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

Clockwise from top left: Aaron Levant, Virgile Ollivier, Branon Kruse, Brian Nickerson, Amber Venz Box and Baxter Box, Dan Dan Li. Photos courtesy of the subjects.

Startups to Watch

Six Businesses That Are Changing Online Shopping

By Malique Morris · Mar 11, 2021 10:20am PST · 1 comment

Stuck at home during the pandemic, Americans have been flocking to online shopping sites and mobile apps. The growth has been a boon for the rising number of startups that specialize in injecting excitement into online shopping for consumers who may have grown bored with mundane grids of product photos. Many of the emerging companies focus on... Stuck at home during the pandemic, Americans have been flocking to online shopping sites and...

The People With Power at Facebook as Its Hardware, Commerce Ambitions Expand

By Alex Heath · Mar 11, 2021 6:01am PST

Facebook in recent years has laid out an aggressive strategy of building its own consumer hardware to lessen its dependence on Apple and Google, makers of the two dominant mobile operating systems. The seriousness of its ambitions is reflected in its headcount: Nearly 10,000 people are working in its group developing augmented and virtual... Facebook in recent years has laid out an aggressive strategy of building its own consumer...

Roblox's web site. Photo by Bloomberg

What Roblox’s Public Debut Says About Direct Listings: The Information’s Tech Briefing

By Martin Peers · Mar 10, 2021 5:31pm PST · 11 comments

Roblox stock soared on its first day as a public company, closing a touch below $70 and valuing the gaming firm at about $38 billion. Assuming the stock stays that high, it means a very quick profit for venture capitalists who bought stock in Roblox’s last private fundraising at $45 a share in January. And that points to a flaw in the main... Roblox stock soared on its first day as a public company, closing a touch below $70 and valuing...

Photo via Flickr

International Expansion Top Priority for Business Leaders

By The Information Staff · Mar 10, 2021 3:26pm PST · 1 comment

Photo via Flickr

Partner Content

International Expansion Top Priority for Business Leaders

By The Information Staff · Mar 10, 2021 3:26pm PST · 1 comment

The Information partnered with Singapore: Passion Made Possible to survey our subscribers on international expansion. The results, embedded below show the vast majority of companies maintaining or ramping up plans for expansion abroad. Responses came from a nearly 50% C-level respondent pool. We hope that you find the results valuable. A few key... The Information partnered with Singapore: Passion Made Possible to survey our subscribers on...

Lina Khan, photo by Getty Images. Illustration by Mike Sullivan.

What Big Tech Antitrust Foe Lina Khan Could Do at the FTC

By Josh Sisco · Mar 10, 2021 1:46pm PST · 4 comments

The Biden administration’s likely nomination of law professor Lina Khan as a commissioner on the Federal Trade Commission might seem like a call to arms for tech companies. The appointment of Khan, who authored a seminal legal paper on how antitrust law could be used to prevent Amazon from extending its dominance to new businesses, would... The Biden administration’s likely nomination of law professor Lina Khan as a commissioner...

A marketing image from Roblox.

TI Reality Check: Roblox, Epic and the Platform Wars to Come

By Mathew Olson · Mar 10, 2021 11:01am PST · 2 comments

Welcome back! Today’s big story for the shape of what augmented and virtual reality might become is the public listing of Roblox. If you’re an American parent with school-age kids, there’s a very good chance you know what Roblox is. Roblox supports PC VR headsets, but it’s primarily a business that has evolved around more... Welcome back! Today’s big story for the shape of what augmented and virtual reality might...

Illustration by Josh Brill

Take a Hard Look at the Nondisclosure Agreement

By Ariella Steinhorn and Amber Scorah · Mar 10, 2021 10:01am PST · 3 comments

Last June, a former Pinterest employee named Ifeoma Ozoma and her colleague Aerica Shimizu Banks realized their experiences working at the company revealed a dramatic gap between its rhetoric and the reality of its culture. They believed they had been underpaid in comparison with their white colleagues, and they had also faced racist comments.... Last June, a former Pinterest employee named Ifeoma Ozoma and her colleague Aerica Shimizu Banks...

