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

Sidewalk Labs CEO Dan Doctoroff. Photo by AP.

Alphabet’s Sidewalk Preps Proposal for Digital District

By Jessica E. Lessin · Apr 14, 2016 2:20pm PDT · 3 comments

Alphabet’s Sidewalk Labs is nearing a big decision point in one of the company’s most ambitious projects: the possible construction of a futuristic district.Sidewalk chief Dan Doctoroff and his team plan to discuss the secret project, codenamed “Project Sidewalk”, with Alphabet CEO Larry Page in the coming weeks. If Mr.... Alphabet’s Sidewalk Labs is nearing a big decision point in one of the company’s most...

Facebook and Twitter Pressure Partners Over Snapchat

By Amir Efrati and Cory Weinberg · Apr 14, 2016 7:01am PDT · 1 comment

Earlier this year, The Huffington Post got a polite but pointed request from Twitter: Stop using The Huffington Post’s personalized Snapchat logo as its Twitter profile image, according to a person briefed on the situation.In response, HuffPo reduced how often it used the logo on Twitter—which makes it easier for people to find the... Earlier this year, The Huffington Post got a polite but pointed request from Twitter: Stop using...

Facebook's VP of messaging products, David Marcus. Photo by Bloomberg.

Why M Matters to Messenger

By Cory Weinberg · Apr 13, 2016 2:11pm PDT · 1 comment

Facebook executives didn’t talk much on the F8 developer conference stage in the past day about its under-construction virtual assistant, “M,” which lives inside Messenger and is available only to a limited number of people. But M will be crucial for Facebook to achieve its goal of usurping Apple’s app store as a gateway... Facebook executives didn’t talk much on the F8 developer conference stage in the past day...

GoPro CEO Nick Woodman. Photo by Bloomberg.

Apple Designer Jumps to GoPro

By Jessica E. Lessin and Reed Albergotti · Apr 13, 2016 7:28am PDT

GoPro CEO Nick Woodman. Photo by Bloomberg.

Apple Designer Jumps to GoPro

By Jessica E. Lessin and Reed Albergotti · Apr 13, 2016 7:28am PDT

A member of Apple's elite industrial design team, Danny Coster, is jumping ship, joining GoPro to head up a new hardware design group there.Mr. Coster worked for Apple since the early 1990s, including on products like the iPhone and the iPad wireless design. A member of Apple's elite industrial design team, Danny Coster, is jumping ship, joining...

Slack CEO Stewart Butterfield. Photo by Bloomberg.

Why Slack Needs a Product Fix

By Steve Nellis · Apr 13, 2016 7:02am PDT · 6 comments

Slack’s recent $200 million fundraising, at a 36% higher valuation than a year ago, is a reminder that investors remain big believers in the fast-growing chat app. Slack not only aims to win the niche of chat. It also wants to be the main way that people communicate with each other and with the various software systems that make up a... Slack’s recent $200 million fundraising, at a 36% higher valuation than a year ago, is a...

Evan Spiegel. Photo by Flickr/TechCrunch.

How Emojis Became A Weapon in Messaging Wars

By Tom Dotan · Apr 12, 2016 7:02am PDT

When Kleiner Perkins led an $8 million B round for Bitstrips in 2014, partners saw it as a fairly small bet on an app with some momentum. They certainly didn’t anticipate that what is now a maker of goofy, personalized emojis would get swept up in an arms race among social networks for messaging supremacy.But that’s what happened... When Kleiner Perkins led an $8 million B round for Bitstrips in 2014, partners saw it as a fairly...

Art by Sam Lessin.

Modest Proposals

The Coming End of Capitalism

By Sam Lessin · Apr 11, 2016 10:02am PDT · 5 comments

In the last few months there has been a resurgence of post-capitalist chatter flying around the valley. John Battelle, for instance, posted a widely shared note about “the reinvention of capitalism” after technology. At the same time, there’s been a dinner-time revival of the old conversation about the inevitable need for a... In the last few months there has been a resurgence of post-capitalist chatter flying around the...

