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

Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei via Getty

Investors Float Deal Valuing Anthropic at More Than $100 Billion

By Sri Muppidi and Natasha Mascarenhas · Jul 16, 2025 11:33am PDT · 1 comment

As Anthropic’s sale of artificial intelligence has surged, the company has told investors some of its profit-related metrics are improving even as it burns a tremendous amount of cash. That financial performance has prompted some investors to indicate interest in funding Anthropic at a valuation of more than $100 billion if the company decides... As Anthropic’s sale of artificial intelligence has surged, the company has told investors some of...

Image via Getty

Why xAI Spent So Much on Reinforcement Learning

By Stephanie Palazzolo · Jul 16, 2025 7:00am PDT · 2 comments

Watching last week’s Grok 4 release, one statistic stood out to us. XAI said it spent 10 times as much computational power on reinforcement learning for Grok 4 as it laid out for Grok 3.RL is a common AI development technique that rewards a model for accomplishing certain goals and penalizes it for other behaviors. The xAI disclosure provided... Watching last week’s Grok 4 release, one statistic stood out to us. XAI said it spent 10 times as...

SandboxAQ CEO Jack Hidary, center, and his backers, clockwise from top right: Marc Benioff, Eric Schmidt, Jim Breyer, Sergey Brin and Ray Dalio. Photos by Getty. Art by Mike Sullivan

Lavish Spending and Weak Growth Engulf Billionaire-Backed AI Startup SandboxAQ

By Michael Roddan · Jul 16, 2025 6:00am PDT

An array of billionaire backers and the dream of two world-changing technologies has turned SandboxAQ into a $5.6 billion startup star. The company’s business has failed to keep up with the hype, and its CEO’s behavior is now under scrutiny. SandboxAQ’s success so far is illusory. Nearly all of the company’s first-quarter revenue can be traced... An array of billionaire backers and the dream of two world-changing technologies has turned...

Photo via Getty

Waymo’s Debatable Growth Milestone

By Martin Peers · Jul 15, 2025 5:00pm PDT · 2 comments

Photo via Getty

Waymo’s Debatable Growth Milestone

By Martin Peers · Jul 15, 2025 5:00pm PDT · 2 comments

Way to go, Waymo! The Alphabet-owned robotaxi service has hit a 100-million-mile autonomous driving milestone, the company announced Tuesday to much fanfare. That figure is 10 times what it was two months ago. Take that, Elon Musk, whose Tesla has barely launched its robotaxi service in Austin, Texas.Waymo’s success reflects a growing acceptance... Way to go, Waymo! The Alphabet-owned robotaxi service has hit a 100-million-mile autonomous...

Varun Mohan and Alexandr Wang. Photos via YouTube and AP. (edited)

Speed and Greed Test Silicon Valley

By Cory Weinberg and Natasha Mascarenhas · Jul 15, 2025 3:13pm PDT

The artificial intelligence dealmaking frenzy over the past few weeks is shifting Silicon Valley norms and creating wealth at a pace and scale we’ve never seen before. One theme is becoming clear: These AI deals are all about speed, and speed can make things messy. The latest example was Google co-founder Sergey Brin (suddenly relevant... The artificial intelligence dealmaking frenzy over the past few weeks is shifting Silicon Valley...

Art via Mike Sullivan

OpenAI Preps ChatGPT Agents in Challenge to Microsoft Excel and PowerPoint

By Stephanie Palazzolo · Jul 15, 2025 2:59pm PDT · 2 comments

As OpenAI tries to turn ChatGPT into a core application for white-collar work, it’s developing agent features that could make its customers less dependent on productivity apps from Microsoft. In the latest example, OpenAI has developed features that let ChatGPT customers quickly create and edit presentations and spreadsheets that are compatible... As OpenAI tries to turn ChatGPT into a core application for white-collar work, it’s developing...

Photo: Drew Snadecki for TVU Networks

Creator Economy

The Tech Company That Powered Kai Cenat’s Streaming University

By Kaya Yurieff · Jul 15, 2025 2:00pm PDT

Kai Cenat, the world’s top Twitch streamer, made a splash in late May with a four-day “Streamer University” bootcamp for aspiring creators. Cenat, who has more than 18 million followers on the Amazon-owned site, along with fellow Twitch streamer Dennis Duke and rapper and YouTuber DDG and others, offered up classes teaching streamers how to... Kai Cenat, the world’s top Twitch streamer, made a splash in late May with a four-day “Streamer...

