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 Mike Sullivan.

Anthropic Changes Pricing to Bill Firms Based on AI Use as Demand Jumps

By Kevin McLaughlin and Aaron Holmes · Apr 14, 2026 3:10pm PDT · 8 comments

Businesses whose employees are heavy users of Anthropic’s Claude products are likely to pay significantly more for them after the company changed its pricing model to charge business customers based on the amount of AI they use. The shift, which which some customers started to notice in recent weeks, is the latest indication of... Businesses whose employees are heavy users of Anthropic’s Claude products are likely to pay...

Art by Mike Sullivan.

Crypto Firms Seek Access to Anthropic’s Mythos While Shoring Up Defenses

By Yueqi Yang · Apr 14, 2026 11:48am PDT

Major crypto exchanges and custodians including Coinbase and Binance are racing to prepare for powerful AI models like Anthropic’s Mythos, which the AI firm says could be dangerously good at finding and exploiting software vulnerabilities. Coinbase, the biggest U.S. crypto exchange, has been in “close communication” with Anthropic about Mythos,... Major crypto exchanges and custodians including Coinbase and Binance are racing to prepare for...

Praveen Neppalli Naga. Photo by Big Event Media/Getty Images

Uber CTO Shows How Claude Code Can Blow Up AI Budgets

By Laura Bratton · Apr 14, 2026 10:33am PDT · 3 comments

Uber’s surging use of AI coding tools, particularly Anthropic’s Claude Code, has maxed out its full year AI budget just a few months into 2026, according to chief technology officer Praveen Neppalli Naga.“I'm back to the drawing board because the budget I thought I would need is blown away already,” Neppalli Naga said in an interview.Neppalli... Uber’s surging use of AI coding tools, particularly Anthropic’s Claude Code, has maxed out its...

Art via Getty Images

The Enigma of the Data Labeling Startup Explosion

By Stephanie Palazzolo · Apr 14, 2026 7:52am PDT

Art via Getty Images

The Enigma of the Data Labeling Startup Explosion

By Stephanie Palazzolo · Apr 14, 2026 7:52am PDT

If you’re like me, you’ve been watching the explosion of data labeling and reinforcement learning environment startups with a mix of confusion and awe. These companies, which hire experts in fields like medicine, law and software engineering and build fake copies of apps like Salesforce and Excel to produce training data for AI models, are... If you’re like me, you’ve been watching the explosion of data labeling and reinforcement learning...

Art by Mike Sullivan

Polymarket Reverses Course on Startups That Piggyback on Insider Trades

By Michael Roddan · Apr 14, 2026 6:00am PDT

Polymarket was already under pressure to curb insider trading when it launched a program late last year to support startups that sent trades to its prediction market. Those companies quickly began handing suspected insider trading accounts to their own customers, letting them copy those trades. Now Polymarket has launched an audit of those... Polymarket was already under pressure to curb insider trading when it launched a program late...

Elon Musk. Krisztian Bocsi/Bloomberg via Getty Images

What SpaceX’s Numbers Do and Don’t Tell Us

By Martin Peers · Apr 13, 2026 5:00pm PDT

The mysteries of SpaceX are no more. My colleague Cory Weinberg today wrote the second of two stories in four days that pulled back the curtain on the finances of Elon Musk’s space company, which is planning to go public in a couple of months. You don’t have to wait for the formal IPO filing to get the dirt on SpaceX.The bottom line is that... The mysteries of SpaceX are no more. My colleague Cory Weinberg today wrote the second of two...

Ethan Swope/Bloomberg/Getty.

New SpaceX Numbers Show Reliance on Starlink

By Cory Weinberg · Apr 13, 2026 4:12pm PDT · 1 comment

A new set of numbers for Elon Musk’s SpaceX makes it clear that the success of its potential initial public offering will depend on investors embracing the growth of the company’s Starlink satellite internet business. The other two businesses inside SpaceX—rocket launches and AI—are burning cash and not generating the kind of growth... A new set of numbers for Elon Musk’s SpaceX makes it clear that the success of its potential...

