticipating the day CEO and co-founder Marc Benioff finally steps aside. Srinivas Tallapragada, chief engineering... Salesforce has always been known for internal power struggles. Now, as the dust settles from the...

Ford and Tesla have sought alliances with China's CATL in U.S. battery factories. Photo: Zhu Difeng/VCG/Getty

The Electric: With U.S. Rules in Place, a Non-Chinese Battery Supply Chain Takes Shape

By Steve LeVine · Apr 3, 2023 4:30am PDT · 2 comments

Last week, the Biden administration released near-final rules governing how companies and consumers can tap hundreds of billions of dollars in U.S. tax credits meant to spur the rise of a mine-to-factory electric vehicle battery industry. But companies including Ford and Tesla have rushed ahead of the rules, in the process helping to reveal what... Last week, the Biden administration released near-final rules governing how companies and...

Instacart CEO Fidji Simo. Photo by Bloomberg

In Reversal, Instacart Hikes Its Valuation 18%

By Cory Weinberg and Erin Woo · Apr 2, 2023 1:10pm PDT · 4 comments

Instacart CEO Fidji Simo. Photo by Bloomberg

In Reversal, Instacart Hikes Its Valuation 18%

By Cory Weinberg and Erin Woo · Apr 2, 2023 1:10pm PDT · 4 comments

After slashing its private stock price four times last year, Instacart is feeling better about itself. The grocery delivery firm, whose business skyrocketed during the pandemic but later cooled off, in late February raised its internal stock price 18% compared to December, according to a person with direct knowledge. While the company’s... After slashing its private stock price four times last year, Instacart is feeling better about...

Fear and Longing in the AI Wars

Fear and Longing in the AI Wars

By Jon Steinberg · Apr 1, 2023 7:00am PDT

Hi, welcome to your Weekend! This is Abe filling in for Jon, who returns as Weekender-in-Chief next Saturday.If the cars, brain implants and spaceships don’t pan out, Elon Musk has a promising future as a fear-monger. His was the leading name attached to a widely discussed open letter published this week that urged a halt in artificial... Hi, welcome to your Weekend! This is Abe filling in for Jon, who returns as...

Left: Fount CEO Andrew Herr watches chief technology officer Clayton Kim dangle in Kim’s Marina Del Rey, Calif. apartment, which doubles as the startup’s office. Right: A sample Fount morning supplement pack. Photographs by Christopher Brown for The Information.

Show Us Everything

At Home With the Health Commandos

By Annie Goldsmith · Apr 1, 2023 7:00am PDT · 3 comments

This is “Show Us Everything,” a new feature from The Information Weekend, in which company founders share intimate glimpses of their everyday lives. Clayton Kim first bonded with his boss, Fount CEO Andrew Herr, over “the crazy shit that we’ve tried on our own bodies.” Kim, the health and... This is “Show Us Everything,” a new feature from The Information Weekend, in...

Art by Clark Miller.

Founders' Keepers

Ancient Swords, Stylus Pens and Other Things CEOs Can’t Work Without

By Paul Armstrong · Apr 1, 2023 7:00am PDT

As the saying goes, “You can tell a lot about a person by the type of sword they keep near their desk.” That’s certainly true for company founders like Jason Kingsley of the gaming studio Rebellion Developments. For others, keepsakes veer more toward de-stressing objects, like Clément Kerstenne’s deck of cards, or... As the saying goes, “You can tell a lot about a person by the type of sword they keep near...

TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew. Photo by Bloomberg

Revenue at TikTok Owner ByteDance Rose More Than 30% in 2022, Topped $80 Billion

By Juro Osawa · Apr 1, 2023 6:00am PDT

TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew. Photo by Bloomberg

Revenue at TikTok Owner ByteDance Rose More Than 30% in 2022, Topped $80 Billion

By Juro Osawa · Apr 1, 2023 6:00am PDT

ByteDance, the Chinese owner of TikTok, generated more than $80 billion in annual revenue last year, up more than 30% from roughly $60 billion in 2021, according to two people with knowledge of the figure. The 2022 result, which hasn’t previously been reported, is significant because most technology companies with that kind of revenue... ByteDance, the Chinese owner of TikTok, generated more than $80 billion in annual revenue last...

Art by Clark Miller.

Market Research

The Full-Body Scanners Will See You Now

By Zara Stone · Mar 31, 2023 11:00am PDT · 5 comments

In late September 2022, Ryan Crownholm, a 46-year-old entrepreneur from Los Angeles, donned a pair of plush surgical scrubs and hopped onto a stainless-steel MRI table at Prenuvo, a fast-growing chain of body-scanning clinics. Crownholm, the founder of dirt-hauling startup DirtMatch, was undergoing an elective MRI, which cost him... In late September 2022, Ryan Crownholm, a 46-year-old entrepreneur from Los Angeles, donned a...

