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

Reflection AI CEO Misha Laskin and The Information reporter Akash Pasricha.

Why Nvidia Is Shying Away From the ‘Lead Investor’ Mantle

By Miles Kruppa · Oct 14, 2025 2:11pm PDT · 1 comment

When somebody writes the biggest check in a round of venture funding, they usually want to shout it from the rooftops. Not so for Nvidia in its latest investment.The chip giant caused a stir last week when it objected to being called the lead investor in a $2 billion round of funding for Reflection, a one-year-old company developing open-source... When somebody writes the biggest check in a round of venture funding, they usually want to shout...

Amazon CEO Andy Jassy. Photo via Getty

Amazon’s Solution to Tough AI Cloud Margins: Non-Nvidia Chips

By Kevin McLaughlin and Laura Mandaro · Oct 14, 2025 10:39am PDT

Welcome back! Salesforce’s annual customer conference Dreamforce is under way, so check back in the coming days for our coverage of the event and what it means for artificial intelligence in enterprises.Now on to today’s column…Last week, our report on the razor-thin gross profit margins Oracle generates from renting out Nvidia chips to AI... Welcome back! Salesforce’s annual customer conference Dreamforce is under way, so check back...

Reducto cofounders Raunak Chowdhuri and Adit Abraham. Photo courtesy of Reducto.

The Startup Using AI to Translate Documents Into Data

By Stephanie Palazzolo · Oct 14, 2025 7:00am PDT

If you’ve ever uploaded a picture of a receipt to an expense report or read a PDF of a book online, you’ve likely used optical character recognition, a decades-old technique that converts images of typed, handwritten or printed text into text that’s editable on a computer.OCR might not sound like the sexiest market. But it’s interesting enough... If you’ve ever uploaded a picture of a receipt to an expense report or read a PDF of a book...

Together AI CEO Vipul Ved Prakash. Photo via Getty

The Race to Rent Out Nvidia Chips in the Cloud Intensifies

By Stephanie Palazzolo, Wayne Ma, Miles Kruppa and Katie Roof · Oct 14, 2025 6:00am PDT

Together AI CEO Vipul Ved Prakash. Photo via Getty

The Race to Rent Out Nvidia Chips in the Cloud Intensifies

By Stephanie Palazzolo, Wayne Ma, Miles Kruppa and Katie Roof · Oct 14, 2025 6:00am PDT

Demand for Nvidia’s artificial intelligence chips has spawned half a dozen multibillion-dollar cloud providers that buy the chips, install them in data centers and rent them out to OpenAI and other AI developers. Another upstart, Together AI, is now joining the race among these neoclouds, which compete against traditional cloud providers such as... Demand for Nvidia’s artificial intelligence chips has spawned half a dozen multibillion-dollar...

Hock Tan, CEO of Broadcom. Getty Images

OpenAI’s Computing Capacity Binge

By Martin Peers · Oct 13, 2025 5:00pm PDT · 3 comments

The hardest-working people in tech right now must be the OpenAI team responsible for writing press releases. On Monday—Columbus Day or, if you prefer, Indigenous People’s Day—when much of American business and government was closed, OpenAI put out its sixth big news announcement of the past three weeks. The company unveiled another chip-supply... The hardest-working people in tech right now must be the OpenAI team responsible for writing...

OpenAI's Sam Altman, left, and SoftBank's Masayoshi Son. Images via Getty.

OpenAI Is Working With SoftBank’s Arm on AI Chip Effort

By Qianer Liu and Anissa Gardizy · Oct 13, 2025 3:16pm PDT · 3 comments

OpenAI’s development of its own artificial intelligence chip could end up benefiting SoftBank, one of its biggest shareholders, which is also helping the ChatGPT maker develop and finance its ambitious data center plan. OpenAI is talking with SoftBank’s Arm subsidiary about using an Arm-designed central processing unit with OpenAI’s AI... OpenAI’s development of its own artificial intelligence chip could end up benefiting...

Art by Clark Miller.

Borrowed Money Fueled Crypto’s $700 Billion Sell-Off

By Yueqi Yang · Oct 13, 2025 1:44pm PDT · 2 comments

The flash crash that rumbled across the crypto market on Friday can be traced to an unusual token that aims to track the dollar, a fast-growing exchange that allows investors to borrow heavily and speculative tokens that traders buy using debt. That combustible mix of borrowed money was ignited Friday by President Donald Trump’s announcement of... The flash crash that rumbled across the crypto market on Friday can be traced to an unusual token...