Garrett Lord, Co-Founder and CEO of Handshake. Image via YouTube

Handshake, Mercor Revenue Surges on Demand for Human Contractors to Train AI

By Julia Hornstein and Cory Weinberg · Apr 13, 2026 2:13pm PDT · 1 comment

Garrett Lord, Co-Founder and CEO of Handshake. Image via YouTube

Handshake, Mercor Revenue Surges on Demand for Human Contractors to Train AI

By Julia Hornstein and Cory Weinberg · Apr 13, 2026 2:13pm PDT · 1 comment

AI firms’ voracious appetite for more data has lifted sales for obscure startups doing the industry’s unglamorous work: contracting with lawyers, PhD holders and medical doctors who grade the answers AI models generate. The latest is Handshake, a 12-year-old startup that began as a job site for college graduates. Handshake’s gross... AI firms’ voracious appetite for more data has lifted sales for obscure startups doing the...

Chery says it will release the premium Exeed EX7 SUV late this year, powered by a semisolid battery. Photo: Courtesy MIIT.

The Electric: In the U.S. and China, Exaggerated Claims of Solid State Batteries

By Steve LeVine · Apr 13, 2026 9:00am PDT

In a livestreamed event last month, China’s Chery Automobile said it had made a breakthrough in solid-state batteries and would deploy them next year in a luxury electric SUV that would have a whopping 560 miles of range. In a livestreamed event last month, China’s Chery Automobile said it had made a breakthrough in...

Microsoft’s data center project Mount Pleasant, Wis. in late 2025. Joe Timmerman/Wisconsin Watch via Getty Images

AI Infrastructure

Microsoft Slowed AI Spending. Now It’s Playing Catchup

By Ann Davis Vaughan · Apr 13, 2026 8:00am PDT · 1 comment

Microsoft is playing catch-up in the AI power race by grabbing big sites in Texas and West Virginia for data centers fired by natural gas. It wasn’t long ago that the company had a big lead.In the early days of the AI boom, Microsoft’s in-house energy team amassed a 9-gigawatt war chest of grid-powered data center sites that was the envy of the... Microsoft is playing catch-up in the AI power race by grabbing big sites in Texas and West...

Art by Mike Sullivan

‘Reinforcement Learning Gym’ Startup, Buoyed by Labs’ Appetite For Training Data, Reaches $750 Million Valuation

By Stephanie Palazzolo · Apr 13, 2026 7:00am PDT

AI developers are getting more creative in how they acquire data to train AI models. For instance, they’re paying startups to develop copies of popular apps, like Salesforce or Excel, to teach models how to use the apps—otherwise known as reinforcement learning environments or gyms.One beneficiary of this trend is Fleet, a two-year-old startup... AI developers are getting more creative in how they acquire data to train AI models. For...

Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella. Getty Images.

Microsoft Plots New Copilot Features Inspired by OpenClaw

By Aaron Holmes · Apr 13, 2026 6:00am PDT · 2 comments

Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella. Getty Images.

Microsoft Plots New Copilot Features Inspired by OpenClaw

By Aaron Holmes · Apr 13, 2026 6:00am PDT · 2 comments

As Microsoft faces growing competition for business customers from Anthropic, it is developing new features that would make its AI assistant Copilot function more like OpenClaw, the open-source AI agent that has taken the AI industry by storm in recent months. A newly created team under Microsoft corporate vice president Omar Shahine is “... As Microsoft faces growing competition for business customers from Anthropic, it is developing...

Netflix co-CEO Greg Peters. Photo by Getty

Netflix on Deck This Week; Pressure on Software Stocks Intensifies

By Martin Peers · Apr 12, 2026 3:00pm PDT

We interrupt our regular AI programming to talk about something more entertaining: Netflix! The video-streaming giant kicks off tech earnings season on Thursday with its first-quarter earnings. It’s the first quarterly report since Netflix walked away from its $82.7 billion deal to buy Warner Bros. Discovery’s streaming and studio operations, so... We interrupt our regular AI programming to talk about something more entertaining: Netflix! The...

Sunday Insights

Atlassian and Figma Lead the R&D Arms Race

By Laura Bratton · Apr 12, 2026 8:00am PDT · 4 comments

Wall Street’s sell-off of enterprise software stocks resumed in earnest late last week, sending stocks such as ServiceNow and Snowflake down around 8% or so on Friday, as jitters over the impact of new AI tools on older software firms intensified. But the panic may be too indiscriminate. One way of sorting out which software firms may have more... Wall Street’s sell-off of enterprise software stocks resumed in earnest late last week, sending...

