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

Construct Capital founders Rachel Holt, left, and Dayna Grayson. Photos by Construct Capital.

Uber, NEA Alums Launch $300 Million Fund to Back Supply Chain Startups

By Kate Clark · Apr 19, 2022 11:10am PDT · 1 comment

When former Uber executive Rachel Holt and ex-NEA partner Dayna Grayson formed Construct Capital in early 2020, they set out to back companies that many venture capitalists overlook: manufacturing, supply chain and industrial startups. Then came the coronavirus pandemic, which threw global manufacturing into disarray and made supply chain... When former Uber executive Rachel Holt and ex-NEA partner Dayna Grayson formed Construct Capital...

Hand Physics Lab, a popular hand tracking-based Quest game slated to receive an upgrade. Credit: Holonautic.

Meta’s Improved Hand Tracking Tech; A $35 Million VR Training Raise

By Mathew Olson · Apr 19, 2022 11:00am PDT

I may as well go straight for the pun here: I have to hand it to Meta Platforms. The hand tracking update it announced today for the Quest headsets looks to be a serious upgrade. For developers, it promises to make controller-free experiences on Quest a lot more usable with little to no extra work required on their end. The better hand tracking... I may as well go straight for the pun here: I have to hand it to Meta Platforms. The hand...

Why Google and Facebook Keep Shutting Down Abortion Pill, Sex Product Ads

By Sarah Krouse · Apr 19, 2022 6:00am PDT · 1 comment

Women’s healthcare startup Hey Jane spent more than a year running ads on Google promoting its services providing abortion pills by mail. Then, in late March, Google shut off the three-year-old startup’s ad campaigns with no warning. In the subsequent ten days, Hey Jane lost hundreds of thousands of dollars in revenue, while... Women’s healthcare startup Hey Jane spent more than a year running ads on Google promoting...

Chart by Mike Sullivan

Crypto Startup Funding Keeps Climbing (Chart); Moonbirds NFTs Surge in Debut

By Akash Pasricha · Apr 18, 2022 5:18pm PDT

Chart by Mike Sullivan

Crypto Startup Funding Keeps Climbing (Chart); Moonbirds NFTs Surge in Debut

By Akash Pasricha · Apr 18, 2022 5:18pm PDT

Our two new charts confirm what investors and founders have been telling us for a few weeks: crypto startup funding is still red hot even though total funding into startups has fallen from late last year. Venture capitalists sunk $10 billion globally into crypto startups in the first three months of this year, up 13% from the final... Our two new charts confirm what investors and founders have been telling us for a few weeks:...

Didi offices in Hangzhou, China. Photo by Bloomberg.

Why Didi Global’s Delisting Shouldn’t Be Forgotten

By Martin Peers · Apr 18, 2022 5:00pm PDT

A lot of tech companies went public in 2021, and many if not most of them are trading below their IPO prices. That’s OK—markets rise and fall, and with any luck, the shares will recover eventually. But if you’re a shareholder in one such company, Chinese ride-hailing firm Didi Global, you may be out of luck. Didi revealed today that it plans to... A lot of tech companies went public in 2021, and many if not most of them are trading below their...

Lindsey Lee Lugrin, the CEO of FYPM, a Glassdoor for influencers. Photo: Sissy Martin

Creator Economy

The Startups Seeking to Improve Pay Transparency for Creators

By Kaya Yurieff · Apr 18, 2022 3:04pm PDT

Next month, New York City is set to begin requiring employers to list salary ranges on job postings, a new law aimed at increasing pay transparency. For social media creators, the equivalent—figuring out how much they should get paid by advertisers for sponsored posts—has long been a source of confusion.“It’s an uncomfortable thing to even ask,”... Next month, New York City is set to begin requiring employers to list salary ranges on job...

Palmer Luckey at an Oculus event in 2015. Photo: Bloomberg.

Luckey Reflects on a Decade of Oculus; Microsoft’s Kotick Problem

By Mathew Olson · Apr 18, 2022 11:00am PDT

Friday marked the 10-year anniversary of Oculus, the VR headset maker now owned by Meta Platforms. And Oculus founder Palmer Luckey used the occasion to announce plans to write about his time at the helm of the Oculus brand, beginning with the company’s early days of Kickstarter crowdfunding. Given the drama surrounding his departure from the... Friday marked the 10-year anniversary of Oculus, the VR headset maker now owned by Meta...

