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

The Problem with Apple’s Juice

By Jessica E. Lessin · Sep 5, 2014 7:19am PDT

In the build-up to the new Apple Watch, it is easy to get seduced by the rumored features. Curved screen! Wireless charging! Jony Ive thinks it’s slick! But—and I hate to burst everyone’s bubble here—the appeal of the world’s most highly anticipated wearable computer is going to come down to something a... In the build-up to the new Apple Watch, it is easy to get seduced by the rumored features. Curved...

Photo by Bloomberg.

Court Ruling on Contractors a Red Flag for On-Demand Services

By Eric Newcomer and Tom Dotan · Sep 4, 2014 12:34pm PDT

A three-judge panel of the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals last week called a spade a spade: If you’re driving a FedEx-branded truck, wearing a FedEx uniform, and doing what FedEx tells you to do, then you’re a Fedex employee, not an independent contractor. The implications of the ruling for companies such as Uber, Lyft, Google,... A three-judge panel of the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals last week called a spade a spade: If...

Uber CEO Travis Kalanick. Photo by Bloomberg.

For the Well-Connected, Some Venture Investing Now a ‘Safe Haven’

By Jessica E. Lessin · Sep 4, 2014 7:09am PDT · 6 comments

Venture capital investing isn’t for the faint of heart. Years of big wins are often followed by years of big losses; consistent performance is hard to come by. From March 2013 to March 2014, U.S. venture investors outperformed the S&P 500 by 40 percent, according to Cambridge Associates, which advises institutional investors. Yet over... Venture capital investing isn’t for the faint of heart. Years of big wins are often...

Twitch CEO Emmett Shear. Illustration by Matthew Vascellaro.

Building the ‘Comcast of Gaming’ at Amazon

By Amir Efrati and Eric Newcomer · Sep 3, 2014 6:22pm PDT · 1 comment

Twitch CEO Emmett Shear. Illustration by Matthew Vascellaro.

Q&A

Building the ‘Comcast of Gaming’ at Amazon

By Amir Efrati and Eric Newcomer · Sep 3, 2014 6:22pm PDT · 1 comment

Last week, 31-year-old Emmett Shear joined an exclusive club of tech startup founder/CEOs who agreed to sell their company for about $1 billion or more. While his startup, the online video-game broadcaster Twitch, is just three years old, it had spun out of a different live-video site he helped launch in 2007. Twitch quickly became the... Last week, 31-year-old Emmett Shear joined an exclusive club of tech startup founder/CEOs who ...

Jonah Goodhart, CEO of Moat. Courtesy Photo.

Controversy Rages Over How to Combat Phantom Ads

By Tom Dotan · Sep 3, 2014 7:00am PDT · 2 comments

Frustrated by an online advertising marketplace in which many banner ads and videos are paid for but never seen, ad agencies and their clients have begun demanding that publishers provide robust, contractual guarantees on ad “viewability.” But many in the online ad business fear the new requirements are unrealistic. Some say these... Frustrated by an online advertising marketplace in which many banner ads and videos are paid for...

Greg Wyler. Photo by Bloomberg.

Abrupt Exit for Google Satellite Exec

By Jessica E. Lessin and Amir Efrati · Sep 2, 2014 3:35pm PDT

One of the leaders of Google's effort to build a constellation of Internet-beaming satellites, Greg Wyler, has left the company, according to two people familiar with the situation. Why the relationship between Mr. Wyler and Google deteriorated just a few months after his hiring couldn’t be learned. Mr. Wyler is well-known in the... One of the leaders of Google's effort to build a constellation of Internet-beaming...

Ouya CEO Julie Uhrman. Courtesy Photo.

Enthusiasm for Low-Cost TV Gaming Puts Ouya in Play

By Amir Efrati · Sep 2, 2014 7:30am PDT

As the high-stakes race among technology companies for control of living-room entertainment continues to heat up, a new generation of low-cost hardware and software for viewing Web video and playing video games on TV sets has emerged as a major battleground. As the scrum takes shape, Ouya, a high-profile startup that makes an inexpensive TV... As the high-stakes race among technology companies for control of living-room entertainment...

