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

Silicon Valley’s Progressive Blind Spot

By Jessica E. Lessin · May 18, 2019 8:45am PDT · 2 comments

Last week, I criticized Facebook co-founder Chris Hughes’s argument over the need to break up Facebook. “We break up companies when they are bad for competition, not when their CEOs hold too much power,” I wrote.My belief was based, in large part, on the fact that recent antitrust cases have targeted companies whose... Last week, I criticized Facebook co-founder Chris Hughes’s argument over the need to break...

The Information’s 411 — Shadow Banning Theater

By Tom Dotan · May 17, 2019 3:23pm PDT

Ashley talks about Trump's social media bias survey and tech's tough week in DC. Aaron dives into Apple's relationship with Intel and Qualcomm over modems and the future of how it sources wireless components. Ashley talks about Trump's social media bias survey and tech's tough week in DC. Aaron...

Photo: Bloomberg

CBS Made Informal Offer to Acquire Starz

By Jessica Toonkel · May 17, 2019 10:48am PDT

CBS Corp. has expressed interest in acquiring cable channel Starz from Lions Gate Entertainment, according to four people familiar with the situation. CBS has been looking at the acquisition as a possible complement to Viacom, which CBS also is considering purchasing, said three of the people.Joseph Ianniello, the interim CEO of CBS, made an... CBS Corp. has expressed interest in acquiring cable channel Starz from Lions Gate Entertainment,...

Kayak CEO Steve Hafner. Photo: Bloomberg

Airbnb Rival Booking Is Having an Identity Crisis

By Cory Weinberg · May 17, 2019 7:02am PDT · 3 comments

Kayak CEO Steve Hafner. Photo: Bloomberg

Airbnb Rival Booking Is Having an Identity Crisis

By Cory Weinberg · May 17, 2019 7:02am PDT · 3 comments

Internet travel conglomerate Booking Holdings has been a dependable company for investors, generating consistent profits and returns in line with the S&P 500 over the last five years. But in an industry radically altered by hot brands ranging from Airbnb to Uber to Google, Booking has struggled to stand out.That has triggered something of an... Internet travel conglomerate Booking Holdings has been a dependable company for investors,...

DoorDash CEO Tony Xu. Photo by Bloomberg.

DoorDash Seeking Valuation of as Much as $12 Billion in Fundraising

By Amir Efrati · May 16, 2019 10:17pm PDT · 2 comments

DoorDash is finalizing a fundraising round likely to value the U.S. food delivery app between $10 billion and $12 billion after the investment, just three months after the company raised money at a $7 billion post-money valuation, said two people familiar with the matter. The talks suggest the disappointing IPOs of Uber and Lyft may not have... DoorDash is finalizing a fundraising round likely to value the U.S. food delivery app between $10...

Scopely chairman and co-CEO Walter Driver. Photo by Scopely

Q&A

Scopely Sees Growth With Mobile Games That Live On

By Beejoli Shah · May 16, 2019 10:01am PDT

Mobile games are a fickle business, in which one-time hits can quickly fade into oblivion. Scopely, the startup behind popular mobile games like “Star Trek Fleet Command” and “The Walking Dead: Road to Survival,” believes it has come up with a system to minimize that risk. Central to Scopely’s success, says chairman... Mobile games are a fickle business, in which one-time hits can quickly fade into oblivion....

Zapier founders Mike Knopp, Bryan Helmig and Wade Foster. Photo: Zapier

Startup of the Week

Zapier’s Unusual Path to Profitability

By Kevin McLaughlin · May 16, 2019 7:01am PDT · 3 comments

Zapier, a 7-year-old startup whose software connects different types of applications to automate personal computing tasks, has taken a different path to profitability than most Silicon Valley companies. It doesn’t have a sales team or a main office, and its CEO, Wade Foster, made headlines two years ago by offering new hires $10,000 to... Zapier, a 7-year-old startup whose software connects different types of applications to automate...

Meg Whitman and Jeffrey Katzenberg. Photo by Bloomberg.

