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

Sunday Insights

Bitcoin Is Falling and Crypto Stocks Are Crashing

By Yueqi Yang · Nov 16, 2025 8:00am PST · 3 comments

Bitcoin has tumbled into a bear market, but the real damage is in the companies that have hoarded crypto, hoping to mimic the gains of Michael Saylor’s bitcoin stock, Strategy. Strategy is down 44% since bitcoin peaked in early October. More importantly, it is now trading slightly below the value of its bitcoin holdings. Bitcoin is down 24% from... Bitcoin has tumbled into a bear market, but the real damage is in the companies that have hoarded...

Art by Clark Miller

Apple’s Short Supply of Good Ideas

By Abram Brown · Nov 15, 2025 7:00am PST

Welcome, Weekenders! In this newsletter:• The Big Read: Inside Grindr’s boardroom feud • Plus, our Recommendations: “Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone,” “A Biography of a Mountain” and “Materialists”A bit of housekeeping: The Information’s Weekend section is looking for a reporter for a beat we’re calling “tech wealth and culture.” This... Welcome, Weekenders! In this newsletter:• The Big Read: Inside Grindr’s boardroom feud • ...

An Apollo humanoid robot prototype, made by Apptronik. Getty Images.

Google-Backed Apptronik in Talks to Raise Funding at $5 Billion Valuation

By Rocket Drew and Katie Roof · Nov 14, 2025 4:26pm PST

Apptronik, a humanoid robot maker backed by Google, is in the process of raising at least $400 million at a $5 billion valuation not including the new money, according to two people familiar with the discussions. The new round, led by B Capital, would at least triple the startup’s valuation from earlier this year, when it raised $415... Apptronik, a humanoid robot maker backed by Google, is in the process of raising at least $400...

Art by Clark Miller

Before Buyout Offer, a Boardroom Feud Festered at Grindr

By Cory Weinberg · Nov 14, 2025 9:04am PST · 1 comment

Art by Clark Miller

Before Buyout Offer, a Boardroom Feud Festered at Grindr

By Cory Weinberg · Nov 14, 2025 9:04am PST · 1 comment

The week before Halloween, Grindr, the gay dating-and-hookup app, threw a big party near New York’s Chelsea neighborhood—its second annual Pleasure Ball. The theme: sexy garden, essentially. (“Nature’s gay and it’s hungry,” read the invitation.) Attendees showed up as scantily clad gnomes and fawns, and the crowd included influencers, New... The week before Halloween, Grindr, the gay dating-and-hookup app, threw a big party near New York...

Art by Mike Sullivan

Google and Anthropic Tap Crypto Miners for AI Computing Power

By Miles Kruppa · Nov 14, 2025 6:00am PST · 2 comments

TeraWulf was limping along as a publicly traded bitcoin mining business until AI companies suddenly wanted access to its data centers. Now the cloud company is at the center of one of the hottest meme-stock trades. Shares in TeraWulf and competing crypto miners have soared in recent months after they struck deals with tech companies desperate... TeraWulf was limping along as a publicly traded bitcoin mining business until AI companies...

Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei. Getty Images

Anthropic’s Cybersecurity Cause and Cure

By Martin Peers · Nov 13, 2025 5:00pm PST

If you listen to tech executives nowadays, AI can solve all of the world’s problems. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman likes to talk about AI’s potential to cure cancer. Elon Musk the other day promised that Optimus robots—AI in a hardware form—would “eliminate poverty” and prevent crime. But will AI cause almost as many problems as it solves? When it comes... If you listen to tech executives nowadays, AI can solve all of the world’s problems. OpenAI CEO...

Partner Content

WTF Summit Recap: AI Adoption 2.0: What Comes After the Pilot Projects

By The Information Partnerships · Nov 13, 2025 4:27pm PST

After years of hype and hundreds of billions of dollars in investment, many executives are asking the same question: When will AI start paying off? Reports like MIT’s much-debated survey estimating that 95% of generative AI pilots fail suggest widespread frustration, but some companies are finally moving beyond experiments to projects with... After years of hype and hundreds of billions of dollars in investment, many executives are asking...