Twitch Through the Prism of Cable TV

By Jessica E. Lessin · Aug 29, 2014 10:27am PDT

Twitch Through the Prism of Cable TV

By Jessica E. Lessin · Aug 29, 2014 10:27am PDT

Inevitably, when a little-known company comes out of nowhere to be acquired by a well-known one for nearly a billion dollars, people start looking for analogies. And so it was with Twitch, the site that broadcasts people playing video games that Amazon nabbed this week (as first reported by Eric and Amir.) The analogy of choice among... Inevitably, when a little-known company comes out of nowhere to be acquired by a well-known one...

Cyanogen co-founders Steve Kondik, left, and Kirt McMaster. Photo by Cyanogen

Obscure Android Software Firm Attracts Google Rivals

By Amir Efrati · Aug 28, 2014 2:18pm PDT · 3 comments

A little-known software startup called Cyanogen is gaining attention from a long list of big-name companies that want to sell smartphones and applications based on Google’s Android operating system—but don’t want to be under the thumb of Google. Amazon.com, Microsoft, Samsung Electronics and Yahoo are among the companies... A little-known software startup called Cyanogen is gaining attention from a long list of big-name...

Robert Herz of FASB testifies on expensing of stock options in 2004. Photo by Bloomberg.

Tech Companies Sow Confusion by Refusing to Mind the GAAP

By Jonathan Weber · Aug 28, 2014 7:08am PDT · 1 comment

Did Twitter make a profit last quarter? That seems like a simple enough question, one that public companies are required to answer in very specific fashion. Yet a quick perusal of news coverage of the July 29 earnings announcement shows two drastically different answers: Twitter either had a $15 million profit, or a $145 million loss. The... Did Twitter make a profit last quarter? That seems like a simple enough question, one that...

Ricky Van Veen of CollegeHumor. Illustration by Matthew Vascellaro

Q&A

How Frat Jokes Led to YouTube—and then to Hollywood

By Tom Dotan · Aug 27, 2014 1:03pm PDT

The evolution of CollegeHumor from a site Ricky Van Veen started with his friends to host funny pictures and video clips into a digitally-minded studio that was acquired by IAC/InterActive Corp in 2006 has in many ways set the template for the entire online video movement. You can see traces of it in YouTube’s trajectory from a repository of... The evolution of CollegeHumor from a site Ricky Van Veen started with his friends to host funny...

Union workers protesting at Twitter in San Francisco. Photo by Bloomberg.

Tech Workers of the World, Unite?

By Eric Newcomer · Aug 27, 2014 8:04am PDT · 15 comments

Union workers protesting at Twitter in San Francisco. Photo by Bloomberg.

Tech Workers of the World, Unite?

By Eric Newcomer · Aug 27, 2014 8:04am PDT · 15 comments

The Silicon Valley technology worker doesn’t quite fit the profile of the exploited proletarian: The average high-tech salary in San Francisco is $156,518, according to one estimate. Compared with a fast-food worker, let alone a child laborer in Asia, the high-tech coder-laborer class—typified by the well-educated, male software... The Silicon Valley technology worker doesn’t quite fit the profile of the exploited...

Walmart CEO Doug McMillon. Photo by Bloomberg.

Walmart Stumbles as Amazon Threat Mounts

By Amir Efrati · Aug 26, 2014 8:00am PDT

Executives at Wal-Mart Stores, the world’s top brick-and-mortar retailer, say they have woken up to the long-term threat their company faces from the world’s top online retailer, Amazon.com. But Walmart’s e-commerce performance has been decidedly lagging. Executives at Wal-Mart Stores, the world’s top brick-and-mortar retailer, say they have...

YouTube chief Susan Wojcicki. Photo by TechCrunch.

