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

OpenAI Is Catching Up To Anthropic in AI Coding

By Stephanie Palazzolo · Oct 9, 2025 7:00am PDT

OpenAI’s effort to catch up to Anthropic in code-generating artificial intelligence seems to be working. New data show OpenAI’s Codex coding assistant has pulled ahead of Anthropic’s Claude Code assistant in certain coding capabilities. Codex usage among developers is also catching up to Claude Code’s.Developers approved 74.3% of code... OpenAI’s effort to catch up to Anthropic in code-generating artificial intelligence seems to be...

Art by Mike Sullivan

Can Microsoft Resist Trump’s Call for Exec’s Firing as Tech Bends to His Will?

By Sylvia Varnham O'Regan · Oct 9, 2025 6:00am PDT · 10 comments

Recently, President Donald Trump demanded that Microsoft sack its head of global affairs, Lisa Monaco, over her past roles in the Biden and Obama administrations. He added that her position was “unacceptable” given Microsoft’s major contracts with the U.S. government. Microsoft hasn’t yet responded publicly to Trump’s demand. If Monaco stays at... Recently, President Donald Trump demanded that Microsoft sack its head of global affairs, Lisa...

These metals-rich nodules carpet the Pacific seafloor 800 miles southeast of Hawaii. Photo: William West/AFP/Getty

Exclusive From The Electric: On the Hunt for More Equity Stakes, Trump May Have Seafloor Mining in His Sights

By Steve LeVine · Oct 9, 2025 4:30am PDT

In August, more than 100 investors in The Metals Co., a developer of metals found on the seafloor, gathered for a daylong meeting at Manhattan’s luxury Whitby Hotel that extended to evening karaoke. There was a buzz in the crowd because, 14 years after its launch, The Metals Co. says it may finally get to mine the seabed floor in the Pacific... In August, more than 100 investors in The Metals Co., a developer of metals found on the...

Cursor CEO Michael Truell. Art by Clark Miller; screenshot via YouTube

Cursor-Maker Anysphere Considers Investment Offers at $30 Billion Valuation

By Natasha Mascarenhas · Oct 8, 2025 6:15pm PDT · 1 comment

Cursor CEO Michael Truell. Art by Clark Miller; screenshot via YouTube

Cursor-Maker Anysphere Considers Investment Offers at $30 Billion Valuation

By Natasha Mascarenhas · Oct 8, 2025 6:15pm PDT · 1 comment

Anysphere, the maker of coding assistant Cursor, is considering offers to invest in the startup at around a $30 billion valuation, roughly triple its valuation in a round that closed mid-year, according to people familiar with the discussions. The offers indicates that investor excitement about the three-year-old startup has remained high... Anysphere, the maker of coding assistant Cursor, is considering offers to invest in the startup...

AMD CEO Lisa Su and Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang. Photos via Getty

Nvidia Chief’s Not-So-Subtle Dig at AMD

By Martin Peers · Oct 8, 2025 5:00pm PDT · 1 comment

AMD CEO Lisa Su should hope Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang takes digs at her more often. After Huang turned up on CNBC on Wednesday morning—where he discussed both the AMD-OpenAI chip deal announced on Monday and Nvidia's own dealmaking—AMD’s stock rallied 11%! The stock, which had jumped 24% on Monday but only inched up a bit on Tuesday, is now up 43%... AMD CEO Lisa Su should hope Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang takes digs at her more often. After Huang...

Photo by Craig Warga and Jamie Watts

Partner Content

AI Agenda Live Recap: The Compute Squeeze and the Startup Playbook for Scaling

By The Information Partnerships · Oct 8, 2025 4:10pm PDT

After a brief reprieve, artificial intelligence enterprises once again find themselves in a bidding war for graphics processing units. For frontier labs and hyperscalers, spending billions on training and inference is business as usual. But for startups and independent developers, compute costs can quickly swallow the bottom line. At a recent... After a brief reprieve, artificial intelligence enterprises once again find themselves in a...

Relace cofounders Preston Zhou and Eitan Borgnia. Photo courtesy of Relace.

Andreessen Backs a Startup Developing Tools That Coding Agents Use

By Stephanie Palazzolo · Oct 8, 2025 7:00am PDT

Countless startups sell tools to software engineers, such as version control systems to track who’s making changes to a codebase, and sandboxes where code can be safely run and tested without affecting the main system.Now, a startup is building such tools for artificial intelligence agents that aim to do the work of human coders. Andreessen... Countless startups sell tools to software engineers, such as version control systems to track who...