Stan Chudnovsky. Photo by Flickr/Christopher Michel.

Messenger’s Growth Maestro

By Cory Weinberg · Apr 11, 2016 7:02am PDT

Stan Chudnovsky. Photo by Flickr/Christopher Michel.

Messenger’s Growth Maestro

By Cory Weinberg · Apr 11, 2016 7:02am PDT

Stan Chudnovsky never took English language classes after he moved to the United States from Russia more than two decades ago. When he stepped into the top engineering role at an early social networking startup called Tickle in 2000, his vocabulary was limited and he was prone to mixing metaphors, which his co-workers dubbed... Stan Chudnovsky never took English language classes after he moved to the United States from...

The Weekly Digest

The Information You Missed This Week

By The Information Staff · Apr 9, 2016 8:01am PDT

Happy Saturday, After a wintry lull in tech news, things are finally warming up. F8 is next week. We should see some action in the Yahoo auction in the next couple of weeks. And the springtime digital media advertising presentations are only a few weeks away. Happy Saturday, After a wintry lull in tech news, things are finally warming up. F8 is next...

Art by Chris Fargo.

NYC Subscriber Summit

Watch Interviews from the Summit

By The Information Staff · Apr 8, 2016 2:27pm PDT

If you missed Tuesday's New York Subscriber Summit, you can watch the interviews below. Among those on stage were Sidewalk Labs CEO Dan Doctoroff, outgoing Politico co-founder Jim VandeHei and Fidelity executive Andy Boyd. If you missed Tuesday's New York Subscriber Summit, you can watch the interviews below....

The Information’s 411 — Talking Our Books

By Tom Dotan · Apr 8, 2016 1:43pm PDT

On this week's show, Tom talked with Gimlet's co-founder Matt Lieber about the podcast business. The show also features an excerpt of Jessica's conference call about Chinese tech giants like Tencent.You can find our RSS feed here or subscribe via iTunes and SoundCloud. On this week's show, Tom talked with Gimlet's co-founder Matt Lieber about the podcast...

The Real Disruption in Digital Video is (Finally) Here

By Jessica E. Lessin · Apr 8, 2016 7:00am PDT · 7 comments

The Real Disruption in Digital Video is (Finally) Here

By Jessica E. Lessin · Apr 8, 2016 7:00am PDT · 7 comments

Three seemingly unrelated things happened in digital video recently. Twitter paid around $10 million for the rights to stream some NFL games. Facebook expanded its Live streaming service for broadcasting video from phones. And Snapchat unveiled a big update that, among other things, compiles individual stories into one long video channel and... Three seemingly unrelated things happened in digital video recently. Twitter paid around $10...

An AwesomenessTV show on go90 called 'Guidance.' Photo by AwesomenessTV.

Verizon Hires NBCU Exec for go90

By Tom Dotan · Apr 7, 2016 12:37pm PDT

Verizon has hired digital media executive Chip Canter from NBCUniversal as general manager of its go90 video app, said two people familiar with the situation. Mr. Canter, who started at Verizon in recent weeks, will serve under Verizon’s head of consumer product Brian Angiolet. He comes to the company at a critical time for the video app... Verizon has hired digital media executive Chip Canter from NBCUniversal as general manager of its...

Facebook's Serkan Piantino. Photo by Flickr/TechCrunch.

NYC Subscriber Summit

Facebook’s Research Conveyor Belt for AI

By Cory Weinberg · Apr 7, 2016 10:43am PDT · 1 comment

It’s no secret that Facebook’s virtual assistant, M, doesn’t have true intelligence. Humans help operate the app within Messenger, which a limited number of people can use to order food, find flights or do other things that one day may be done by a machine. But M wouldn’t exist without work by Facebook Artificial... It’s no secret that Facebook’s virtual assistant, M, doesn’t have true...