Art via Mike Sullivan

AWS, Google Race to Fill the Gaps in Their AI Clouds

By Aaron Holmes and Kevin McLaughlin · Jul 15, 2025 11:01am PDT

Art via Mike Sullivan

AWS, Google Race to Fill the Gaps in Their AI Clouds

By Aaron Holmes and Kevin McLaughlin · Jul 15, 2025 11:01am PDT

The artificial intelligence boom is already visibly reshaping the cloud wars. For instance, Amazon Web Services looked like an insurmountable front-runner just a few years ago, but Google has made gains among AI developers thanks to its ability to serve some models at a much lower price, my colleague Kevin reported yesterday.More broadly, we’re... The artificial intelligence boom is already visibly reshaping the cloud wars. For instance,...

Inside Zuckerberg’s AI Playbook: Billions in Compute, a Talent Arms Race, and a New Vision for Meta

By Jessica E. Lessin · Jul 15, 2025 10:31am PDT · 3 comments

When I sat down with Meta CEO and founder Mark Zuckerberg to talk artificial intelligence, I expected that he would want to discuss the company’s new supercomputer plans and talk about why he’s been working the phones all summer in a red-hot AI recruiting blitz. We covered all that. But over the course of the interview, I heard something... When I sat down with Meta CEO and founder Mark Zuckerberg to talk artificial intelligence, I...

Figure co-founder Mike Cagney. Photo by Noam Galai

Blockchain Lender Figure Technology Plans IPO

By Cory Weinberg · Jul 15, 2025 8:26am PDT · 1 comment

Figure Technology Solutions, a startup that makes home loans on its blockchain and runs a crypto exchange, is planning to go public this fall, Figure co-founder Mike Cagney said. Figure is part of a wave of crypto companies taking advantage of a more crypto-friendly White House and surging investor interest in the industry. The move is a big... Figure Technology Solutions, a startup that makes home loans on its blockchain and runs a crypto...

Mark Zuckerberg wearing Orion AR glasses. Photo by Getty

Zuckerberg Says His AI Will Solve ‘Simpler Things’ Than Its Rivals

By Stephanie Palazzolo · Jul 15, 2025 7:00am PDT · 1 comment

Before we get to today’s column about Cognition buying Windsurf, Meta Platforms CEO Mark Zuckerberg on Monday spoke to Jessica Lessin, our editor in chief, for the inaugural episode of TITV, a new daily tech show, about the question on everyone’s mind these days: Why exactly would an AI researcher come to Meta? (Other than the $100 million pay... Before we get to today’s column about Cognition buying Windsurf, Meta Platforms CEO Mark...

From left: Varun Mohan, Sergey Brin, Demis Hassabis, Scott Wu and Jeff Wang. Photos and screenshots via Getty; YouTube

Windsurf Whiplash: Inside 96-hours of Frantic AI Dealmaking

By Natasha Mascarenhas and Valida Pau · Jul 15, 2025 6:00am PDT · 1 comment

From left: Varun Mohan, Sergey Brin, Demis Hassabis, Scott Wu and Jeff Wang. Photos and screenshots via Getty; YouTube

Windsurf Whiplash: Inside 96-hours of Frantic AI Dealmaking

By Natasha Mascarenhas and Valida Pau · Jul 15, 2025 6:00am PDT · 1 comment

Last Thursday, more than 40 researchers and engineers at Windsurf, a startup that has developed an artificial intelligence–powered coding tool, began gathering at a hotel in Mountain View, Calif., after receiving an invitation to a mysterious meeting from the startup’s management. The agenda became soon obvious when the staffers were... Last Thursday, more than 40 researchers and engineers at Windsurf, a startup that has developed...

Mark Zuckerberg. Photo by Getty

Zuckerberg’s AI Psychological Warfare

By Martin Peers · Jul 14, 2025 5:00pm PDT

Mark Zuckerberg is trying to psych out his rivals in artificial intelligence. That’s one interpretation of his Threads post on Monday, declaring that Meta is “going to invest hundreds of billions of dollars” on AI computing capacity to build “superintelligence”—a new buzzword for the most advanced AI imaginable. That’s a more aggressive... Mark Zuckerberg is trying to psych out his rivals in artificial intelligence. That’s one...

