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

Art by Clark Miller

How to Better Protect Your Crypto

By Abram Brown · Nov 29, 2025 8:55am PST

Welcome, Weekenders! In this newsletter:• The Big Read: Secretive startup Klay enters the fray over AI music• Lists: Our 2025 gift guide—38 items we absolutely recommend • Robotics: Meet Matic, the most wonderful little robot in the world• Plus, our Recommendations: “Adrift,” “Venetian Vespers” and “One Battle After Another” Since the... Welcome, Weekenders! In this newsletter:• The Big Read: Secretive startup Klay enters the fray...

Klay co-founder and CEO Ary Attie. (Art by Clark Miller; photo courtesy of Klay)

Secretive Startup Klay Jumps Into the Fray Over AI Music

By Abram Brown · Nov 29, 2025 6:00am PST

“So here’s a real surprise,” said Ary Attie, holding open a hidden door in the bowels of the Walker Hotel in the city’s Greenwich Village neighborhood. “There used to be a lot more cool, interesting places in New York—and there’s still a few left.” Attie, the 30-year-old founder of Klay, a new AI music startup, has a taste for such... “So here’s a real surprise,” said Ary Attie, holding open a hidden door in the bowels of the...

Art by Clark Miller; images courtesy of companies.

The Information’s 2025 Gift Guide

By The Information Staff · Nov 28, 2025 8:30am PST · 5 comments

Here at The Information, we approach the holidays with the same mindset that guides our reporting on the world’s most powerful people and largest companies throughout the rest of the year. This is all to say: We focus on dispensing nothing but the no-holds-barred truth. So each year, our annual gift guide features only items we know and... Here at The Information, we approach the holidays with the same mindset that guides our reporting...

Art by Clark Miller

Forget Humanoids: Silicon Valley Is Going Nuts Over a Pixar-Like Robot

By Abram Brown · Nov 28, 2025 8:28am PST · 6 comments

Art by Clark Miller

Forget Humanoids: Silicon Valley Is Going Nuts Over a Pixar-Like Robot

By Abram Brown · Nov 28, 2025 8:28am PST · 6 comments

Until recently, Mehul Nariyawala had a surefire way to kill a conversation at a Silicon Valley cocktail hour. All he had to do was tell someone what product his startup, Matic, hoped to sell: a robot that’s part vacuum, part mop. “What they would almost always then ask is, ‘That’s not the only product you’re doing: There’s more going on, right?’... Until recently, Mehul Nariyawala had a surefire way to kill a conversation at a Silicon Valley...

Amazon CEO Andy Jassy. Courtesy of Amazon.

Amazon’s AI Crackdown Hits More AI Search Startups

By Ann Gehan · Nov 28, 2025 6:00am PST · 2 comments

Black Friday, one of the biggest shopping days of the year, should be a big business event for AI-powered shopping search startup Dupe. People looking for a bargain can use Dupe to search for items across lots of shopping sites—including Amazon—either by typing in phrases to describe what they want or uploading a photo. Dupe says... Black Friday, one of the biggest shopping days of the year, should be a big business event for...

Art by Clark Miller; Getty Images, YouTube.

ServiceNow in Advanced Talks to Buy Security Startup For At Least $1 Billion

By Valida Pau, Aaron Holmes and Katie Roof · Nov 26, 2025 4:50pm PST

ServiceNow, an IT, HR and finance software provider, is in advanced talks to buy five-year-old security startup Veza for more than $1 billion, according to people with knowledge of the deal. Veza’s subscription software helps businesses see which of their employees, as well as AI agents that automate software tasks, have access to certain... ServiceNow, an IT, HR and finance software provider, is in advanced talks to buy five-year-old...

Getty Images.

Crypto Robbery Rattles Investors

By Yueqi Yang · Nov 26, 2025 2:48pm PST

The recent bitcoin sell-off wasn’t the only cause for alarm among crypto investors this week. Many were rattled by news that a tech investor was robbed of $11 million worth of crypto at his home. Doorbell camera footage shows someone posing as a delivery worker approaching the home, accessible on street level in Mission Dolores, and asking for “... The recent bitcoin sell-off wasn’t the only cause for alarm among crypto investors this week....