Streaming Service Quibi Seeks Up to $1 Billion in New Funding

By Tom Dotan and Jessica Toonkel · May 15, 2019 2:32pm PDT · 2 comments

Meg Whitman and Jeffrey Katzenberg. Photo by Bloomberg.

Streaming Service Quibi Seeks Up to $1 Billion in New Funding

By Tom Dotan and Jessica Toonkel · May 15, 2019 2:32pm PDT · 2 comments

Quibi, the mobile video streaming service headed by Hollywood and tech veterans Jeffrey Katzenberg and Meg Whitman, made headlines last year when it announced $1 billion in funding before it even launched a product. Now, with the service’s launch still many months away, Quibi is gearing up to raise even more.The company is currently... Quibi, the mobile video streaming service headed by Hollywood and tech veterans Jeffrey...

Mike Sullivan

Crypto Newsletter

Can Crypto Crack the Retail Market?

By Jon Victor · May 15, 2019 12:00pm PDT

Greetings from day three of Consensus, where the mood has grown increasingly celebratory after bitcoin broke $8,000 for the first time in almost a year on Tuesday. Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies have been rallying for the last two weeks, and some have speculated that investors could be using crypto as a hedge against the capital markets,... Greetings from day three of Consensus, where the mood has grown increasingly celebratory after...

The floor of the New York Stock Exchange. Photo by Bloomberg.

Uber’s Biggest IPO Losers

By Amir Efrati · May 15, 2019 11:39am PDT · 9 comments

Uber’s initial public offering may have made history, but not for the reasons most of its investors were expecting, especially those who bought shares in later funding rounds.After Uber’s post-IPO stock drop, late-stage investors who put almost $17 billion into the ride hailing giant—about 77% of its total equity... Uber’s initial public offering may have made history, but not for the reasons most of its...

Illustration by J. Claeys

Behind the Intel-Apple Modem Divorce

By Aaron Tilley · May 15, 2019 7:02am PDT · 1 comment

Johny Srouji, the Apple executive in charge of building chips for the company’s devices, was fed up with Intel.It was early 2017 and Apple was preparing a new line of iPhones to be released the next year, but the Intel modem for the devices, known as the 7560, wasn’t working properly, according to two people with knowledge of the... Johny Srouji, the Apple executive in charge of building chips for the company’s devices,...

Hellobike bikes parked on a sidewalk in Shanghai. Photo: AP

Is China’s Bike Boom Over? Hellobike Says No

By Juro Osawa and Yunan Zhang · May 14, 2019 11:00am PDT · 1 comment

Hellobike bikes parked on a sidewalk in Shanghai. Photo: AP

Is China’s Bike Boom Over? Hellobike Says No

By Juro Osawa and Yunan Zhang · May 14, 2019 11:00am PDT · 1 comment

The failed Chinese bicycle app Ofo, which burned through $1.5 billion in venture capital, convinced many investors that bike sharing is a horrible business. But Hellobike, backed by Jack Ma’s Ant Financial, is trying to prove the skeptics wrong as it looks to raise significant new funding. Hellobike is seeking a valuation of $4... The failed Chinese bicycle app Ofo, which burned through $1.5 billion in venture capital,...

Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi. Photo by Bloomberg

Uber’s Three Paths to Becoming Profitable

By Amir Efrati · May 14, 2019 6:30am PDT · 7 comments

Three months after Dara Khosrowshahi joined Uber as CEO in September 2017, he told his top executives he would like Uber to nearly break even in 2018 and be profitable by 2019. But by May of last year, after competition in ride-hailing and food delivery ticked up, he shifted course. A focus on making money would require sacrificing too much... Three months after Dara Khosrowshahi joined Uber as CEO in September 2017, he told his top...

Daniel Wall, a lawyer for Apple in the Apple v. Pepper case, left, leaves the U.S. Supreme Court last November. Photo by Bloomberg

Apple’s Grip on Apps Faces Challenge From Supreme Court Ruling

By Ashley Gold and Christopher Stern · May 13, 2019 3:08pm PDT · 2 comments

Could Apple’s vise-like grip on the distribution of iPhone apps be slipping? That’s the most important long-term question resulting from a U.S. Supreme Court ruling on Monday, which allowed a lawsuit from a group of iPhone users who accused Apple of overcharging them for apps to proceed in a lower court. The case—which argues... Could Apple’s vise-like grip on the distribution of iPhone apps be slipping? That’s...

