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

Photo by Bloomberg. Illustration by Mike Sullivan.

The Saturday Interview

A Conversation with the Medium Baron

By Jessica E. Lessin · Oct 31, 2020 8:01am PDT · 2 comments

One of the wonderful things about being a tech reporter for going on two decades is the chance to observe executives in multiple acts. And this week, while the internet was debating Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey’s scraggly pandemic beard, I was chatting with one of Dorsey’s predecessors in that role, Twitter co-founder and now Medium CEO... One of the wonderful things about being a tech reporter for going on two decades is the chance to...

Traders on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange in March. Photo by Bloomberg

Tech Selloff Follows Earnings: The Information’s Tech Briefing

By Martin Peers · Oct 30, 2020 5:31pm PDT

If Thursday was party time for tech companies, most of which reported better-than-expected earnings, Friday was the hangover. Most big tech stocks tumbled, as the Nasdaq led the market down by losing nearly 2.5%. Yes, there is a disconnect there, although major tech stocks have rallied strongly in recent months, so maybe they’re getting... If Thursday was party time for tech companies, most of which reported better-than-expected...

Ballot-counting equipment at the Philadelphia Convention Center in September. Photo by Bloomberg

Apple Rejects App for Verifying Pennsylvania Ballots

By Nick Wingfield · Oct 30, 2020 3:32pm PDT · 2 comments

Efforts to reject some ballots in battleground states like Pennsylvania could determine the outcome of next week’s election. But a mobile app designed to help ensure that Pennsylvania ballots are getting counted has already been rejected—by Apple. After almost two weeks of holding up the release of the app, called Drive Turnout,... Efforts to reject some ballots in battleground states like Pennsylvania could determine the...

The Information’s 411 — Contractors With Benefits

By Cory Weinberg and Tom Dotan · Oct 30, 2020 1:14pm PDT

The Information’s 411 — Contractors With Benefits

By Cory Weinberg and Tom Dotan · Oct 30, 2020 1:14pm PDT

Will Uber and Lyft drivers become full-time employees, or something more like contractors with benefits? California's Proposition 22 will help determine the fate of "gig" work, as well as the financial fortunes of Uber, Lyft, DoorDash and Instacart. Tom and Cory break down this high-stakes battle ahead of Election Day, with some... Will Uber and Lyft drivers become full-time employees, or something more like contractors with...

Amazon Catapults Over Alphabet on Capex Spending

By Martin Peers · Oct 30, 2020 9:49am PDT

Big tech companies’ third-quarter earnings on Thursday demonstrated their outsize performance in advertising, retail and hardware sales. At the same time, most of the companies—most noticeably Amazon—are increasing spending on properties and data centers to pave the way for future growth despite continued uncertainty about the... Big tech companies’ third-quarter earnings on Thursday demonstrated their outsize...

Illustration by Jesus Escudero.

The 100X Club: Software Startup Valuations Skyrocket Despite Small Revenue

By Kate Clark and Amir Efrati · Oct 30, 2020 6:01am PDT

When San Francisco–based Retool raised new funding this month, investors valued the maker of software development tools at just below $1 billion, or 100 times its annualized revenue of roughly $10 million. This price, essentially a bet that the three-year-old firm’s growth has just begun, is becoming the new standard for financing... When San Francisco–based Retool raised new funding this month, investors valued the maker...

Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai. Photo by Bloomberg

Digital Ad Market Rebounds Strongly: The Information’s Tech Briefing

By Martin Peers · Oct 29, 2020 5:31pm PDT

The digital ad market rebounded surprisingly strongly in the third quarter, a cavalcade of earnings results today showed. The results confirm earlier indications that marketers regained confidence over the summer after slashing spending when the pandemic crisis first began. The question now is whether the new surge in Covid cases will cause... The digital ad market rebounded surprisingly strongly in the third quarter, a cavalcade of...