Art by Clark Miller.

New Stablecoin Law Is Spurring Competition and Threatening Profits

By Yueqi Yang · Oct 8, 2025 6:00am PDT

Art by Clark Miller.

New Stablecoin Law Is Spurring Competition and Threatening Profits

By Yueqi Yang · Oct 8, 2025 6:00am PDT

In just over two months, the new stablecoin law has upended crypto markets, giving a group of new competitors a chance to wrest control from the industry’s two dominant companies, Tether and Circle. The biggest disruptor has been Stripe, which is benefiting from its well-timed $1.1 billion acquisition of stablecoin infrastructure startup Bridge... In just over two months, the new stablecoin law has upended crypto markets, giving a group of new...

Photo via Getty

The AI Profit Fantasy

By Martin Peers · Oct 7, 2025 5:00pm PDT · 6 comments

In years to come, we might look back at this period in tech as one in which the entire industry was in the grip of a mass delusion, namely the idea that artificial intelligence would prove to be good for business. Of course, it’s still early days. But so far, AI has proven lucrative primarily for the companies involved in making and selling AI... In years to come, we might look back at this period in tech as one in which the entire industry...

Peter Thiel. Photo via Getty

Why I’m Covering Defense Tech; Founders Fund’s Concentrated Bets

By Cory Weinberg · Oct 7, 2025 1:47pm PDT

Greetings from Los Angeles, where I’ve taken up a new residence after a cross-country road trip from New York. During a tour of a defunct U.S. Steel mill in Pittsburgh and a visit to the uranium boom-and-bust town of Moab, Utah, I spent time thinking about the technology that has reshaped national security, industrialization, energy and... Greetings from Los Angeles, where I’ve taken up a new residence after a cross-country road trip...

Stoke Space tests its advanced full-flow staged combustion rocket engine. (Image courtesy of Stoke.)

Space Startup Stoke Nears $2 Billion Valuation in New Financing

By Cory Weinberg and Katie Roof · Oct 7, 2025 11:59am PDT

Stoke Space, a startup building reusable rockets that are smaller than SpaceX’s, is raising hundreds of millions of dollars in a funding round that would value it at nearly $2 billion, roughly double its last private round, two people familiar with the matter said. The new lead investor is Thomas Tull’s U.S. Innovative Technology Fund, one of... Stoke Space, a startup building reusable rockets that are smaller than SpaceX’s, is raising...

OpenAI DevDay 2025. Screenshot via YouTube/OpenAI

OpenAI Makes it Easier to Build Agents—and Harder to Switch Models

By Aaron Holmes · Oct 7, 2025 10:30am PDT · 1 comment

OpenAI DevDay 2025. Screenshot via YouTube/OpenAI

OpenAI Makes it Easier to Build Agents—and Harder to Switch Models

By Aaron Holmes · Oct 7, 2025 10:30am PDT · 1 comment

Over the past year, companies have been tinkering with generative artificial intelligence to create customized agents that automate complex tasks, but they’ve gotten mixed results. Now, OpenAI is pushing a new suite of tools to make the assembly of agents easier, and to peel customers away from competitors like Anthropic and Google.OpenAI on... Over the past year, companies have been tinkering with generative artificial intelligence to...

Art by Clark Miller

AI Creates Art. So We Need to Rethink How Copyright Protects Artists

By Cristóbal Valenzuela · Oct 7, 2025 9:03am PDT · 1 comment

The history of art is the history of technology. And generally, each time technology has advanced and helped a new medium flourish, the legal system has evolved to support the artists pushing the boundaries of human creativity. Yet our approach to the newest frontier—works created with generative artificial intelligence—threatens to... The history of art is the history of technology. And generally, each time technology has advanced...

Image via Clark Miller

Internal Oracle Data Show Financial Challenge of Renting Out Nvidia Chips

By Anissa Gardizy, Anita Ramaswamy and Cory Weinberg · Oct 7, 2025 8:00am PDT · 8 comments

Oracle became the best-performing megacap stock of 2025 after its executives said last month that the once-sleepy database firm will generate an astonishing $381 billion in revenue from renting out specialized cloud servers to OpenAI and other artificial intelligence developers over the next five fiscal years. But internal documents show the... Oracle became the best-performing megacap stock of 2025 after its executives said last month that...