John Stankey. Photo by Bloomberg.

WarnerMedia to Put Some Shows on Streaming Service First

By Jessica Toonkel and Beejoli Shah · May 13, 2019 10:52am PDT · 1 comment

Cable TV’s iron grip on the entertainment industry may be starting to loosen.AT&T’s WarnerMedia is planning to run new episodes of some of its popular cable shows—such as TNT’s “The Alienist”—first on its upcoming streaming service, before they debut on cable networks, say several people familiar... Cable TV’s iron grip on the entertainment industry may be starting to loosen....

A plant-based burger from Impossible Foods. Photo by Impossible Foods

Impossible Foods in Talks With Fast Food Chains, Sees Revenue Tripling in 2019

By Zoë Bernard · May 13, 2019 8:12am PDT · 1 comment

A plant-based burger from Impossible Foods. Photo by Impossible Foods

Impossible Foods in Talks With Fast Food Chains, Sees Revenue Tripling in 2019

By Zoë Bernard · May 13, 2019 8:12am PDT · 1 comment

Impossible Foods, the hot Silicon Valley maker of plant-based burgers, predicts its revenue will more than triple this year and the company is in discussions with an array of fast food chains, including Little Caesars, about putting its vegetarian meats on their menus, according to documents viewed by The Information. The documents—part of... Impossible Foods, the hot Silicon Valley maker of plant-based burgers, predicts its revenue will...

Republican Sen. Josh Hawley, shown during a Judiciary Committee hearing on May 1, has called for greater FTC oversight of tech companies. Photo: AP

‘Upside-Down’ World: Facebook Debate Divides Republicans

By Ashley Gold · May 13, 2019 7:00am PDT · 1 comment

Federal regulators’ negotiations with Facebook over how severe a penalty the social media company should face for privacy violations has shaken the political status quo. Democratic and Republican lawmakers, who these days find little to agree on, have teamed up to demand tough consequences for Facebook. Typically reticent Federal Trade... Federal regulators’ negotiations with Facebook over how severe a penalty the social media...

What Chris Hughes Got Right and Wrong

By Jessica E. Lessin · May 11, 2019 8:49am PDT · 3 comments

I’ve read Facebook co-founder Chris Hughes’s op-ed calling to break up Facebook a few times now and fixate on a different point of his very lengthy argument each time. It’s an ambitious attempt to drawn on history and our own ethical senses to argue that the world would be better off with a far weakened version of the company... I’ve read Facebook co-founder Chris Hughes’s op-ed calling to break up Facebook a few...

The Information’s 411 — The Prophecy Is Complete

By Tom Dotan · May 10, 2019 4:15pm PDT

Zoë talks about allegations of harassment against the CEO of Intercom and what a culture of partying means for women in the tech industry. Jessica Lessin discusses Uber's underwhelming IPO and the implications of a Facebook co-founder suggesting the company should be broken up. Zoë talks about allegations of harassment against the CEO of Intercom and what a culture of...

Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi (center) with early Uber employee Austin Geidt (wearing red) and other Uber employees and drivers. Photo by Bloomberg.

Uber’s Weak Debut Sobering Up Silicon Valley

By Amir Efrati, Jessica E. Lessin and Nick Wingfield · May 10, 2019 1:49pm PDT · 9 comments

Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi (center) with early Uber employee Austin Geidt (wearing red) and other Uber employees and drivers. Photo by Bloomberg.

Uber’s Weak Debut Sobering Up Silicon Valley

By Amir Efrati, Jessica E. Lessin and Nick Wingfield · May 10, 2019 1:49pm PDT · 9 comments

The weak public-market response to Uber’s public offering on Friday has already triggered some soul-searching in Silicon Valley.Some venture capital investors and entrepreneurs were full of reasons that the one-off IPO, in which Uber stock ended the day 7.6% below its already lowered IPO price, wouldn’t bring down the private tech... The weak public-market response to Uber’s public offering on Friday has already triggered...