Elad Gil. Getty Images.

Elad Gil Doubles Fund Target to Nearly $3 Billion

By Natasha Mascarenhas · Nov 13, 2025 3:35pm PST

Elad Gil. Getty Images.

Elad Gil Doubles Fund Target to Nearly $3 Billion

By Natasha Mascarenhas · Nov 13, 2025 3:35pm PST

Elad Gil, the venture capitalist who made early investments in Perplexity, Harvey, Stripe and Airbnb, has doubled the target size of his new fund to nearly $3 billion from $1.5 billion earlier this summer, according to a person with direct knowledge of the fundraise. If Gil succeeds in raising that much money, it would be the largest known fund... Elad Gil, the venture capitalist who made early investments in Perplexity, Harvey, Stripe and...

Kabir Barday, founder and CEO of OneTrust. Photo by Getty Images

OneTrust, Privacy Startup Last Valued at $4.5 Billion, Discusses Private Equity Sale

By Valida Pau and Cory Weinberg · Nov 13, 2025 3:13pm PST · 1 comment

OneTrust, a nine-year-old startup that benefited from a wave of European and U.S. laws regulating how companies collect and share website data, is exploring a sale—possibly to private equity buyers, according to people familiar with the discussions. The Atlanta-based startup, which sells privacy and compliance software, is the latest... OneTrust, a nine-year-old startup that benefited from a wave of European and U.S. laws regulating...

Marc Benioff, CEO of Salesforce, speaks during the 2025 Dreamforce conference in San Francisco. Photo by Getty Images

The Real Winners of the Enterprise Software Market’s AI Agent Free-For-All

By Aaron Holmes and Kevin McLaughlin · Nov 13, 2025 10:30am PST

Something curious has happened in software: Nearly every established seller of enterprise tools started marketing the same general-purpose AI agents that aim to handle everything from drafting emails to customers to resolving IT service tickets. Even old-guard database providers like Snowflake are now in the AI applications game, going head... Something curious has happened in software: Nearly every established seller of enterprise tools...

Nvidia CEO, Jensen Huang. Photo by Getty Images

Why Nvidia Keeps Backing Would-Be Competitors to OpenAI

By Stephanie Palazzolo · Nov 13, 2025 7:36am PST

As we wrote in this story on Tuesday, investors are rushing to back a new crop of research-focused AI labs (dubbed neolabs) hoping to outflank OpenAI and Anthropic. One investor, in particular, is driving most of these new startups: Nvidia.In Reflection AI’s October fundraising, for instance, Nvidia contributed $800 million out of the $2 billion... As we wrote in this story on Tuesday, investors are rushing to back a new crop of...

Lyft Investors Are Enjoying the Ride

By Anita Ramaswamy · Nov 13, 2025 6:00am PST · 1 comment

Lyft Investors Are Enjoying the Ride

By Anita Ramaswamy · Nov 13, 2025 6:00am PST · 1 comment

Here’s a stock market fact that will surprise nearly everyone who has followed the ride-hailing industry: Lyft’s stock performance is beating Uber’s by a fair margin this year. Lyft is riding a surprising rebound, turning a money pit into a cash generator and making promising deals in ride hailing. Lyft shares are up nearly 80% in 2025, ahead of... Here’s a stock market fact that will surprise nearly everyone who has followed the ride-hailing...

Getty Images

Waymo Speeds Up

By Martin Peers · Nov 12, 2025 5:00pm PST · 1 comment

Next time you’re barreling down a highway and you get stuck behind someone driving at the speed limit, don’t honk or flash your lights. It might be a Waymo self-driving car! The Alphabet-owned robotaxi business announced Wednesday that its cars will now drive on freeways in the San Francisco Bay Area, Los Angeles and Phoenix, a major advance for... Next time you’re barreling down a highway and you get stuck behind someone driving at the speed...

Art by Clark Miller.