Illustration by Josh Brill.

More Startup Layoffs Are Coming as Investors Push Founders to Conserve Cash

By Kate Clark · Apr 18, 2022 10:10am PDT · 7 comments

Illustration by Josh Brill.

More Startup Layoffs Are Coming as Investors Push Founders to Conserve Cash

By Kate Clark · Apr 18, 2022 10:10am PDT · 7 comments

Silicon Valley startups are facing hard choices: Cut jobs now or risk incurring worse pain later. Following a hiring and funding boom in 2021, technology startups have started to lay off workers to conserve cash. In the past month alone, more than 2,000 employees have lost their jobs at half a dozen startups, including delivery company Gopuff... Silicon Valley startups are facing hard choices: Cut jobs now or risk incurring worse pain later....

Photo of Amazon's Brian Huseman by Bloomberg. Art by Mike Sullivan

Amazon Policy Chief Wields Sharp Elbows in D.C.—and the Office

By Paris Martineau and Josh Sisco · Apr 18, 2022 6:00am PDT · 1 comment

In 2019, Rep. David Cicilline, chair of the House antitrust subcommittee, sent Amazon a letter questioning whether one of the company’s lawyers was truthful in his testimony before the committee a week earlier. The letter rattled some members of Amazon’s public policy team, who worried that the incident had inflamed regulators... In 2019, Rep. David Cicilline, chair of the House antitrust subcommittee, sent Amazon a letter...

Scrap iron, abundant in the U.S., could be a key raw material for LFP. Photo: Luke Sharrett/Bloomberg

The Iron Age for EVs Finally Arrives With a Rush of Companies in the U.S. and Europe

By Steve LeVine · Apr 17, 2022 2:00pm PDT

Welcome back to The Electric!Save the date: Electric vehicle sales are ticking up around the world, but in one country they rose threefold last year—India, where a mania has erupted over electric two-wheelers. The leading company in the nascent industry is Hero Electric, India’s largest manufacturer of electric two-wheelers. So I’m excited to... Welcome back to The Electric!Save the date: Electric vehicle sales are ticking up around the...

Art by Clark Miller

The Crypto Prince and the Ethereum Killer: A Tale of Two Blockchain Billionaires

By Jon Steinberg · Apr 16, 2022 8:00am PDT

Hi, welcome to your Weekend! In a week that saw the world’s richest man sucking up all the oxygen in the newsroom, it is important now for us all to step away. To take a deep breath, to celebrate Easter or Passover or Ramadan with our families, to watch some NBA playoffs (go Warriors!), to play outside with our kids or animals. Sing it with... Hi, welcome to your Weekend! In a week that saw the world’s richest man sucking up all the...

Twitter chair Bret Taylor. Photo by Bloomberg.

Twitter’s Poison Pill Is a Joke

By Martin Peers · Apr 15, 2022 3:30pm PDT

Twitter chair Bret Taylor. Photo by Bloomberg.

Twitter’s Poison Pill Is a Joke

By Martin Peers · Apr 15, 2022 3:30pm PDT

Who knew Twitter’s board was made up of a bunch of standup comedians? That’s the only conclusion that can be drawn from the company’s statement today announcing the poison pill it adopted to fend off Elon Musk. Hilariously, Twitter suggests that the oxymoronically named “shareholder rights plan” is “intended to enable all shareholders to realize... Who knew Twitter’s board was made up of a bunch of standup comedians? That’s the only conclusion...

Twitter's headquarters. Photo by Bloomberg.

Why Silver Lake and Elliott Are the Wild Cards in the Twitter Takeover Battle

By Jessica Toonkel and Martin Peers · Apr 15, 2022 1:57pm PDT

The last time Twitter was under shareholder assault, from activist investor Elliott Management in 2020, Silver Lake CEO Egon Durban called Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey offering to help, according to a person familiar with the situation. Twitter accepted the outreach: Silver Lake invested $1 billion in Twitter and got a board seat, in a move unveiled... The last time Twitter was under shareholder assault, from activist investor Elliott Management in...

Art by Clark Miller

Can Peace Last Between Crypto’s Visionary Rivals?