A rendering of Inversion's Arc spacecraft in orbit. Credit: Inversion

The Robots that Could Beat Optimus to Space

By Rocket Drew · Oct 13, 2025 7:10am PDT

A rendering of Inversion's Arc spacecraft in orbit. Credit: Inversion

The Robots that Could Beat Optimus to Space

By Rocket Drew · Oct 13, 2025 7:10am PDT

Before we get to our column, we should acknowledge OpenAI’s latest chip deal, this time with Broadcom, announced Monday morning. The Information first reported the two companies were in talks in July of last year but a lot has happened since then. Most obviously, OpenAI has also struck deals for supplies of AI chips with both Nvidia and AMD. We’... Before we get to our column, we should acknowledge OpenAI’s latest chip deal, this time with ...

Art by Mike Sullivan

AI Ad Tech ‘Land Grab’ Pits Salesforce Against Google, Microsoft and Amazon

By Catherine Perloff · Oct 13, 2025 6:00am PDT

The murky, highly complex business of helping advertisers buy space on digital media is currently dominated by Google, Amazon and a handful of much smaller ad tech firms. But an array of other companies, including Salesforce, Microsoft and a new initiative led by AppNexus founder Brian O’Kelley, hopes to use new artificial intelligence tools to... The murky, highly complex business of helping advertisers buy space on digital media is currently...

Photo: Courtesy Morgan Stanley.

The Electric: Morgan Stanley's Uber Bull on Why Investors Should Be Looking at Humanoids, Flying Cars and Brain Implants

By Steve LeVine · Oct 13, 2025 4:30am PDT · 2 comments

“Look up in the sky,” Morgan Stanley analyst Adam Jonas said, speaking on Zoom from his office in a mid-Manhattan high-rise. “How many airplanes do you see?” None, I said. Jonas said he didn’t see any either—and that was wasted space. “Look up in the sky,” Morgan Stanley analyst Adam Jonas said, speaking on Zoom from his office in...

Art by Clark Miller

The AI That’s Morally Repugnant

By Abram Brown · Oct 11, 2025 8:00am PDT

Welcome, Weekenders! In this newsletter:• The Big Read: E-commerce startups are back from the dead• The Arena: Sports braces for the new referee: AI• Artificial Intelligence: Meet the Cursor Resistance—the techies who hate AI coding tools• Plus, our Recommendations: “Our Common Nature,” “Empire of AI” and “Black Rabbit”A number of existential... Welcome, Weekenders! In this newsletter:• The Big Read: E-commerce startups are back from the...

Art by Clark Miller

Rise of the Cursor Resistance: Why Some Techies Want to Ignore AI Coding Tools

By Rocket Drew · Oct 11, 2025 6:00am PDT · 28 comments

Art by Clark Miller

Artificial Intelligence

Rise of the Cursor Resistance: Why Some Techies Want to Ignore AI Coding Tools

By Rocket Drew · Oct 11, 2025 6:00am PDT · 28 comments

Over the summer, two software engineers at Mixus, a San Francisco–based artificial intelligence startup, staged a bit of a rebellion by refusing to follow instructions to rely heavily on Cursor or any of the other popular new coding-assistance software. They figured “they could do better than Cursor,” said an incredulous Shai Magzimof,... Over the summer, two software engineers at Mixus, a San Francisco–based artificial...

Sara Germano (left) and Bay FC's Aly Wagner. Photo by Erin Beach

Sports Braces for a New Referee: AI

By Sara Germano · Oct 11, 2025 6:00am PDT · 1 comment

About halfway through a panel discussion at The Information’s first-ever sports business event this week, Bill Schlough, chief information officer of the San Francisco Giants, asked our capacity crowd for a show of hands. How many people, he asked, were in favor of artificial intelligence–assisted umpiring in baseball? Almost every hand in... About halfway through a panel discussion at The Information’s first-ever sports business event...

