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

Miguel J. Rodriguez/AFP/Getty Images.

SpaceX Aims For 2026 IPO After Hitting $800 Billion Valuation

By Katie Roof · Dec 5, 2025 11:33am PST · 9 comments

Elon Musk’s SpaceX has told investors and financial institution representatives that it is aiming for an initial public offering in the second half of next year, according to two people familiar with the discussions. The talks come as SpaceX is in the midst of holding a sale of shares held by investors and employees that would value... Elon Musk’s SpaceX has told investors and financial institution representatives that it is aiming...

Art by Clark Miller

‘Diamonds and Turds’: How Hock Tan Turned Broadcom Into Nvidia’s Nightmare

By Jemima McEvoy, Qianer Liu and Wayne Ma · Dec 5, 2025 9:02am PST · 9 comments

Early last year, Broadcom CEO Hock Tan decided to host what he likes to call a “coffee chat” with the employees of VMware, the software giant that the Broadcom CEO had recently purchased for $84 billion. The companywide meeting was Tan’s effort to introduce himself and answer questions from those employees about life at the semiconductor firm. ... Early last year, Broadcom CEO Hock Tan decided to host what he likes to call a “coffee chat” with...

Greg Peters. Photo by Getty

Netflix’s Warner Purchase is an $82.7 Billion Blunder

By Martin Peers · Dec 5, 2025 7:43am PST · 11 comments

Netflix’s $82.7 billion proposed acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery, announced Friday morning, will likely prove a stupendous error by a management team that until now has rarely put a foot wrong. Netflix paying a huge price—27.5 times next year’s expected profits, well above prevailing multiples for film and TV companies—for... Netflix’s $82.7 billion proposed acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery, announced Friday morning,...

Photos of Craig Federighi and Greg Joswiak via Getty Images; screenshot of John Ternus via YouTube. Art by Mike Sullivan

Why Silicon Valley is Buzzing About Apple CEO Succession

By Aaron Tilley and Wayne Ma · Dec 5, 2025 6:00am PST · 5 comments

Photos of Craig Federighi and Greg Joswiak via Getty Images; screenshot of John Ternus via YouTube. Art by Mike Sullivan

Why Silicon Valley is Buzzing About Apple CEO Succession

By Aaron Tilley and Wayne Ma · Dec 5, 2025 6:00am PST · 5 comments

Tim Cook has been CEO of Apple for nearly 15 years, during which time he has achieved the highly improbable: After replacing an iconic founder, Steve Jobs, Cook transformed Apple into one of the top three most valuable companies in the world. Why, then, are some in his orbit already talking about who could replace him as CEO? Senior employees at... Tim Cook has been CEO of Apple for nearly 15 years, during which time he has achieved the highly...

OpenAI's Sam Altman and Anthropic's Dario Amodei. Getty Images.

Amodei’s Advantage Over Altman Comes Into View

By Martin Peers · Dec 4, 2025 5:00pm PST · 3 comments

To a casual observer, OpenAI and Anthropic might have appeared—until recently—to be the Uber and Lyft of the AI world, with Anthropic the distant rival to the dominant OpenAI. That feels to be less the case nowadays. In fact, Anthropic—with its disciplined focus on serving businesses and expectations it will turn a profit several years before... To a casual observer, OpenAI and Anthropic might have appeared—until recently—to be the Uber and...

Daniela Amodei, co-founder and president of Anthropic. Getty Images.

When Will We See a $100 Billion-Valuation Startup Go Public?

By Katie Roof · Dec 4, 2025 3:28pm PST

For years, there has been speculation about when $100 billion-plus private tech companies like Stripe, SpaceX and Databricks could go public. Now AI darlings OpenAI and Anthropic are on IPO watch. Like every company that takes on significant venture capital, both companies have had early conversations with financial institutions about the... For years, there has been speculation about when $100 billion-plus private tech companies like...

Photo by Chona Kasinger/Bloomberg via Getty Images

Microsoft Wants to Sell Software Subscriptions—to AI Agents; AWS’ AI Fallback Plan

By Aaron Holmes and Kevin McLaughlin · Dec 4, 2025 10:44am PST · 1 comment

When AI software sellers pitch their vision of the future, it can start to feel paradoxical.On one hand, sellers say AI can meaningfully automate large swaths of white collar work, which should in theory help companies save money because they won’t need to pay as many humans. On the other hand, if companies cut jobs while embracing automation,... When AI software sellers pitch their vision of the future, it can start to feel paradoxical.On...

