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

Nike Vaporfly ($250). Art by Clark Miller.

Market Research

Running Shoe or Cheat Code? Tech Pros on Their Performance-Enhancing Athletic Gear

By Annie Goldsmith · May 13, 2023 6:00am PDT · 2 comments

Samantha Whitmore has run seven marathons and six ultramarathons. Her favorite was a 44-mile rim-to-rim-to-rim run of the Grand Canyon, which she and her husband have traversed four times. “You’ll come away from the experience feeling like you are capable of anything,” she said. “It’s a mental as well as... Samantha Whitmore has run seven marathons and six ultramarathons. Her favorite was a 44-mile...

Linda Yaccarino. Photo by Bloomberg.

Musk Installs NBCU’s Linda Yaccarino to Be His Adult in the Room

By Sahil Patel, Erin Woo and Becky Peterson · May 12, 2023 1:00pm PDT · 9 comments

At SpaceX, Elon Musk’s top lieutenant Gwynne Shotwell has won a reputation as the adult in the room, able to turn Musk’s visionary ideas into commercial reality. Ad executives are hoping that former NBCUniversal ad sales chief Linda Yaccarino will play the same role at Twitter, where she was named Friday as CEO. People who know Musk... At SpaceX, Elon Musk’s top lieutenant Gwynne Shotwell has won a reputation as the adult in...

Photo via Bakkt.

Crypto Firm Bakkt Delists Tokens as Regulatory Pressures Mount

By Aidan Ryan · May 12, 2023 12:03pm PDT

Bakkt, the new owner of a crypto custody and clearing provider that helps fintech companies like Public.com and Webull offer crypto trading, is removing support for 25 of the 36 tokens it offers, a spokesperson confirmed. The decision, which impacts popular tokens like uniswap and avalanche, marks the latest example of companies pulling back on... Bakkt, the new owner of a crypto custody and clearing provider that helps fintech companies like...

Left: Passes founder Lucy Guo starts her morning with a 20 mph sprint on a Barry’s Bootcamp treadmill. Right: Guo inside her $6.7 million Miami apartment. Photograph by Celia D. Luna for The Information

Think She’s Fast? You Should Borrow Her Ferrari: Welcome to Lucy Guo’s Miami

By Margaux MacColl · May 12, 2023 11:03am PDT · 35 comments

Left: Passes founder Lucy Guo starts her morning with a 20 mph sprint on a Barry’s Bootcamp treadmill. Right: Guo inside her $6.7 million Miami apartment. Photograph by Celia D. Luna for The Information

Show Us Everything

Think She’s Fast? You Should Borrow Her Ferrari: Welcome to Lucy Guo’s Miami

By Margaux MacColl · May 12, 2023 11:03am PDT · 35 comments

This is “Show Us Everything,” a new feature from The Information Weekend, in which company founders share intimate glimpses of their everyday lives. When Lucy Guo told me she ran a 4:50 mile, I knew we were about to have very different experiences at Barry’s Bootcamp. It was a little after 8 a.m. when a black... This is “Show Us Everything,” a new feature from The Information Weekend, in...

Marissa Mayer in the office of her startup, Sunshine. Photograph by Carolyn Fong for The Information

Can Marissa Mayer Eclipse Herself?

By Arielle Pardes · May 12, 2023 9:00am PDT · 17 comments

Earlier this year, Marissa Mayer—signature blond bob, talking a mile a minute—taught a class on how to start your own company. It had been five years since Mayer had become a startup founder herself, and she had prepared a slide deck describing the finer details of entrepreneurship. As she clicked through the presentation, her... Earlier this year, Marissa Mayer—signature blond bob, talking a mile a minute—taught...

Turo CEO Andre Haddad. Photo by Getty

Pro Weekly: The Rare Startup With a Rising Valuation

By Kalley Huang · May 12, 2023 8:00am PDT

Welcome back! It’s no secret that the valuations of tech companies have fallen in the past year or so. We offer a window into just how far valuations of once high-flying startups have declined in our updated Tech IPO Tracker, which now includes estimated valuations of companies that were looking to go public as recently as last year. Since... Welcome back! It’s no secret that the valuations of tech companies have fallen in the past...

Art by Mike Sullivan.