Producers and top cast members of Amazon's "Bosch" speaking with the press in 2016. Photo by AP

Banished by Netflix, Advertising Makes Comeback on New Streaming Services

By Jessica Toonkel · Mar 10, 2021 6:01am PST · 4 comments

Producers and top cast members of Amazon's "Bosch" speaking with the press in 2016. Photo by AP

Banished by Netflix, Advertising Makes Comeback on New Streaming Services

By Jessica Toonkel · Mar 10, 2021 6:01am PST · 4 comments

Television commercials are making a comeback—on streaming video. After years of viewers shunning ads, initially by using digital video recorders to skip through commercial breaks and then by flocking to ad-free subscription services like Netflix, streaming services that put ads in shows are suddenly all the rage. Most of the new streaming... Television commercials are making a comeback—on streaming video. After years of viewers...

Sen. Elizabeth Warren. Photo by Bloomberg

What U.S. Tech Is Missing Out On: The Information’s Tech Briefing

By Martin Peers · Mar 9, 2021 5:31pm PST

Our story today about Tencent’s enormous investment gains points to a path not taken by the U.S. tech giants in deploying their vast cash resources. The article revealed that Tencent has built up an investment portfolio of stakes in nearly 1,200 companies, the vast majority of which are privately held. Can you imagine the political... Our story today about Tencent’s enormous investment gains points to a path not taken by the...

Images by Shutterstock. Illustration by Mike Sullivan

12 Charts That Show How Tech Took Off During a Year of Shutdowns

By Laura Mandaro · Mar 9, 2021 11:51am PST · 4 comments

A year ago this month, U.S. tech companies told hundreds of thousands of workers to pack up their laptops and go home—at least until mid-April, some said. That deadline quickly joined other trashed predictions in the months that followed, as the coronavirus pandemic set grim records for lives lost, then topped them again and again. The... A year ago this month, U.S. tech companies told hundreds of thousands of workers to pack up their...

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg at an Oculus event in 2018. Photo by Bloomberg

TI Reality Check: Zuckerberg on Head Drilling, Neural Interfaces and Face Tracking

By Mathew Olson · Mar 9, 2021 11:01am PST · 1 comment

Welcome back! Mark Zuckerberg doesn’t often give long interviews about the scope and ambition of Facebook’s AR and VR projects, as he did for the podcast we published on Monday (listen here, transcript here). So I hope you’ll allow me to indulge in a deeper dive into a couple points from the interview in today’s... Welcome back! Mark Zuckerberg doesn’t often give long interviews about the scope and...

Tencent's Chief Strategy Officer James Mitchell, a key figure in Tencent's investment portfolio. Photo by Bloomberg

Tencent’s Investments Got $120 Billion Boost From 2020 Rally

By Wayne Ma and Juro Osawa · Mar 9, 2021 6:01am PST · 3 comments

Tencent's Chief Strategy Officer James Mitchell, a key figure in Tencent's investment portfolio. Photo by Bloomberg

Tencent’s Investments Got $120 Billion Boost From 2020 Rally

By Wayne Ma and Juro Osawa · Mar 9, 2021 6:01am PST · 3 comments

It’s the kind of track record that would make any Sand Hill Road venture capitalist jealous. Tencent, best known for its WeChat messaging app, is one of the world’s biggest and savviest tech investors, holding stakes in a range of companies including Snap and Meituan. Previously unreported internal data reviewed by The Information... It’s the kind of track record that would make any Sand Hill Road venture capitalist...

An attendee at an Oculus conference in 2019 trying out the Quest virtual reality headset and controllers. Photo by Bloomberg.

Inside Facebook’s AR/VR Strategy: The Information’s Tech Briefing

By Martin Peers · Mar 8, 2021 5:02pm PST

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg showed how much he is focused on the future, rather than on current-day topics like disinformation and content moderation, in an extensive interview he gave The Information about augmented reality and virtual reality. His ambitions sound grand—“one day I want people to be able to teleport around.”... Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg showed how much he is focused on the future, rather than on...