Leopold Aschenbrenner. Art by Clark Miller; screenshot via YouTube.

Google’s Cloud Partner for Its AI Chips Is in Talks to Raise $700 Million

By Anissa Gardizy, Cory Weinberg and Miles Kruppa · Dec 4, 2025 10:29am PST

Leopold Aschenbrenner. Art by Clark Miller; screenshot via YouTube.

Google’s Cloud Partner for Its AI Chips Is in Talks to Raise $700 Million

By Anissa Gardizy, Cory Weinberg and Miles Kruppa · Dec 4, 2025 10:29am PST

Fluidstack, a cloud provider aiding Google’s AI chip push, is in talks to raise more than $700 million in new financing, according to two people with knowledge of the deal. A one-year-old investment fund started by ex-OpenAI researcher Leopold Aschenbrenner is in talks to lead the financing, one of the people said. Aschenbrenner’s fund,... Fluidstack, a cloud provider aiding Google’s AI chip push, is in talks to raise more than $700...

CEO of Anthropic, Dario Amodei. Photo by Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images

Anthropic’s CEO Says He Doesn’t Do ‘Code Reds’

By Rocket Drew · Dec 4, 2025 7:00am PST · 1 comment

Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei on Wednesday threw shade at archrival OpenAI, saying at The New York Times Dealbook Summit that “we don’t have to do any code reds.” It was a reference to our report Monday that OpenAI CEO Sam Altman initiated a “code red,” shifting staff to improve ChatGPT and image generation in response to Google’s success with its... Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei on Wednesday threw shade at archrival OpenAI, saying at The New York...

Art by Mike Sullivan

Inside Web Publishers’ Quest to Stamp Out AI Bots Posing as Humans

By Catherine Perloff · Dec 4, 2025 6:00am PST · 1 comment

In recent months, some websites have become increasingly concerned about an influx of traffic from what they suspect are artificial intelligence chatbots, which can drive up those sites’ costs and swipe their content. But separating the bots from legitimate human visitors is no easy task. Several months ago, for example, a staffer at... In recent months, some websites have become increasingly concerned about an influx of traffic...

Chinese leader Xi Jinping has ordered a halt to the price wars in batteries, electric vehicles and solar. Photo: Xie Huanchi/Xinhua/Getty

The Electric: The Winners and Losers in China's Crackdown on the Battery Price War

By Steve LeVine · Dec 4, 2025 4:30am PST

In July, Beijing ordered a halt to a brutal price war that was roiling China’s electric vehicle industry. Now China’s leaders have told cutthroat battery makers to knock it off, too. In July, Beijing ordered a halt to a brutal price war that was roiling China’s electric vehicle...

Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff at the 2025 Dreamforce conference last month. Getty Images

Salesforce’s (Small) AI Lift

By Martin Peers · Dec 3, 2025 5:00pm PST · 2 comments

Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff at the 2025 Dreamforce conference last month. Getty Images

Salesforce’s (Small) AI Lift

By Martin Peers · Dec 3, 2025 5:00pm PST · 2 comments

There may be some blurry light at the end of the tunnel for Marc Benioff. Salesforce’s fiscal third-quarter numbers released on Wednesday suggest its revenue from AI products is growing enough to lift its annual growth rate just a bit. Salesforce is still growing very slowly—its new projection is for revenue to expand 9.2% in the current fiscal... There may be some blurry light at the end of the tunnel for Marc Benioff. Salesforce’s fiscal...

Photo via K2 Space

Satellite Startup Set to Quadruple Valuation to $3 Billion

By Cory Weinberg · Dec 3, 2025 12:42pm PST · 1 comment

K2 Space, a young satellite manufacturing startup stocked with former SpaceX engineers, is raising hundreds of millions of dollars in a funding round that would roughly quadruple its valuation to about $3 billion, according to people familiar with the matter and a corporate filing. The round underlines how defense and space investing has... K2 Space, a young satellite manufacturing startup stocked with former SpaceX engineers, is...