Illustration: Clark Miller (Photos: AMC)

Silicon Valley, Ready to Laugh Again?

By Abram Brown · Apr 11, 2026 8:23am PDT

Welcome, Weekenders! In this newsletter:• The Big Read: Meet the father of Claude Code• Artificial Intelligence: The hijinks around tokenmaxxing • Plus, Recommendations—our weekly pop culture picks: “Who Blew Up the Georgia Guidestones?” “Those Who Are About to Die” and “It Was Just an Accident”Over a good many years, “Silicon Valley,”... Welcome, Weekenders! In this newsletter:• The Big Read: Meet the father of Claude Code• ...

Art by Clark Miller

The ‘Tokenmaxxing’ Tide May Already Be Turning

By Jyoti Mann, Nick Wingfield and Catherine Perloff · Apr 11, 2026 7:00am PDT

Art by Clark Miller

The ‘Tokenmaxxing’ Tide May Already Be Turning

By Jyoti Mann, Nick Wingfield and Catherine Perloff · Apr 11, 2026 7:00am PDT

At tech giants like Meta Platforms, employees may have embraced the idea of “tokenmaxxing” as a way to show off how dedicated they are to using AI in their jobs. Don’t expect businesses beyond the deepest-pocketed tech giants to follow their lead, though. As The Information reported on Monday, employees inside Meta have been competing to see who... At tech giants like Meta Platforms, employees may have embraced the idea of “tokenmaxxing” as a...

Jeetu Patel, president and chief product officer at Cisco Systems Inc..

Cisco in Talks to Buy AI Security Startup Astrix for at Least $250 Million

By Valida Pau and Stephanie Palazzolo · Apr 10, 2026 2:18pm PDT

Cisco Systems is in talks to acquire Astrix Security, a five-year-old Israeli cybersecurity startup that sells software to monitor and secure AI agents, for between $250 million and $350 million, according to people with knowledge of the deal. That would represent at least a 25% premium to the startup’s last valuation of around $200 million, one... Cisco Systems is in talks to acquire Astrix Security, a five-year-old Israeli cybersecurity...

Art by Clark Miller .

‘Tokenmaxxing’ and the AI Margin Squeeze

By The Information Staff · Apr 10, 2026 11:11am PDT

Debate around the prospects for companies like Anthropic and OpenAI has long centered on growth in both users and revenue. In recent months, the bigger story is how usage is changing and what that means for costs. Instead of asking a chatbot a single question, some users are increasingly relying on tools like Claude Code or ChatGPT’s coding... Debate around the prospects for companies like Anthropic and OpenAI has long centered on growth...

Art by Clark Miller; YouTube

How a Self-Taught Programmer Became the Father of Claude Code

By Rocket Drew · Apr 10, 2026 9:09am PDT

Boris Cherny, the head of Claude Code, almost parted ways with Anthropic for good last summer. Instead, he has helped shape the coding agent into a megahit that has closed the distance with rival OpenAI. Claude Code has supercharged Anthropic’s growth. After rising from $1 billion in December to $2.5 billion in February, Claude Code’s annualized... Boris Cherny, the head of Claude Code, almost parted ways with Anthropic for good last summer....

SeongJoon Cho/Bloomberg via Getty Images.

SK Hynix Is the Overlooked Memory Chip Maker

By Anita Ramaswamy · Apr 10, 2026 6:00am PDT · 2 comments

SeongJoon Cho/Bloomberg via Getty Images.

SK Hynix Is the Overlooked Memory Chip Maker

By Anita Ramaswamy · Apr 10, 2026 6:00am PDT · 2 comments

The memory chip market right now is governed by a triumvirate of companies, led by South Korean firm SK Hynix, followed by Samsung, also of South Korea, and U.S. chipmaker Micron. The three stocks soared more than 200% over the last year—and yet they’re still cheap, especially relative to Nvidia’s stock. Investors aren’t giving the... The memory chip market right now is governed by a triumvirate of companies, led by South Korean...