By Margaux MacColl · Apr 15, 2022 1:15pm PDT · 5 comments

Last October, an image appeared on Twitter of a crypto Mount Rushmore: a drawing of four men etched in stone, looking out onto a valley of trees. There was Dorian Nakamoto, rumored to be the pseudonymous creator of bitcoin, Satoshi Nakamoto. There was the distinct, angular jawline of Vitalik Buterin, co-founder of Ethereum, the world’s second... Last October, an image appeared on Twitter of a crypto Mount Rushmore: a drawing of four men...

Art by Clark Miller

Short Story Long

The Week We All Got BeReal: A Brief History of a Social Media Platform’s Out-of-Nowhere Explosion

By Annie Goldsmith · Apr 15, 2022 12:00pm PDT

If you know what BeReal is, you’re either a French teen or a U.S. college student, or you found out about it 10 minutes ago. The social media site—now the 28thmost downloaded free app in the App Store—was founded by two French entrepreneurs in 2020, leaped to popularity in Europe last summer and has been catching fire on college campuses since... If you know what BeReal is, you’re either a French teen or a U.S. college student, or you found...

Art by Clark Miller

‘The Perfect Slot Machine’: TikTok’s Most Addictive Design Features Are Being Cloned Across the Internet

By Annie Goldsmith · Apr 15, 2022 12:00pm PDT · 1 comment

Art by Clark Miller

‘The Perfect Slot Machine’: TikTok’s Most Addictive Design Features Are Being Cloned Across the Internet

By Annie Goldsmith · Apr 15, 2022 12:00pm PDT · 1 comment

To the untrained eye, it’s hard to distinguish between a TikTok post and the videos you’ll find on Snack, a new video-based dating app. And there’s a very good reason for that. “When we came up with the idea for Snack,” said founder Kim Kaplan, who was previously an executive at Plenty of Fish, a dating app bought by the Match Group for $575... To the untrained eye, it’s hard to distinguish between a TikTok post and the videos you’ll find...

Art: Jesus Escudero

Apple’s Privacy Rules Leave Its Engineers in the Dark

By Wayne Ma · Apr 15, 2022 6:00am PDT · 6 comments

Privacy is one of the selling points of Apple products. But for employees who develop these products, it can be a pain. Apple doesn’t collect a lot of customer data from its services, including Apple Maps, the Siri voice assistant and its paid video-streaming service, according to more than a dozen former employees. And the customer data... Privacy is one of the selling points of Apple products. But for employees who develop these...

FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried (Photo courtesy of FTX. Art by Mike Sullivan/)

Sam Bankman-Fried Would Be ‘Excited’ to Help Elon Musk Decentralize Twitter

By Akash Pasricha · Apr 14, 2022 6:37pm PDT

If Elon Musk gains control of Twitter, FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried would be “excited” to help him decentralize the social network and move it to a blockchain, if that were Musk’s vision, he told me in an interview Thursday. “Would I be tempted to take part in it financially as well?” Bankman-Fried said. “It’s certainly something I’d consider,... If Elon Musk gains control of Twitter, FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried would be “excited” to help him...

Tesla CEO Elon Musk in 2021. Photo by Bloomberg

Free Speech and the Cult of Elon: Why Musk Wants to Buy Twitter

By Jessica Toonkel, Paris Martineau and Jessica E. Lessin · Apr 14, 2022 5:44pm PDT · 4 comments

Elon Musk’s $43 billion proposed takeover of Twitter is a grand gesture in favor of free speech and a statement of concern about censorship from social media platforms. It’s also deeply personal. As Musk has become the richest man in the world—overseeing $1 trillion–valuation Tesla, SpaceX and more—he has grown more... Elon Musk’s $43 billion proposed takeover of Twitter is a grand gesture in favor of free...

Elon Musk. Photo by Bloomberg

Musk's Offer Puts Twitter In Play

By Martin Peers · Apr 14, 2022 5:00pm PDT

Elon Musk. Photo by Bloomberg

Musk's Offer Puts Twitter In Play

By Martin Peers · Apr 14, 2022 5:00pm PDT

Poor old Elon. He finally makes clear his intentions for Twitter with a $43 billion takeover offer and no one seems to believe it! Just check out Twitter’s stock price: It fell today to close $45.08, 17% below the offer price. Even Musk seems doubtful, telling a TED conference he wasn’t sure he could seal the deal. And Twitter itself is showing... Poor old Elon. He finally makes clear his intentions for Twitter with a $43 billion takeover...