Art by Mike Sullivan

ByteDance Developing Mixed Reality Goggles in Challenge to Meta

By Juro Osawa and Wayne Ma · Jul 14, 2025 8:55am PDT

Competition in mixed reality devices is heating up. TikTok’s parent, ByteDance, is working on a lightweight mixed reality device that resembles a pair of goggles, according to three people with direct knowledge of the project. It’s following in the footsteps of Meta Platforms, which has been working on a similar product scheduled for release in... Competition in mixed reality devices is heating up. TikTok’s parent, ByteDance, is working on a...

Photos via Getty

Grok 4 is the Real Deal

By Rocket Drew and Amir Efrati · Jul 14, 2025 7:00am PDT

Before we get to today’s main column about Grok 4, we wanted to share four things we learned from the craziness on Friday, when Google snatched the CEO and technology behind Windsurf, a competitor to Cursor that OpenAI had agreed to buy for $3 billion just two months ago. Before we get to today’s main column about Grok 4, we wanted to share four things we learned from...

Art via Mike Sullivan

Google Finds a Crack in Amazon’s Cloud Dominance

By Kevin McLaughlin · Jul 14, 2025 6:00am PDT · 1 comment

Art via Mike Sullivan

Google Finds a Crack in Amazon’s Cloud Dominance

By Kevin McLaughlin · Jul 14, 2025 6:00am PDT · 1 comment

Earlier this year, when The Browser Company was looking for a cloud provider to power the artificial intelligence features in a web browser it was developing, the startup’s leaders asked Amazon Web Services if it could handle the work. Winning this business was important to AWS. The Browser Company projected it would eventually spend tens of... Earlier this year, when The Browser Company was looking for a cloud provider to power the...

Art by Clark Miller

A Tech Bro Gets Flooded By Hate

By Abram Brown · Jul 12, 2025 7:00am PDT · 3 comments

Welcome, Weekenders! In this newsletter:• The Big Read: How Dylan Field thrived after the Adobe deal died• Artificial Intelligence: Silicon Valley’s summer obsession? AI note taking • Plus, our Recommendations: A true crime podcast about a ninth life; the Roosevelts and the panda bear; and revisiting a cruise from hellAugustus Doricko has... Welcome, Weekenders! In this newsletter:• The Big Read: How Dylan Field thrived after the Adobe...

Art by Clark Miller

Artificial Intelligence

How Granola—and AI Note Taking—Grabbed Silicon Valley’s Attention

By Abram Brown · Jul 12, 2025 6:00am PDT · 9 comments

At the moment, many in the tech industry have developed a rather profound addiction to Granola. No, not to the crunchy breakfast-time oats—but to a software product made by a two-year-old startup that has come to dominate a crowded field of artificial intelligence–powered note-taking options. The tool from Granola, which was valued... At the moment, many in the tech industry have developed a rather profound addiction to Granola. ...

Meta's Menlo Park, Calif. campus. Photo via Getty

Where AI Researchers Will Be Happy

By Martin Peers · Jul 11, 2025 3:00pm PDT

We got big news this afternoon in the AI world, as we learned that OpenAI’s talks to buy Windsurf, maker of the popular Codeium AI coding assistant, have ended—and Google has hired Windsurf’s CEO and some staff. For more on this drama, see our story here. Lots of questions remain unanswered, including what these developments mean for... We got big news this afternoon in the AI world, as we learned that OpenAI’s talks to buy...

Google to Pay $2.4 Billion for Windsurf Staff, IP After Startup Ends OpenAI Talks

By Miles Kruppa, Natasha Mascarenhas and Erin Woo · Jul 11, 2025 2:49pm PDT · 8 comments

Google to Pay $2.4 Billion for Windsurf Staff, IP After Startup Ends OpenAI Talks

By Miles Kruppa, Natasha Mascarenhas and Erin Woo · Jul 11, 2025 2:49pm PDT · 8 comments

OpenAI’s discussions to buy Windsurf, the maker of a popular artificial intelligence coding assistant formerly known as Codeium, have ended. Instead, Google will hire Windsurf’s CEO, Varun Mohan, and some of the startup’s staff, both Google and Windsurf said. The monthslong talks between OpenAI to buy the startup for $3 billion ended in recent... OpenAI’s discussions to buy Windsurf, the maker of a popular artificial intelligence coding...