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

People using VR to see scenes of Syrian cities being shelled. Photo by AP

New Study Casts Doubt on VR’s Value as Empathy Machine

By Mathew Olson · Jul 28, 2021 11:00am PDT

The conventional wisdom in tech is that virtual reality helps people empathize more easily. Like so many popular ideas in tech, this belief caught on thanks in large part to a TED Talk. In 2015, VR designer Chris Milk gave a presentation in which he said VR is “a machine, but through this machine we become more compassionate, we become more... The conventional wisdom in tech is that virtual reality helps people empathize more easily. Like...

Bumble signage at the Nasdaq when it went public in February. Photo by Bloomberg.

Where Has the IPO Lockup Gone? Tech Firms Trim Them Back

By Aidan Ryan · Jul 28, 2021 9:19am PDT · 2 comments

Some of last year’s most valuable tech initial public offerings, including Airbnb, Doordash and Snowflake, allowed pre-IPO shareholders to sell their stock before the traditional six-month waiting period expired. A more recent crop of listings, as well as Robinhood's imminent IPO, show the shift away from rigid lockups not only has... Some of last year’s most valuable tech initial public offerings, including Airbnb, Doordash...

Mike Sullivan

Revenue Surges at Google, Snap as Shift to Digital Ads Accelerates

By Sarah Krouse, Sylvia Varnham O'Regan and Sahil Patel · Jul 28, 2021 6:01am PDT

Dell is rethinking how it spends this year’s ad budget. The computer maker is likely to shift as much as 15% of the nearly $100 million it typically spends on TV advertising in the Americas to digital ads, according to a person familiar with the plans. The company and other large brands are accelerating a yearslong shift in spending toward... Dell is rethinking how it spends this year’s ad budget. The computer maker is likely to...

Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai. Photo by Bloomberg.

Big Tech's Boffo Performance

By Martin Peers · Jul 27, 2021 5:00pm PDT

Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai. Photo by Bloomberg.

Big Tech's Boffo Performance

By Martin Peers · Jul 27, 2021 5:00pm PDT

Apple, Microsoft and Alphabet each reported impressively robust earnings results for the June quarter, demonstrating that these giant companies continue to go from strength to strength even as they face greater regulatory scrutiny. If there is any downside for the companies and their shareholders, it’s that the results will only concentrate... Apple, Microsoft and Alphabet each reported impressively robust earnings results for the June...

Pinterest CEO Ben Silbermann. Photo by Bloomberg

Creator Economy

Pinterest’s Interest in Creators Comes Back From the Dead

By Kaya Yurieff · Jul 27, 2021 4:45pm PDT

Pinterest doesn’t immediately come to mind as a top attraction for content creators. But like other content platforms, it’s been fighting for the attention of influencers by adding new ways for them to make money. On Tuesday, the app announced features allowing creators to earn commissions from directing Pinterest users to buy specific products... Pinterest doesn’t immediately come to mind as a top attraction for content creators. But like...

Stronghold Eyes $100 Million IPO; Binance Plots a Makeover

By Hannah Miller · Jul 27, 2021 2:16pm PDT

FTX and Binance aren’t the only cryptocurrency companies with dreams of going public. Bitcoin miner Stronghold Digital Mining filed for a $100 million initial public offering on Tuesday. It is the latest sign that despite growing environmental concerns about bitcoin’s power consumption, companies that fuel the calculations needed to verify... FTX and Binance aren’t the only cryptocurrency companies with dreams of going public. Bitcoin...

Facebook's Oculus Quest 2. Facebook on Tuesday suspended sales of the headset temporarily. Image courtesy Facebook/Oculus

Facebook Kicks Off a Metaverse Reorganization

By Mathew Olson · Jul 27, 2021 11:00am PDT · 2 comments

Mark Zuckerberg wasn’t kidding when he said last week he hopes Facebook will morph from a social media giant into a metaverse company. As the company revealed Monday, his ambition is beginning to have real effects on Facebook’s org chart.As reported, Facebook is creating a new Metaverse product group under Facebook Reality Labs. Andrew Bosworth’... Mark Zuckerberg wasn’t kidding when he said last week he hopes Facebook will morph from a social...

Producers of Group Nine's short film "Two Distant Strangers" at the Oscars. Photo by AP.