Sora screenshots via TikTok

Slop Takes Over My Social Media Feed. I Don’t Hate It

By Nick Wingfield · Oct 10, 2025 3:00pm PDT · 1 comment

I’m not sure what everyone else’s social media feeds are looking like these days, but over the past 72 hours mine has become unrecognizable to me. On TikTok, I’ve been inundated with short clips of slap-boxing competitions between Fred Rogers and Kurt Cobain, Albert Einstein and Stephen Hawking, and Elvis Presley and Bob Marley. I’ve watched... I’m not sure what everyone else’s social media feeds are looking like these days, but over the...

Art by Clark Miller

E-Commerce Startups Are Back From the Dead

By Ann Gehan · Oct 10, 2025 9:24am PDT · 1 comment

Lately, venture capitalist Ben Lerer has found himself experiencing a bit of déjà vu: Once again, there’s a whole nest of thriving e-commerce startups worth his attention. When I reached him a couple weeks ago, his firm, Lerer Hippeau, was just putting money into two of them: Elm Biosciences, a new skin care startup, and Stiller’s... Lately, venture capitalist Ben Lerer has found himself experiencing a bit of déjà...

Art by Mike Sullivan

How Amazon Product Listings Are Evolving as AI Changes Search

By Catherine Perloff and Ann Gehan · Oct 10, 2025 6:00am PDT · 1 comment

Art by Mike Sullivan

How Amazon Product Listings Are Evolving as AI Changes Search

By Catherine Perloff and Ann Gehan · Oct 10, 2025 6:00am PDT · 1 comment

When ecommerce consultant David Khandrius had to help a client who sold baby strollers write a product listing for Amazon’s website in the past, he typically tried to jam as many words into the listing as possible to ensure Amazon’s search algorithm would capture it. That might result in a convoluted title for a listing, like “travel stroller... When ecommerce consultant David Khandrius had to help a client who sold baby strollers write a...

Photo via Adobe

Amazon and Google Take Another Stab at Being Glean

By Kevin McLaughlin · Oct 9, 2025 5:00pm PDT

It’s been nearly a year since we scooped the news that OpenAI, Google, Snowflake and Cohere were all working on artificial intelligence search products similar to the one startup Glean made a big splash with. Glean’s AI-powered search lets workers at companies easily find emails, Slack messages and other data scattered across business... It’s been nearly a year since we scooped the news that OpenAI, Google, Snowflake and Cohere were...

Venture capitalist Ben Horowitz and Vercel CEO Guillermo Rauch. Photos via Getty and YouTube

Ben Horowitz Hires His ‘Jensen’; Vercel Starts a Venture Fund

By Natasha Mascarenhas · Oct 9, 2025 2:30pm PDT

Andreessen Horowitz co-founder Ben Horowitz says only a small subset of AI companies, such as portfolio companies Safe Superintelligence Inc. and Thinking Machines Labs, need massive compute contracts. But many AI startups still need help getting access to bottlenecked resources, like chips to train their models.The venture firm said Thursday it... Andreessen Horowitz co-founder Ben Horowitz says only a small subset of AI companies, such as...

DocuSign CEO Allan Thygesen. Screenshot via YouTube

OpenAI, Software’s Grim Reaper?

By Aaron Holmes and Erin Woo · Oct 9, 2025 10:30am PDT

OpenAI can hardly announce a new product before a chorus of tech pundits declare it will kill a bunch of other applications. In the most recent example, investors in several public software companies went into a panic last week after OpenAI showed a demo of an internal artificial intelligence tool it developed to analyze contracts. The... OpenAI can hardly announce a new product before a chorus of tech pundits declare it will kill a...

Art by Clark Miller

The $100 Billion Strategy: OpenAI Is Using Its Cash to Reshape the Chip Market

By The Information Staff · Oct 9, 2025 7:15am PDT

Art by Clark Miller

The $100 Billion Strategy: OpenAI Is Using Its Cash to Reshape the Chip Market

By The Information Staff · Oct 9, 2025 7:15am PDT

The path to building the most advanced AI is being throttled by a single point of failure: reliance on Nvidia’s hardware. OpenAI, the industry’s most demanding customer, is aggressively moving to dismantle this monopoly through a calculated multi-vendor strategy that is fundamentally reshaping the AI hardware market. We turned to our Deep... The path to building the most advanced AI is being throttled by a single point of failure:...