Art by Clark Miller

Crypto Winter Will Be Different This Time

By Guest · Nov 26, 2025 8:00am PST · 3 comments

Art by Clark Miller

The Information Finance

Crypto Winter Will Be Different This Time

By Guest · Nov 26, 2025 8:00am PST · 3 comments

Winter is coming, not just in the seasons but in the crypto market. If the current downturn turns into another crypto winter, it will have a bigger impact on the mainstream financial system than it has in the past. Bitcoin has fallen 30% in less than two months and is down for the year, while other cryptocurrencies have crashed by much... Winter is coming, not just in the seasons but in the crypto market. If the current downturn turns...

Art by Clark Miller

Google’s Vertical Assault on the AI Market

By The Information Staff · Nov 26, 2025 8:00am PST

Google is leveraging its financial stamina and vertical integration to take share from markets dominated by OpenAI and Nvidia. We asked Deep Research to analyze how Google’s resurgence this year in AI software and its continued server hardware improvements are reshaping the industry. Here is the response. Google is leveraging its financial stamina and vertical integration to take share from markets...

Photo by Andrew Harnik/Getty Images

What Trump's AI Manhattan Project Means for the AI Industry

By Rocket Drew · Nov 26, 2025 7:00am PST · 1 comment

On Monday, the President signed an executive order laying out his vision for a “Manhattan Project” for AI. The plan calls for the national labs—the Department of Energy-funded research centers—to work together with AI companies to train AI models based on government science data. For instance, it tasks the Secretary of Energy with assessing the... On Monday, the President signed an executive order laying out his vision for a “Manhattan Project...

Photo by Adam Gray/Bloomberg via Getty Images

Trump Family Crypto Deal Runs Aground

By Michael Roddan · Nov 26, 2025 6:00am PST · 5 comments

Eric Trump and Donald Trump Jr. rang the bell at Nasdaq’s New York headquarters in August to celebrate the announcement of a deal that could have netted the family a windfall of hundreds of millions of dollars. The president’s oldest sons were combining their crypto startup, World Liberty Financial, with a publicly traded Canadian company, Alt5... Eric Trump and Donald Trump Jr. rang the bell at Nasdaq’s New York headquarters in August to...

Art by Mike Sullivan.

China Is Slowly but Surely Breaking Free From Nvidia

By Qianer Liu · Nov 26, 2025 4:00am PST

Art by Mike Sullivan.

China Is Slowly but Surely Breaking Free From Nvidia

By Qianer Liu · Nov 26, 2025 4:00am PST

ByteDance bought more Nvidia chips than any other Chinese company in 2025, according to three people with direct knowledge of its purchases. Racing to secure computing power for its billion-plus users and fearing Washington might suddenly cut off supply, the TikTok parent hoarded its stock of the chips. ByteDance’s fears about a supply crunch... ByteDance bought more Nvidia chips than any other Chinese company in 2025, according to three...

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang. Getty Images

Google’s Meta Talks Put the Ball in Nvidia’s Court

By Martin Peers · Nov 25, 2025 5:00pm PST · 1 comment

We’re getting close to the year’s end, when reporters’ minds turn to predictions for the new year. So here’s one: I predict sometime soon Nvidia will announce it is investing billions of dollars into Meta Platforms, in exchange for Meta committing to continue using Nvidia’s AI chips. This is just a wild guess, to be clear, but it’s based on how... We’re getting close to the year’s end, when reporters’ minds turn to predictions for the new...

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman. Photo by Getty Images.

OpenAI Forecasts Nearly as Many ChatGPT Subscribers as Spotify by 2030

By Sri Muppidi · Nov 25, 2025 4:55pm PST · 2 comments

To boost ChatGPT revenue, OpenAI is following a playbook enterprise apps Zoom and Slack have used to increase paid users. It’s hooking up most of its users—which now number more than 800 million—with the free version of the chatbot and then trying to convince their employers to sign enterprisewide subscriptions, said a... To boost ChatGPT revenue, OpenAI is following a playbook enterprise apps Zoom and Slack have used...