People waiting to enter JPMorgan Chase's headquarters in New York in September. Photo by Bloomberg

JPMorgan, Goldman Order Software ‘Code Freezes’ Around Election

By Kevin McLaughlin · Oct 29, 2020 12:42pm PDT · 2 comments

People waiting to enter JPMorgan Chase's headquarters in New York in September. Photo by Bloomberg

JPMorgan, Goldman Order Software ‘Code Freezes’ Around Election

By Kevin McLaughlin · Oct 29, 2020 12:42pm PDT · 2 comments

Top banks, including JPMorgan Chase and Goldman Sachs, are battening down their technology hatches for next week’s presidential election. Around next Tuesday, the final day of voting, JPMorgan and Goldman will both halt software updates to the retail and investment banking systems their customers use to manage accounts, The Information has... Top banks, including JPMorgan Chase and Goldman Sachs, are battening down their technology...

Mark Zuckerberg, left, and Joe Biden. Photos by Bloomberg

Why Facebook Has the Most to Lose From Biden, Democratic Victories

By Christopher Stern · Oct 29, 2020 6:01am PDT · 1 comment

If Democrats sweep to power next week, as several pollsters predict, Facebook’s already lowly political fortunes are likely to take a sharp turn for the worse, Democratic congressional staffers and lobbyists say. While the entire tech industry is fighting off demands by lawmakers for more regulation, Facebook is especially hard up for... If Democrats sweep to power next week, as several pollsters predict, Facebook’s already...

Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey speaking by videoconference to the Senate Commerce Committee on Wednesday. Photo by Bloomberg

Tech CEOs Face Angry Senators: The Information’s Tech Briefing

By Martin Peers · Oct 28, 2020 5:31pm PDT

If today’s Senate Commerce Committee hearing on Section 230 demonstrated anything, it’s the impossible position faced by tech companies in responding to Democrats and Republicans complaining about their content moderation policies. As Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg noted in his opening statement, “Democrats often say we... If today’s Senate Commerce Committee hearing on Section 230 demonstrated anything,...

Art by Shutterstock

Partner Roundtable

Scaling Engineering Teams Globally, During and Post-Covid

By The Information Staff · Oct 28, 2020 12:00pm PDT

On October 22, The Information hosted a roundtable discussion with chief technology officers and engineering leaders from dozens of tech companies to discuss scaling engineering teams during this strange new era of remote work. The conversation, hosted in partnership with the Consulate General of Canada, was confidential. We wanted to share with... On October 22, The Information hosted a roundtable discussion with chief technology officers and...

Airbnb policy and communications chief Chris Lehane. Photo by Getty. Photo illustration by Mike Sullivan

Airbnb’s Spin Master

By Cory Weinberg · Oct 28, 2020 8:18am PDT · 1 comment

Airbnb policy and communications chief Chris Lehane. Photo by Getty. Photo illustration by Mike Sullivan

Airbnb’s Spin Master

By Cory Weinberg · Oct 28, 2020 8:18am PDT · 1 comment

Chris Lehane was piping mad. Laurence Tosi, Airbnb’s chief financial officer, had accused the Airbnb policy and communications chief of spending millions of dollars before Tosi had signed off on the plans, approval Lehane didn’t think he needed. Their dispute flared up near the parking lot behind Airbnb’s headquarters one... Chris Lehane was piping mad. Laurence Tosi, Airbnb’s chief financial officer, had accused...

Art by Mike Sullivan

The Tech Giants’ Cultures Are Incompatible With Fixing the Societal Problems They’re Causing

By Yaël Eisenstat · Oct 28, 2020 6:01am PDT · 8 comments

The chief executives of Facebook, Google and Twitter are rightly under fire for their role in spreading disinformation and hate speech, including in the context of the U.S. presidential election. They’ve been summoned to testify before the U.S. Senate today in part about their responsibility for the real-world harms their business models... The chief executives of Facebook, Google and Twitter are rightly under fire for their role in...

AMD CEO Lisa Su. Photo by Bloomberg

What the Xilinx Deal Says About AMD: The Information’s Tech Briefing

By Martin Peers · Oct 27, 2020 5:31pm PDT

AMD’s proposed $35 billion purchase of chip maker Xilinx will get a lot of attention as an example of consolidation in the semiconductor industry. But it is also significant for symbolizing the extraordinary turnaround that Lisa Su has engineered at AMD since taking the helm in 2014. The company wouldn’t be in a position to even... AMD’s proposed $35 billion purchase of chip maker Xilinx will get a lot of attention as an...