How Vice, Vox and BuzzFeed Are Cashing In on the Streaming Boom

By Sahil Patel · Jul 27, 2021 9:01am PDT · 3 comments

Producers of Group Nine's short film "Two Distant Strangers" at the Oscars. Photo by AP.

How Vice, Vox and BuzzFeed Are Cashing In on the Streaming Boom

By Sahil Patel · Jul 27, 2021 9:01am PDT · 3 comments

“Land of the Giants” is a podcast series from Vox Media’s Recode covering the history of tech companies including Amazon and Netflix. It will soon be a TV show, made by Vox for a major cable network for a fee of several millions of dollars, according to people familiar with the matter. Digital media firms which have long... “Land of the Giants” is a podcast series from Vox Media’s Recode covering the...

Zhang Lei (left) and Neil Shen. Photos by Bloomberg; AP

Sequoia Capital vs. Hillhouse: Inside China’s Fiercest Investor Rivalry

By Juro Osawa and Shai Oster · Jul 27, 2021 6:01am PDT

Last fall, Sequoia Capital China, the Silicon Valley VC firm’s affiliate led by investor Neil Shen, pledged to invest $400 million in a new funding round for Full Truck Alliance, China’s “Uber for trucks.” Days later, Zhang Lei, the rival head of private-equity giant Hillhouse Capital Group, flew to Nanjing, met Full... Last fall, Sequoia Capital China, the Silicon Valley VC firm’s affiliate led by investor...

The Electric Flash Analysis: Elon Musk’s Shift to Iron-Based Batteries Will Upend EV Industry

By Steve LeVine · Jul 26, 2021 5:14pm PDT

Tesla CEO Elon Musk. Photo by BloombergHappy Monday!The first three issues of The Electric said the electric vehicle industry would likely shift to cheap lithium-iron-phosphate (LFP) batteries. Tesla CEO Elon Musk just made it official.Musk said in an earnings conference call on Monday that he ultimately expects most of his electric vehicle and... Tesla CEO Elon Musk. Photo by BloombergHappy Monday!The first three issues of The Electric said...

A Meituan food delivery courier in Beijing in April. Photo by Bloomberg.

China’s Tech Crackdown Rattles Investors

By Martin Peers · Jul 26, 2021 5:00pm PDT · 1 comment

American critics of U.S. tech giants must be looking a little enviously at how China is clamping down on its tech industry. On almost every issue that tech’s U.S. detractors have focused on—alleged antitrust breaches, data privacy and most recently, the rights of workers handling food delivery—the Chinese government has taken action against... American critics of U.S. tech giants must be looking a little enviously at how China is clamping...

Photo by Bloomberg

TikTok’s Toilsome Virality; Olympians’ Personal Videos Break Out

By Kaya Yurieff · Jul 26, 2021 4:00pm PDT

Photo by Bloomberg

Creator Economy

TikTok’s Toilsome Virality; Olympians’ Personal Videos Break Out

By Kaya Yurieff · Jul 26, 2021 4:00pm PDT

From the outside, TikTok’s four-year ascent can seem almost serendipitous or out of the blue. But Chris Stokel-Walker’s new book “TikTok Boom” goes further than any other journalist to capture the astounding amount of work by TikTok’s Chinese parent company ByteDance to make the viral-video app go viral.TikTok today might qualify as a... From the outside, TikTok’s four-year ascent can seem almost serendipitous or out of the blue. But...

The Amazon Effect; Reducing Trading Risk; New Service From Spring Labs

By Hannah Miller · Jul 26, 2021 3:19pm PDT · 1 comment

Signs that Amazon might venture into cryptocurrency appeared to help drive bitcoin’s price sharply higher Monday, pushing the coin toward $40,000 only days after it fell below $30,000. While the crypto market seemed cheered by the prospect of an Amazon crypto initiative, which would represent another mainstream seal of approval for digital... Signs that Amazon might venture into cryptocurrency appeared to help drive bitcoin’s price...

People wearing Oculus Go headsets in 2018. These devices have already been discontinued. Photo by Bloomberg.