TikTok Tests Exclusive Deals With Music Artists, Edging Into Labels’ Turf

By Erin Woo and Kalley Huang · May 12, 2023 6:00am PDT

Over the past few years, TikTok has become a viral hitmaker, sending musical artists like Lil Nas X to the top of the record charts and propelling the careers of Olivia Rodrigo and Megan Thee Stallion. Now TikTok’s parent, ByteDance, is angling to play a bigger role in these artists’ careers, which could reduce the increasingly steep... Over the past few years, TikTok has become a viral hitmaker, sending musical artists like Lil Nas...

Masayoshi Son. Photo by Bloomberg.

SoftBank’s Missed AI Call

By Martin Peers · May 11, 2023 5:00pm PDT

Masayoshi Son. Photo by Bloomberg.

SoftBank’s Missed AI Call

By Martin Peers · May 11, 2023 5:00pm PDT

What do you call a visionary who fails to act on their own vision? Masayoshi Son. The SoftBank chief was a prominent advocate for artificial intelligence for at least the past six years, long before OpenAI’s ChatGPT woke the world to AI’s potential. But lately, as everyone and their dog rushes to put money into AI startups, SoftBank has been... What do you call a visionary who fails to act on their own vision? Masayoshi Son. The SoftBank...

Changpeng Zhao. Photo by AP.

Binance.US Explores Ways to Cut Founder Changpeng Zhao’s Majority Stake

By Aidan Ryan and Erin Woo · May 11, 2023 3:32pm PDT

Binance.US and Changpeng Zhao, the crypto exchange’s founder, majority owner and chair, have been exploring ways to reduce his stake in the company, two people familiar with the matter said. Zhao has been trying to sell at least some of his stake since last summer, one of the people said. And in recent weeks, since the Commodity Futures... Binance.US and Changpeng Zhao, the crypto exchange’s founder, majority owner and chair,...

Photo by Bloomberg

Creator Economy

Meta’s Generative AI ‘Sandbox’ Is Also a Creator Play

By Isabelle Sarraf · May 11, 2023 2:53pm PDT

Meta Platforms is pouring more money into generative artificial intelligence and incorporating the technology into its products for advertisers and creators. The parent of Facebook and Instagram on Thursday unveiled an “AI Sandbox” of three new features that use generative AI it’s been testing with a small group of advertisers. One allows... Meta Platforms is pouring more money into generative artificial intelligence and incorporating...

Rewind AI co-founder Dan Siroker. Photo via Getty.

AI Startup Rewind Gets 170 Offers—and $350 Million Valuation in Unusual Fundraising

By Kate Clark · May 11, 2023 12:37pm PDT · 7 comments

Hungry venture capitalists inundated Rewind AI co-founder and CEO Dan Siroker the moment they caught wind of his artificial intelligence startup’s Series A plans, he wrote on Twitter last month. So he skipped the traditional fundraising process and tried something unorthodox.On April 14, he shared a link to an online form and asked investors to... Hungry venture capitalists inundated Rewind AI co-founder and CEO Dan Siroker the moment they...

Art by Clark Miller.

AI Can’t Save Snapchat From Itself

By Ryan Broderick · May 11, 2023 9:00am PDT · 1 comment

Art by Clark Miller.

AI Can’t Save Snapchat From Itself

By Ryan Broderick · May 11, 2023 9:00am PDT · 1 comment

A former employee for Snap, the company behind Snapchat, once told me there’s an inside joke at the company that Snap is “the research and development team for Meta Platforms.” The joke started as a self-deprecating dig at Instagram’s ripping off of Snapchat’s Stories feature in 2016. Nowadays, though, it often... A former employee for Snap, the company behind Snapchat, once told me there’s an inside...

How Valuations of IPO Hopefuls Have Plunged From Pandemic-Era Heights

By Kalley Huang · May 11, 2023 6:00am PDT · 3 comments

Valuations of startups that had been looking toward an initial public offering have fallen as much as 93% from their most recent private fundraising rounds, according to estimates by Caplight, which tracks trading of private-company shares on secondary markets. Caplight’s estimates are included in The Information’s newly updated Tech... Valuations of startups that had been looking toward an initial public offering have fallen as...

SES CEO Qichao Hu with the company's "A Sample" 100 ampere hour battery. Photo: Courtesy SES

The Electric: In the Battery Olympics, Startups Must Overcome Multiple Hurdles

By Steve LeVine · May 11, 2023 4:30am PDT

When lithium-metal battery developer SES AI held its first-quarter earnings call this week, executives were especially prepared for one question: When would the company complete its “A Sample”? And when that was done, when would SES finish its “B” and “C” samples? CEO Qichao Hu assured analysts that all three were on schedule, and the battery on... When lithium-metal battery developer SES AI held its first-quarter earnings call this week,...