Photography by Katie Thompson for The Information

Search Has Its Goliath. Could Richard Socher Be Its David?

By Arielle Pardes · Mar 31, 2023 9:00am PDT · 2 comments

On a rare rain-free afternoon this spring, Richard Socher stood atop a hill, surveying the direction of the wind. The wind often interests Socher, the 38-year-old co-founder and CEO of search engine You.com, because in his spare time he likes to fly around on a paramotor, a parachute-like contraption supported by a backpack propeller. We were... On a rare rain-free afternoon this spring, Richard Socher stood atop a hill, surveying the...

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman. Photo by Bloomberg

Pro Weekly: OpenAI’s Other Model

By Scott Thurm · Mar 31, 2023 8:00am PDT

Welcome back!OpenAI has been the talk of the tech world in recent months, following the release of the ChatGPT chatbot in November and GPT-4, the newest edition of its machine-learning model, earlier this month. Its pace of product releases is impressive, especially from a company that started as a nonprofit research organization. Welcome back!OpenAI has been the talk of the tech world in recent months, following the release...

Bakkt's team ringing the first trade bell at the New York Stock Exchange in 2021. Photo via NYSE.

Crypto Company Bakkt’s Make-or-Break Deal

By Aidan Ryan · Mar 31, 2023 6:01am PDT

Bakkt's team ringing the first trade bell at the New York Stock Exchange in 2021. Photo via NYSE.

Crypto Company Bakkt’s Make-or-Break Deal

By Aidan Ryan · Mar 31, 2023 6:01am PDT

The crypto industry is littered with the corpses of now-shuttered businesses. Among the survivors, at least so far, is Bakkt, a crypto company founded by New York Stock Exchange owner Intercontinental Exchange. But after a previously unreported second round of layoffs earlier this month, a slew of executive exits and the shuttering of its... The crypto industry is littered with the corpses of now-shuttered businesses. Among the...

Sundar Pichai, CEO of Alphabet, Inc. Photo by Bloomberg.

Google, OpenAI and the Coming Copyright Storm

By Jessica E. Lessin · Mar 30, 2023 5:00pm PDT · 2 comments

So here is a question: If you develop some software and train it on random material from the internet to make it smarter, do the creators of that material have any right to the software?What happens if you are Google and you train your software with public conversations generated from a chatbot made by OpenAI, one of your main competitors, which... So here is a question: If you develop some software and train it on random material from the...

Photo via Gumroad

Creator Economy

Gumroad Turns a Profit After Price Hike

By Isabelle Sarraf · Mar 30, 2023 3:17pm PDT

Gumroad, which provides tools to creators including landing pages and help with product sales, recorded the largest monthly profits in its 11-year history in recent months after raising prices.Gumroad recorded net income of $82,270 in January, Sahil Lavingia, Gumroad’s founder and CEO, told its crowdfunding investors and creators Thursday in a... Gumroad, which provides tools to creators including landing pages and help with product sales,...

Photo via Mercury

Startup Banks are in the Hot Seat

By Kate Clark · Mar 30, 2023 12:06pm PDT

We’re three weeks past the start of a once-in-a-generation banking crisis that saw the demise of a core startup institution, Silicon Valley Bank. Neobanks are feeling bullish: They picked up billions in new deposits in what’s been their biggest-ever period of growth. As a result, investor interest in their businesses is picking up again. ... We’re three weeks past the start of a once-in-a-generation banking crisis that saw the demise of...

Orlando Bravo, co-founder of Thoma Bravo LLC. Photo by Bloomberg.

Private Equity Firms’ Secret Weapon for Big Software Buyouts

By Rachel Graf · Mar 30, 2023 10:00am PDT · 10 comments

Orlando Bravo, co-founder of Thoma Bravo LLC. Photo by Bloomberg.

Private Equity Firms’ Secret Weapon for Big Software Buyouts

By Rachel Graf · Mar 30, 2023 10:00am PDT · 10 comments

When Thoma Bravo was drawing up the financing of its $8 billion acquisition of Coupa Software last year, the private equity giant didn’t turn to a bank, and it didn’t get a traditional loan. Instead, it tapped a group of non-bank lenders including Sixth Street for a relatively obscure type of financing—one that has been making... When Thoma Bravo was drawing up the financing of its $8 billion acquisition of Coupa Software...