Why the Google-Twitch Deal Fell Apart

By Amir Efrati · Aug 25, 2014 4:04pm PDT

Top executives at Google’s YouTube video unit saw Twitch, the online video-game broadcaster, as the ESPN of the future. When longtime Google executive Susan Wojcicki became chief of YouTube in February, those executives convinced her to pursue an acquisition. By May of this year, Twitch had signed a term sheet agreeing to be acquired by... Top executives at Google’s YouTube video unit saw Twitch, the online video-game...

Twitch CEO Emmett Shear. Photo by Bloomberg.

Amazon to Acquire Twitch for $970 Million

By Eric Newcomer and Amir Efrati · Aug 25, 2014 10:00am PDT · 1 comment

Amazon.com announced Monday that it had agreed to acquire video site Twitch for $970 million in cash, the latest sign of the e-commerce giant's expansive ambitions in video entertainment. The deal came just months after numerous reports that Google had a deal to acquire Twitch. News of the Amazon deal was first reported Monday morning by The... Amazon.com announced Monday that it had agreed to acquire video site Twitch for $970 million in...

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg. Photo by Bloomberg.

Facebook Assault on Google’s DoubleClick Coming This Fall

By Tom Dotan and Amir Efrati · Aug 25, 2014 7:23am PDT

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg. Photo by Bloomberg.

Facebook Assault on Google’s DoubleClick Coming This Fall

By Tom Dotan and Amir Efrati · Aug 25, 2014 7:23am PDT

Few people thought much of Atlas when Facebook acquired the advertising technology company from Microsoft last year. Microsoft had bought Atlas in 2007 as part of its ill-fated $6 billion acquisition of aQuantive, and sold it to the social network for pennies on the dollar. But a revitalized Atlas with new capabilities and new leadership has... Few people thought much of Atlas when Facebook acquired the advertising technology company from...

Can Both Consumers and VCs Win in the Long Run?

By Jessica E. Lessin · Aug 22, 2014 8:02am PDT · 3 comments

It’s a great time to be a consumer. You can order a ride, meal, laundry pickup or massage in minutes through your phone without breaking the bank. And we have venture capitalists to thank for it. As startups sacrifice profits for growth, the VCs are funding the losses. Here at The Information we often laugh that we’re beneficiaries... It’s a great time to be a consumer. You can order a ride, meal, laundry pickup or massage...

Alibaba founder Jack Ma. Photo by Bloomberg.

How China Leapfrogged the U.S. in Mobile Payments

By Jessica E. Lessin and Eric Newcomer · Aug 21, 2014 7:49am PDT

Turn the clock back a few years and everyone was talking about how “backwards” Asia was when it came to digital payments. E-commerce was booming in the rest of the world, thanks to the prevalence of credit cards and other online payment options. But that wasn’t the case in Asia—and especially not in China, the... Turn the clock back a few years and everyone was talking about how “backwards” Asia...

Ebay CEO John Donahoe. Photo by Bloomberg.

PayPal’s Future Still in Play

By Jessica E. Lessin · Aug 21, 2014 7:09am PDT

Activist investor Carl Icahn’s quest to compel eBay to spin off its PayPal unit ended with a whimper in April. But the maneuvering over PayPal, a giant in the red-hot payments sector, seems to be just beginning. Ebay has been telling potential recruits for the position of PayPal CEO that it’s considering spinning off the payments... Activist investor Carl Icahn’s quest to compel eBay to spin off its PayPal unit ended with...

Jake Schwartz and Brad Hargreaves of General Assembly. Illustration by Matthew Vascellaro.

Building Offline Education for an Online World

By Jessica E. Lessin · Aug 20, 2014 11:28am PDT

Jake Schwartz and Brad Hargreaves of General Assembly. Illustration by Matthew Vascellaro.

Q&A

Building Offline Education for an Online World

By Jessica E. Lessin · Aug 20, 2014 11:28am PDT

The tech industry is awash in software and services designed to improve how we learn everything from Ruby on Rails to the piano. But one upstart that’s trying to rethink education is pretty old school. General Assembly opened in New York in 2011, in part to offer cheap office space to startups. Today, it’s a school that offers... The tech industry is awash in software and services designed to improve how we learn everything...