Jack Dorsey, CEO of Block, and Jay-Z, former owner of Tidal. Photos by Bloomberg and Shutterstock.

What Block’s ‘Terrible Business Decision’ Means

By Martin Peers · May 10, 2023 5:00pm PDT

We have lots of news today, including Disney’s change of heart on Hulu (see below) and Google’s blizzard of new product announcements at its annual developer conference. For more on Google, see here. But arguably the most important though little-covered news story this week was a Delaware court’s decision on Tuesday to reject a shareholder... We have lots of news today, including Disney’s change of heart on Hulu (see below) and Google’s...

Table: Shane Burke

What’s Left After the Great Social Audio Experiment

By Isabelle Sarraf · May 10, 2023 3:08pm PDT · 1 comment

Table: Shane Burke

Creator Economy

What’s Left After the Great Social Audio Experiment

By Isabelle Sarraf · May 10, 2023 3:08pm PDT · 1 comment

Social audio’s heyday has definitively come and gone. After Clubhouse became an overnight sensation, other tech companies were quick to launch their own products that invited people to chat in live virtual rooms. But as the chart above shows, some such as Reddit and Spotify have recently shut down their Clubhouse rivals. And even Clubhouse,... Social audio’s heyday has definitively come and gone. After Clubhouse became an overnight...

Google CEO Sundar Pichai in Mountain View, Calif., May 10.

Four Takeaways From Google’s Big AI Event

By Jon Victor · May 10, 2023 2:20pm PDT · 14 comments

Google’s once-a-year product showcase on Wednesday confirmed what employees and rivals have been saying for months: the company is playing catch-up to rivals in conversational artificial intelligence and other fronts. During its annual event for software developers, the company announced new AI features for web search, Docs and... Google’s once-a-year product showcase on Wednesday confirmed what employees and rivals have...

Photo by Shutterstock

Memecoin Rally Could Bode Well for Bitcoin Network Startups

By Akash Pasricha · May 10, 2023 9:00am PDT

Over the past few months, crypto fans have been fixated on a pair of new tools that allow them to trade NFTs and create new tokens using bitcoin’s underlying blockchain network. That has sparked a surge in trading of Bitcoin-based digital artwork collections including BTC DeGods, Bitcoin Wizards, Bitcoin Punks and Bitcoin Pizzas. There’s... Over the past few months, crypto fans have been fixated on a pair of new tools that allow them to...

Tesla's Tom Zhu. Screenshot via YouTube. Photo of Tesla's Cybertruck by Bloomberg. Art by Mike Sullivan.

Tom Zhu: The Hardcore Tesla Executive Who Gets Stuff Done for Elon Musk

By Becky Peterson · May 10, 2023 8:00am PDT · 1 comment

For Tesla employees, the sight of Tom Zhu’s face early this year around the electric car maker’s factory in Austin, Texas, was a relief. For months, the absence of key Tesla executives in Austin had paralyzed the multimillion-dollar purchasing decisions required to build out the assembly line for its newest vehicle, a futuristic... For Tesla employees, the sight of Tom Zhu’s face early this year around the electric car...

Yusuf Mehdi, Microsoft Consumer Chief Marketing Officer, at the Bing chatbot launch in February. Photo by Getty

Microsoft Eyes Firefox Search Deal as Bing Chatbot Gains Sputter

By Aaron Holmes · May 10, 2023 6:00am PDT · 5 comments

Yusuf Mehdi, Microsoft Consumer Chief Marketing Officer, at the Bing chatbot launch in February. Photo by Getty

Microsoft Eyes Firefox Search Deal as Bing Chatbot Gains Sputter

By Aaron Holmes · May 10, 2023 6:00am PDT · 5 comments

In February, Microsoft’s Bing search engine launched a chatbot that gives humanlike answers to questions, a feature CEO Satya Nadella said would energize Bing and pressure web-search leader Google. But Bing has barely eked out any gains against Google in the past few months, new data show. That reality may leave Bing with only one option... In February, Microsoft’s Bing search engine launched a chatbot that gives humanlike answers...