2026 Watch List: The Candidates, the Wildcard, and the IPO Market’s Tunnel Vision

By The Information Staff · Nov 12, 2025 11:42am PST · 1 comment

The 2025 initial public offering market was defined by a stark divergence: a welcome comeback year for new listings that instantly created clear winners and losers. While investors rewarded companies with an artificial intelligence or cryptocurrency narrative, stocks of consumer facing companies and software firms that couldn’t articulate an... The 2025 initial public offering market was defined by a stark divergence: a welcome comeback...

Andy Rubin. Getty Images

Android Creator Andy Rubin Launches Robotics Startup in Tokyo

By Juro Osawa · Nov 12, 2025 10:02am PST

Andy Rubin, creator of Android and a former Google executive, has launched a new startup focused on humanoid robots, said a person with direct knowledge of the venture. His venture is the latest addition to the red-hot and frothy humanoid space, crowded with companies ranging from Tesla to startups such as Figure AI. Rubin’s startup, Genki... Andy Rubin, creator of Android and a former Google executive, has launched a new startup focused...

Art by Getty Images

Robotics Data Startup Raises $40 Million Led By Bessemer

By Rocket Drew · Nov 12, 2025 8:12am PST

Art by Getty Images

Robotics Data Startup Raises $40 Million Led By Bessemer

By Rocket Drew · Nov 12, 2025 8:12am PST

Before we get to today’s column, Steph and Sri broke news Tuesday night about a flurry of investments VCs are making in so-called “neolabs,” or new labs hoping to exploit approaches to developing AI models and research they say major developers like OpenAI and Anthropic may have overlooked.These include companies like agent startup Isara, which... Before we get to today’s column, Steph and Sri broke news Tuesday night about a flurry of...

Art via Clark Miller

From Snowflake to Sierra, Every Enterprise Software Firm Is Selling the Same AI Agents

By Aaron Holmes · Nov 12, 2025 6:00am PST · 14 comments

When Whoop’s analytics chief Matt Luizzi recently looked across the company’s tech stack, he saw the same thing everywhere: AI agents multiplying. Slack has one. So does Snowflake. Google Workspace, too. And they all promise to do the same jobs—dig through data, forecast sales, even message customers. “Truly every piece of software that we... When Whoop’s analytics chief Matt Luizzi recently looked across the company’s tech stack, he saw...

Art by Clark Miller.

Investors Chase Neolabs to Outflank OpenAI, Anthropic

By Stephanie Palazzolo and Sri Muppidi · Nov 11, 2025 5:10pm PST · 2 comments

Investors are rushing to back a new generation of research-focused AI startups. In just over a month, they’ve made or discussed $2.5 billion of investments into five of these startups, called neolabs, despite the high costs and risk of failure. The neolab startups’ founders say they hope to exploit new approaches to developing AI models and... Investors are rushing to back a new generation of research-focused AI startups. In just over a...

SoftBank CEO Masayoshi Son. Getty Images.

SoftBank Hunts for Pennies to Meet Its OpenAI Commitment

By Martin Peers · Nov 11, 2025 5:02pm PST

Would you trade shares in Nvidia for stock in OpenAI? That’s what SoftBank just did, selling $5.8 billion worth of shares in the AI chip giant to finance a commitment to invest $22.5 billion in the ChatGPT maker. On the surface, it might seem a logical trade, given that chip companies purporting to compete with Nvidia have proliferated like... Would you trade shares in Nvidia for stock in OpenAI? That’s what SoftBank just did, selling $5.8...

Is AI Breaking Down Data Silos?

By The Information Partnerships · Nov 11, 2025 4:35pm PST

Partner Content

Is AI Breaking Down Data Silos?

By The Information Partnerships · Nov 11, 2025 4:35pm PST

After years of AI hype—and some recent skepticism—organizations are now seeing real value from their AI initiatives. While some highly publicized reports have claimed that generative AI projects experience high failure rates, a majority of surveyed organizations report positive outcomes. In a recent survey of The Information’s readers, 61% of... After years of AI hype—and some recent skepticism—organizations are now seeing real value from...