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg. Photo by Bloomberg; illustration by Mike Sullivan

The Big Interview

Mark Zuckerberg on Mind Reading, Apple and the Race to Mainstream VR

By Alex Heath and Mathew Olson · Mar 8, 2021 7:41am PST · 2 comments

Today we published a 45-minute special edition of The Information's 411 podcast featuring a recent interview we conducted with Mark Zuckerberg, the CEO of Facebook, about his company’s growing investments in augmented and virtual reality. The following is a lightly edited transcript of that interview: Alex Heath: Can you just set... Today we published a 45-minute special edition of The Information's 411 podcast...

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg. Photo by Bloomberg

Mark Zuckerberg Talks the Future of AR and VR in The Information’s Reality Check

By Mathew Olson · Mar 8, 2021 7:02am PST · 4 comments

Welcome to the first installment of The Information’s Reality Check, our new newsletter devoted to augmented reality and virtual reality—the first of many newsletters we are launching in the coming months. Why a whole newsletter on AR and VR, you ask? Well, the coming war between Apple, Facebook, Google, Microsoft and many, many... Welcome to the first installment of The Information’s Reality Check, our new newsletter...

“It’s Hard to Know Where It Stops”

By Jessica E. Lessin · Mar 6, 2021 7:47am PST

“It’s Hard to Know Where It Stops”

By Jessica E. Lessin · Mar 6, 2021 7:47am PST

There are weeks when I read the news and think, “Really? Can all of this be happening?” Nowadays, I’m referring to the wild west of the startup and VC business, which is getting more insane by the term sheet. This week you saw unbelievable stories of rising prices, documented here by Kate. At the same time, there were important... There are weeks when I read the news and think, “Really? Can all of this be...

Microstrategy CEO Michael Saylor appearing virtually at a recent crypto conference. Photo by Bloomberg.

The Data Company Going All In on Bitcoin: The Information’s Tech Briefing

By Martin Peers · Mar 5, 2021 5:31pm PST · 4 comments

The number of public companies with core exposure to bitcoin is growing. Today bitcoin miner Cipher Mining Technologies said it would merge with a SPAC called Good Works. The big one, Coinbase, is planning to go public soon. And then there is Microstrategy, a publicly traded data analytics software firm that has basically mortgaged its future on... The number of public companies with core exposure to bitcoin is growing. Today bitcoin miner...

The Information’s 411 — Facebook Needs Kustomer Support

By Tom Dotan · Mar 5, 2021 4:48pm PST

Cory chats with Josh Sisco about the reason regulators are probing Facebook’s deal to acquire Kustomer. Tom talks to Kevin McLaughlin about the next group of enterprise software companies to go public. Cory chats with Josh Sisco about the reason regulators are probing Facebook’s deal to...

‘Can’t Get More Crazy’: Series A Valuations Extend Record Rise

By Kate Clark · Mar 5, 2021 6:01am PST · 3 comments

Financial software developer Orum, which disclosed a seed round over the summer, wasn’t seeking more capital when Bain Capital Ventures offered to lead its Series A investment last year. But the one-year-old startup took the money anyway and got a post-investment valuation of $100 million, according to a person with direct knowledge of the... Financial software developer Orum, which disclosed a seed round over the summer, wasn’t...

Jack Dorsey (left) and Jay Z. Photos by Bloomberg; AP

Dorsey Gives Jay-Z a Square Deal: The Information’s Tech Briefing

By Martin Peers · Mar 4, 2021 5:30pm PST

Jack Dorsey (left) and Jay Z. Photos by Bloomberg; AP

Dorsey Gives Jay-Z a Square Deal: The Information’s Tech Briefing

By Martin Peers · Mar 4, 2021 5:30pm PST

Square’s steady revenue growth and surging stock price has, until now, made it a bona fide business success for Jack Dorsey, much more so than the CEO’s other company, Twitter. But Square’s bizarre decision to buy a majority stake in music streaming service Tidal for nearly $300 million suggests Dorsey is losing focus. Perhaps... Square’s steady revenue growth and surging stock price has, until now, made it a bona fide...