SpaceX flags fly as people wait on South Padre Island to watch the SpaceX Starship rocket launch from Starbase, Tex. in May. Getty Images. (edited)

‘Tis the Season for SpaceX Tenders

By Katie Roof · Nov 25, 2025 2:24pm PST

The holidays are coming up, which means it’s time for another surge in SpaceX share prices. The Elon Musk-founded company is planning to keep up its tradition of a twice-annual tender offer, with the new price expected to be set in December, according to multiple people familiar with the space giant’s plans. It was last valued at $400... The holidays are coming up, which means it’s time for another surge in SpaceX share prices. ...

Dev Rishi, general manager of AI at Rubrik. Photo Credit: Felicis

Rubrik Tests ‘Undo Button’ for Malfunctioning AI Agents

By Kevin McLaughlin · Nov 25, 2025 12:01pm PST · 1 comment

Dev Rishi, general manager of AI at Rubrik. Photo Credit: Felicis

Rubrik Tests ‘Undo Button’ for Malfunctioning AI Agents

By Kevin McLaughlin · Nov 25, 2025 12:01pm PST · 1 comment

Many chief information officers at large companies are hesitant to put critical parts of their business operations in the hands of AI agents. That’s because when agents go off the rails, the damage can be potentially catastrophic, as one customer of AI coding startup Replit learned this summer after its service deleted the contents of one of his... Many chief information officers at large companies are hesitant to put critical parts of their...

Art by Getty Images/Mike Sullivan

Revenue From AI Coding Tools Surpasses $3.1 Billion

By Stephanie Palazzolo · Nov 25, 2025 7:00am PST · 1 comment

There’s been a lot of talk that AI tools have yet to prove their worth. But if revenue is anything to go by, there's one area where AI tools have undoubtedly provided real returns: software engineering.The collective revenue generated from AI coding tools like Anysphere’s Cursor and Anthropic’s Claude Code has surpassed $3.1 billion. This... There’s been a lot of talk that AI tools have yet to prove their worth. But if revenue is...

The Stargate AI data center in Abilene, Tex. in September. Getty Images.

Oracle-Linked Borrowing Binge Worries Lenders

By Miles Kruppa · Nov 25, 2025 6:00am PST

Construction lending was a relatively sleepy corner of Wall Street until Oracle stepped up to become one of OpenAI’s biggest cloud providers, leading to a flood of debt to help build new data centers for the database giant. The volume of borrowing is making some lenders leery. Companies building data centers for Oracle have borrowed at least... Construction lending was a relatively sleepy corner of Wall Street until Oracle stepped up to...

Getty Images

Grindr’s Control Issues

By Cory Weinberg · Nov 24, 2025 5:00pm PST

It’s not too often that a controlling shareholder can’t get their way at a public company. But an attempt by the two biggest investors in Grindr to take the gay dating and hookup app private went south on Monday. The reason? They didn’t come up with the money. It’s the latest chapter in a long-running corporate finance saga surrounding Grindr,... It’s not too often that a controlling shareholder can’t get their way at a public company. But an...

Art by Clark Miller

Google Further Encroaches on Nvidia’s Turf With New AI Chip Push

By Amir Efrati, Erin Woo and Anissa Gardizy · Nov 24, 2025 2:43pm PST · 19 comments

Art by Clark Miller

Google Further Encroaches on Nvidia’s Turf With New AI Chip Push

By Amir Efrati, Erin Woo and Anissa Gardizy · Nov 24, 2025 2:43pm PST · 19 comments

Google is picking up the pace of its efforts to compete directly with Nvidia in the AI chip business. For years, the search giant has rented out its own AI chips, known as tensor processing units, to cloud customers who use them in its Google Cloud data centers. Now, though, Google has begun pitching some of those customers—including Meta... Google is picking up the pace of its efforts to compete directly with Nvidia in the AI chip...