Mark Zuckerberg. Photo by Bloomberg. Art by Dustin Rogers.

Facebook Struggles to Stop Decline in ‘Original’ Sharing

By Amir Efrati · Apr 7, 2016 7:01am PDT · 9 comments

Less than a year ago, leaders at Facebook convened to address a serious problem: people using the social network were posting fewer things about their personal lives for their friends to see, according to confidential company data about several types of content sharing that happen on Facebook, which was viewed by The Information.Thus began an... Less than a year ago, leaders at Facebook convened to address a serious problem: people using the...

Sources: Morgan Stanley Investment Management, Allianz, NYU Stern School of Business

Startup Risk: from Dropbox to Airbnb

By Alfred Lee · Apr 6, 2016 12:47pm PDT

Sources: Morgan Stanley Investment Management, Allianz, NYU Stern School of Business

Startup Risk: from Dropbox to Airbnb

By Alfred Lee · Apr 6, 2016 12:47pm PDT

Want to know which startups are particularly risky for investors to put their money into? Calculations by institutional investors suggest that investing in coffee startup Blue Bottle or physician social network Doximity is highly risky. Less risky: Palantir and Airbnb.These estimates of risk are based on an arcane financial term called weighted... Want to know which startups are particularly risky for investors to put their money into?...

Left to right: Brian Singerman, Andy Boyd and Alfred Lee of The Information. Photo by Chris Fargo.

NYC Subscriber Summit

Fidelity Talks Private Tech Investing

By Tom Dotan · Apr 6, 2016 7:02am PDT

Fidelity Investments has become one of the most watched investors in private tech in the past year, taking stakes in such big names as Uber, Airbnb, WeWork and Snapchat. But Fidelity executive Andy Boyd wants to make one thing clear: mutual funds are not venture capitalists.Fidelity’s head of global capital equity markets said the firm was... Fidelity Investments has become one of the most watched investors in private tech in the past...

Jim VandeHei. Photo by Chris Fargo.

NYC Subscriber Summit

Politico’s VandeHei Blasts ‘Crap Trap’ of News Media

By Tom Dotan · Apr 5, 2016 4:15pm PDT · 3 comments

The outgoing CEO and co-founder of Politico, Jim VandeHei, blasted the news industry for falling into “crap trap” journalism aimed at amassing big audiences at the expense of substantive coverage.Mr. VandeHei made his comments during an on-stage interview at The Information’s New York Subscriber Summit on Tuesday. He is leaving... The outgoing CEO and co-founder of Politico, Jim VandeHei, blasted the news industry for falling...

From left to right: Sam Goertler, Eddie Segel, Melissa Bell and Jessica Lessin. Photo by Chris Fargo.

NYC Subscriber Summit

How Startups Are Turning Growth into Revenue

By Cory Weinberg · Apr 5, 2016 3:18pm PDT

It’s no longer enough for startups to hype how many users they have. They need to prove they’re making money, too. That was evident at a panel The Information’s New York Subscriber Summit featuring executives from Vox Media, workplace software company Asana and health insurance startup Oscar.For Asana, which raised $50... It’s no longer enough for startups to hype how many users they have. They need to prove...

Dan Doctoroff and Jessica Lessin. Photo by Chris Fargo.

Is Alphabet Going to Build a City?

By Cory Weinberg · Apr 5, 2016 10:48am PDT · 1 comment

Dan Doctoroff and Jessica Lessin. Photo by Chris Fargo.

NYC Subscriber Summit

Is Alphabet Going to Build a City?

By Cory Weinberg · Apr 5, 2016 10:48am PDT · 1 comment

In its first year of existence, the Alphabet-owned “urban innovation company” Sidewalk Labs has been working on products to improve WiFi access and traffic flows in cities. But there’s signs it has skyscraper-sized ambitions that lean towards building a city from the ground up.Sidewalk CEO Dan Doctoroff hinted as much in an... In its first year of existence, the Alphabet-owned “urban innovation company”...