Google CEO Sundar Pichai, Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey and Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg (l-r). Photo: Bloomberg

How Facebook, Google, Twitter Diverge in Defense of Tech’s Liability Shield

By Christopher Stern, Nick Bastone and Alex Heath · Oct 27, 2020 5:12pm PDT

When the chief executives of Facebook, Google and Twitter testify Wednesday before a Senate committee on how they control content on their services, they will argue against rolling back Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, which shields internet companies from lawsuits over user-generated posts. That’s where their agreements may... When the chief executives of Facebook, Google and Twitter testify Wednesday before a Senate...

Photos by Bloomberg; photo illustration by Mike Sullivan

Inside Apple’s Eroding Partnership With Foxconn

By Wayne Ma · Oct 27, 2020 11:05am PDT · 2 comments

Photos by Bloomberg; photo illustration by Mike Sullivan

Inside Apple’s Eroding Partnership With Foxconn

By Wayne Ma · Oct 27, 2020 11:05am PDT · 2 comments

When Apple’s 2018 iPad Pro was undergoing production trials at the company’s largest outside manufacturer, Foxconn Technology, the Taiwanese firm gave Apple a list of how many workers it needed to develop the new product. That was standard procedure for Foxconn, whose factories across China have been responsible for assembling the... When Apple’s 2018 iPad Pro was undergoing production trials at the company’s largest...

Art by Mike Sullivan

To Fix Section 230, Target Algorithmic Amplification

By Robert Lindsay · Oct 27, 2020 6:01am PDT · 13 comments

It now seems inevitable that the U.S. government will try to roll back some of the protections that Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act has provided to internet companies. The fine line it needs to walk is to reverse the slide of social media platforms into a cesspool of clickbait and a breeding ground for conspiracy theories—but... It now seems inevitable that the U.S. government will try to roll back some of the protections...

Attendees watching a video game streamed at Facebook Gaming's booth during the 2018 Entertainment Expo show in Los Angeles. Photo by Bloomberg

Facebook-Apple Tensions on the Rise: The Information’s Tech Briefing

By Martin Peers · Oct 26, 2020 5:31pm PDT · 3 comments

Facebook escalated its low-level warfare against Apple by unveiling a cloud gaming service that is only available on Android devices. This is a twist on a longstanding reality of mobile phones: lots of apps on iOS aren’t available on Android (try downloading the New Yorker magazine’s app to your Pixel), but because most affluent... Facebook escalated its low-level warfare against Apple by unveiling a cloud gaming service that...

Photo by Bloomberg

AWS Warms Up to ‘Multicloud’ With Changes to Management Tools

By Kevin McLaughlin · Oct 26, 2020 12:21pm PDT · 1 comment

Amazon Web Services is taking another step towards acknowledging it’s not the only game in town. The cloud giant has never been happy with the idea that its customers might use other cloud providers for some of their computing needs. At one point, it even forbade its business partners from using the term “multicloud” in... Amazon Web Services is taking another step towards acknowledging it’s not the only...

Clockwise from top left: Vice CEO Nancy Dubuc; Offerup CEO Nick Huzar; Glossier CEO Emily Weiss; Vox Media CEO Jim Bankoff. Photos by Bloomberg

The SPAC Target List: Private Tech and Media Firms in Their Teenage Years

By Ross Matican and Martin Peers · Oct 26, 2020 6:01am PDT · 1 comment

Clockwise from top left: Vice CEO Nancy Dubuc; Offerup CEO Nick Huzar; Glossier CEO Emily Weiss; Vox Media CEO Jim Bankoff. Photos by Bloomberg

The SPAC Target List: Private Tech and Media Firms in Their Teenage Years

By Ross Matican and Martin Peers · Oct 26, 2020 6:01am PDT · 1 comment

A dozen private tech and media firms, ranging from BuzzFeed to Getaround, have been left behind in the initial public offering surge of the past two years. Some are in their teenage years and are struggling to grow, while others appear to be doing fine—but need a way for their investors to exit. For either kind, an SPAC may be their... A dozen private tech and media firms, ranging from BuzzFeed to Getaround, have been left behind...