How Facebook’s Open Standards Shift Will Cost AR/VR Developers

By Mathew Olson · Jul 26, 2021 11:00am PDT

Facebook’s Oculus is going “all in” on support for OpenXR, a royalty-free open standard for AR and VR hardware, the company said Friday. You might think developers would welcome that move with open arms. Valve, Google, Microsoft, Unity, Epic Games have taken similar steps, so there’s clearly a broader move towards an open standard. Facebook... Facebook’s Oculus is going “all in” on support for OpenXR, a royalty-free open standard for AR...

Photo by Bloomberg.

China Tutoring Ban Hits ByteDance, Puts Tencent’s $3 Billion Stake in Danger

By Juro Osawa, Wayne Ma and Shai Oster · Jul 26, 2021 6:45am PDT

TikTok-owner ByteDance had made big plans for online education, hiring around 10,000 employees to tap a $100 billion market. China’s sudden ban of for-profit tutoring in school curriculum may have scuppered those plans. Some ByteDance employees who work on the company’s tutoring apps are already asking around for other job... TikTok-owner ByteDance had made big plans for online education, hiring around 10,000 employees to...

Salesforce president and chief operating officer Bret Taylor at a Salesforce conference in 2019. Photo provided by Salesforce

Bret Taylor Faces His Biggest Test at Salesforce

By Kevin McLaughlin · Jul 26, 2021 6:01am PDT · 3 comments

Salesforce president and chief operating officer Bret Taylor at a Salesforce conference in 2019. Photo provided by Salesforce

Bret Taylor Faces His Biggest Test at Salesforce

By Kevin McLaughlin · Jul 26, 2021 6:01am PDT · 3 comments

Five years ago, Salesforce paid $750 million to buy a startup called Quip that made an internet-based word processor and spreadsheet app meant to give Microsoft’s competing Office products a run for their money. That didn’t happen, but Salesforce did get a valuable asset out of the deal: Bret Taylor, Quip’s founder, who has... Five years ago, Salesforce paid $750 million to buy a startup called Quip that made an...

What Electric Vehicle Makers Don’t Get About BYD’s Game-Changing Battery

By Steve LeVine · Jul 25, 2021 2:09pm PDT

A BYD Dolphin powered by the Blade battery at the Auto Shanghai show in April. Photo by BloombergWelcome back to The Electric! (Our first two issues can be found here.)Save the date: We are excited to announce The Electric's first live video event on Aug. 10 at 11 a.m. PT with Yet-Ming Chiang, a Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor... A BYD Dolphin powered by the Blade battery at the Auto Shanghai show in April. Photo by Bloomberg...

Are Reporters Too Negative? Well, It Depends

By Jessica E. Lessin · Jul 24, 2021 7:45am PDT · 2 comments

These days, when I ask sources in Silicon Valley what I should write about, I get some version of: “The big story is really how great everything is going.”At that I roll my eyes. As a journalist, I’m wired to believe that the hype isn’t always as it appears. But lately I’ve been thinking more about the negative consequences of—well, being so... These days, when I ask sources in Silicon Valley what I should write about, I get some version...

Photo by Bloomberg

Cloudflare Complaint Pinpoints Amazon’s Antitrust Weak Spot

By Martin Peers · Jul 23, 2021 5:00pm PDT · 4 comments

Today’s blog post from top executives at Cloudflare blasting Amazon Web Services for the “egregious” fees it charges customers who move their data out of AWS’ servers raises an interesting question. Could the most fertile ground for pursuing antitrust action against Amazon lie in its cloud business, not the ecommerce business that gets all the... Today’s blog post from top executives at Cloudflare blasting Amazon Web Services for the “...

The Electric Flash Analysis: Why GM’s Bolt Recall Is a Bigger Crisis Than You Think

By Steve LeVine · Jul 23, 2021 2:32pm PDT

The Electric Flash Analysis: Why GM’s Bolt Recall Is a Bigger Crisis Than You Think

By Steve LeVine · Jul 23, 2021 2:32pm PDT

By issuing a recall of 69,000 electric Bolts on Friday following a series of battery-induced fires, General Motors was trying to stave off a potential crisis. But the totality of GM’s response to the problem has been so inadequate that it risks a crisis of confidence among its EV customers anyway.GM’s muddled response began in November, when it... By issuing a recall of 69,000 electric Bolts on Friday following a series of battery-induced...