Art by Clark Miller

OpenAI Pivots to Counter Gemini 3

By The Information Staff · Dec 3, 2025 12:37pm PST · 1 comment

OpenAI has fundamentally shifted from a position of unchallenged dominance to a defensive “code red” as Google made gains in a part of the AI model development process that OpenAI has struggled in for the last 12 months. We asked Deep Research to analyze Sam Altman’s urgent pivot to the new “Garlic” model and the resulting delay of commercial... OpenAI has fundamentally shifted from a position of unchallenged dominance to a defensive “code...

Amy Dockser Marcus Joins The Information to Cover Health

By The Information Staff · Dec 3, 2025 9:43am PST

The Information is thrilled to announce that Amy Dockser Marcus, a Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter from the Wall Street Journal and three-time book author, is joining The Information to cover health and science for Weekend. Over her career, Amy has become one of the most authoritative figures in journalism on the subject of how scientific... The Information is thrilled to announce that Amy Dockser Marcus, a Pulitzer Prize-winning...

S&P Takes on AI Debt Deals and Crypto Giants

S&P Takes on AI Debt Deals and Crypto Giants

By Ken Brown · Dec 3, 2025 8:00am PST

S&P Takes on AI Debt Deals and Crypto Giants

The Information Finance

S&P Takes on AI Debt Deals and Crypto Giants

By Ken Brown · Dec 3, 2025 8:00am PST

More than a few years ago, I met with ratings agency analysts covering giant telecom equipment companies like Lucent Technologies. The telecom bust had already begun, but the analysts remained optimistic about the companies’ future. They were wildly wrong.Roughly a decade later, the dominant ratings agencies, Moody’s and Standard & Poor’s,... More than a few years ago, I met with ratings agency analysts covering giant telecom equipment...

Art by Mike Sullivan

AI’s ‘Split-Brain’ Problem

By Stephanie Palazzolo · Dec 3, 2025 7:00am PST

Developing new artificial intelligence models can sometimes seem like a game of whack-a-mole: fixing a model’s bad answers to certain questions can cause the model to give bad answers to other questions.One version of this problem, according to researchers at OpenAI and elsewhere, is known as a split-brain problem, in which changes to how a... Developing new artificial intelligence models can sometimes seem like a game of whack-a-mole:...

Art via Clark Miller

Microsoft Lowers Sales Staff’s Growth Targets For Newer AI Software

By Aaron Holmes · Dec 3, 2025 6:00am PST · 8 comments

Executives at Microsoft and other enterprise software firms heralded 2025 as the year artificial intelligence would be capable of automating tasks that involve multiple steps, such as generating dashboards based on company sales data. But as the year comes to a close, Microsoft has lowered expectations for how quickly it can get customers to... Executives at Microsoft and other enterprise software firms heralded 2025 as the year artificial...

Eventbrite CEO Julia Hartz. Getty Images.

Eventbrite Punches Exit Ticket

By Martin Peers · Dec 2, 2025 5:00pm PST

For all the venture capitalist–inspired hype around tech startups, it’s always good to remember that many are too niche to ever amount to anything—and should never go public. We got a reminder of that on Tuesday when Italian conglomerate Bending Spoons said it would buy ticketing firm Eventbrite for $500 million in cash. That’s a stunning... For all the venture capitalist–inspired hype around tech startups, it’s always good to remember...

Amit Zavery, president and chief product officer at ServiceNow. Getty Images.

ServiceNow’s $1 Billion-Plus Acquisition Aimed at Winning Agent War

By Valida Pau · Dec 2, 2025 3:10pm PST

Amit Zavery, president and chief product officer at ServiceNow. Getty Images.

ServiceNow’s $1 Billion-Plus Acquisition Aimed at Winning Agent War

By Valida Pau · Dec 2, 2025 3:10pm PST

Dealmakers apparently did not get much of a break over the Thanksgiving weekend, as a flurry of recent merger announcements showed. In just the last day, The Information broke the news that Marvell Technology was buying photonics startup Celestial for billions of dollars and Anthropic was making its first outright acquisition, for coding tools... Dealmakers apparently did not get much of a break over the Thanksgiving weekend, as a flurry of...