Sam Altman. Screenshot via YouTube

OpenAI’s Walled-Garden Moment

By Stephanie Palazzolo and Catherine Perloff · Oct 7, 2025 7:00am PDT

OpenAI on Monday unveiled its biggest-yet effort to bring all of the web’s consumer activities directly into ChatGPT, as it aims to turn the chatbot into a so-called superapp that people can use to control any app in their lives—similar to Facebook’s efforts from 15 years ago. But before we get too excited, we should remember we’ve been... OpenAI on Monday unveiled its biggest-yet effort to bring all of the web’s consumer activities...

Art by Clark Miller; Optimus image courtesy of Tesla.

As Elon Musk Preps Tesla’s Optimus for Prime Time, Big Hurdles Remain

By Theo Wayt · Oct 7, 2025 6:00am PDT · 4 comments

Art by Clark Miller; Optimus image courtesy of Tesla.

As Elon Musk Preps Tesla’s Optimus for Prime Time, Big Hurdles Remain

By Theo Wayt · Oct 7, 2025 6:00am PDT · 4 comments

When Elon Musk takes the stage at Tesla’s annual meeting next month, one of the centerpieces of his plan to impress shareholders will be a dancing troupe of Optimus bots, the humanoid machines that he says will eventually eclipse Tesla’s electric vehicle business, which is suffering from flagging sales growth. Behind the scenes, however, the... When Elon Musk takes the stage at Tesla’s annual meeting next month, one of the centerpieces of...

Sam Altman at OpenAI DevDay 2025. Photo via YouTube/OpenAI

OpenAI’s ‘Everything Everywhere All at Once’ Strategy

By Martin Peers · Oct 6, 2025 5:00pm PDT · 3 comments

Sam Altman’s “Everything Everywhere All at Once” strategy for OpenAI was on full display on Monday. Early in the day, the ChatGPT creator revealed that it will work with Advanced Micro Devices to use that company’s artificial intelligence chips, the latest example of OpenAI’s wide-ranging efforts to assure itself of more computing capacity. The... Sam Altman’s “Everything Everywhere All at Once” strategy for OpenAI was on full display on...

Art via Mike Sullivan

Why OpenAI Offered to Pay $500 Million For A Startup With Videogame Data

By Stephanie Palazzolo · Oct 6, 2025 7:00am PDT · 2 comments

Before we get to today’s column, in a sign of how insatiable OpenAI’s appetite for computing power is, the ChatGPT-maker and Nvidia rival Advanced Micro Devices announced a partnership Monday morning that would see OpenAI deploy six gigawatts of AMD’s chips over multiple years, starting in the second half of next year. As part of the deal,... Before we get to today’s column, in a sign of how insatiable OpenAI’s appetite for computing...

Sam Altman, left, and Peter Thiel. Photos by Getty

Founders Fund Shifts From Caution to Concentrated Bets on AI

By Miles Kruppa · Oct 6, 2025 6:00am PDT · 4 comments

Peter Thiel’s Founders Fund is doubling down on its biggest artificial intelligence bets, embracing a concentrated strategy as rivals spread their bets across a wide swath of startups. Among them are OpenAI, data center builder Crusoe and General Matter, a nuclear fuel startup the firm has incubated, Founders Fund said at its recent annual... Peter Thiel’s Founders Fund is doubling down on its biggest artificial intelligence bets,...

Iron, XPeng's humanoid robot. Photo: Sven Hoppe/Picture Alliance/Getty

The Electric: In a Big Month, China's XPeng Will Unveil a Humanoid Robot and a Flying Car

By Steve LeVine · Oct 6, 2025 4:30am PDT

Iron, XPeng's humanoid robot. Photo: Sven Hoppe/Picture Alliance/Getty

The Electric: In a Big Month, China's XPeng Will Unveil a Humanoid Robot and a Flying Car

By Steve LeVine · Oct 6, 2025 4:30am PDT

China’s XPeng is best known for its electric vehicles, which have begun to take off in Europe. But later this month, the company also plans to introduce a new version of its humanoid robot, Iron, to be deployed in its factories and showrooms. China’s XPeng is best known for its electric vehicles, which have begun to take off in Europe....