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

Musk at Tesla's Berlin gigafactory. Photo: Christian Marquardt. Pool/Getty

The Electric: Why Elon Musk Should Step Down at Tesla

By Steve LeVine · Mar 6, 2025 4:30am PST · 3 comments

Tesla CEO Elon Musk has promised to release a new affordable electric vehicle by the end of June, less than four months from now. Investors hope the car will provide a spark for the company, which otherwise looks likely to mark a second consecutive year of declining sales. Tesla CEO Elon Musk has promised to release a new affordable electric vehicle by the end of June,...

YouTube CEO Neal Mohan. Photo via Getty

Why YouTube’s Subscription Push Might Be a Zero-Sum Game

By Martin Peers · Mar 5, 2025 5:00pm PST

The stock market recovered a little, as expected, thanks to President Donald Trump’s slight retreat on tariffs. But the market volatility claimed a victim—The Information reported tonight that private equity–backed Genesys, which makes customer service software, has delayed a planned IPO because of the market upheaval. This likely won’t be the... The stock market recovered a little, as expected, thanks to President Donald Trump’s slight...

Jay Bhattacharya, President Trump's nominee to direct the National Institutes of Health, at his confirmation hearing today. Photo via Getty

Creator Economy

X Influencers Vying for White House Jobs Disclose Their Pay

By Rocket Drew · Mar 5, 2025 3:17pm PST

A Senate committee Wednesday held a confirmation hearing for Jay Bhattacharya, President Donald Trump’s pick to lead the National Institutes of Health. The doctor and Stanford University professor has criticized the agency for its handling of the Covid-19 pandemic and argued that the Biden Administration pressured social media sites to suppress... A Senate committee Wednesday held a confirmation hearing for Jay Bhattacharya, President Donald...

Photo via Genesys

Stock Market Volatility Delays a Planned Big 2025 IPO

By Cory Weinberg · Mar 5, 2025 2:56pm PST · 1 comment

Photo via Genesys

Stock Market Volatility Delays a Planned Big 2025 IPO

By Cory Weinberg · Mar 5, 2025 2:56pm PST · 1 comment

Genesys, a private equity-backed customer service software company, delayed what would have been one of the largest initial public offerings of the year, citing a sliding stock market, people familiar with the matter said. The company’s advisers told people in recent days that it would push back the IPO by at least a few months, rather than try... Genesys, a private equity-backed customer service software company, delayed what would have been...

Art by Clark Miller

Make Way for the Humatons

By Robert Lindsay · Mar 5, 2025 9:30am PST · 1 comment

A stroll in downtown San Francisco in 2025 would not be complete without overhearing a conversation about artificial intelligence agents and seeing a billboard imploring managers to “stop hiring humans” for entry-level sales jobs. A visitor could be forgiven for predicting that AI bots would soon replace entire job categories, such as... A stroll in downtown San Francisco in 2025 would not be complete without overhearing a...

Art by Clark Miller.

How Meta and Google Benefit From AI-Created Ads

By Catherine Perloff · Mar 5, 2025 8:50am PST · 1 comment

Five months ago, app studio Sociaaal, which creates apps that help people identify their celebrity look-alike or suggest pick-up lines to score a date, started using generative artificial intelligence to create ads for running on social media, including YouTube. The AI-created ads included some Sociaaal’s marketing team say they never would have... Five months ago, app studio Sociaaal, which creates apps that help people identify their...

Sam Altman. Photo by Getty.

OpenAI Plots Charging $20,000 a Month For PhD-Level Agents

By Stephanie Palazzolo and Cory Weinberg · Mar 5, 2025 7:09am PST

OpenAI is betting big on ChatGPT, which is generating at least $4 billion in annualized revenue. But that’s not the only application the AI firm is hoping will make big bucks. If you saw our story last month detailing OpenAI’s financial projections, you might have noticed an intriguing reference to revenue expected to come from another type of... OpenAI is betting big on ChatGPT, which is generating at least $4 billion in annualized revenue....

Brian Armstrong, left, and Donald Trump. Photos by Getty

Coinbase Enters a New Crypto Era With Perks—and Risks

By Yueqi Yang · Mar 5, 2025 6:00am PST

Brian Armstrong, left, and Donald Trump. Photos by Getty

Coinbase Enters a New Crypto Era With Perks—and Risks

By Yueqi Yang · Mar 5, 2025 6:00am PST

On the Friday before Donald Trump’s inauguration as president in January, Brian Armstrong, CEO of Coinbase, joined his top executives in Washington at the Crypto Ball, where the tech elite celebrated the imminent arrival of the country’s first crypto-friendly president. Soon, though, there was an interruption in the revelry for Paul Grewal,... On the Friday before Donald Trump’s inauguration as president in January, Brian Armstrong, CEO of...

Photo via Getty

How Trump Volatility Is Freezing Business Decisions

By Martin Peers · Mar 4, 2025 5:00pm PST

There’s an old joke that if you’re unhappy about the weather in San Francisco, you only have to wait a few minutes until it changes. That line is beginning to seem applicable to the Trump administration’s tariff plans. Late Tuesday afternoon—after the stock market closed on the second successive sell-off sparked by President Donald Trump’s... There’s an old joke that if you’re unhappy about the weather in San Francisco, you only have to...

CoreWeave CEO Michael Intrator, left, and Weights & Biases CEO Lukas Biewald. Photos by Getty

CoreWeave in Talks to Buy AI Startup Weights & Biases For Around $1.7 Billion

By Stephanie Palazzolo, Anissa Gardizy and Natasha Mascarenhas · Mar 4, 2025 3:53pm PST · 3 comments

CoreWeave, which provides cloud servers to large companies developing artificial intelligence, is in talks to acquire Weights & Biases, a startup that helps developers build AI applications, for around $1.7 billion, according to two people who spoke to executives at Weights & Biases. The deal could help CoreWeave diversify its base of customers... CoreWeave, which provides cloud servers to large companies developing artificial intelligence, is...

Plaid co-founder Zach Perret. Photo via Getty

Plaid’s Valuation Haircut, CoreWeave’s Good Timing

By Cory Weinberg · Mar 4, 2025 3:32pm PST

Two very different startups, Plaid and CoreWeave, have been preening themselves in recent weeks to raise money. Their diverging fortunes show how timing, luck and fast-changing tech trends can create and destroy value quickly. Plaid is a victim of circumstance. The fintech startup is working on a secondary share sale, led by mutual fund... Two very different startups, Plaid and CoreWeave, have been preening themselves in recent weeks...

Passes founder Lucy Guo. Photo via Flickr/Fortune.

Passes Goes on the Defensive

By Kaya Yurieff · Mar 4, 2025 3:18pm PST

Passes founder Lucy Guo. Photo via Flickr/Fortune.

Creator Economy

Passes Goes on the Defensive

By Kaya Yurieff · Mar 4, 2025 3:18pm PST

A lawsuit alleging creator membership site Passes hosted child porn is causing quite the stir among creators, founders and talent managers. The complaint, filed by OnlyFans creator Alice Rosenblum in the Southern District of Florida last week, claims that Passes recruited Rosenblum to create pornography before she turned 18 and distributed... A lawsuit alleging creator membership site Passes hosted child porn is causing quite the stir...

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang. Photo by Getty.

DeepSeek Spurs Black Market Demand for Nvidia Gaming Chips in China

By Qianer Liu · Mar 4, 2025 10:24am PST

When DeepSeek’s success in developing competitive artificial intelligence models at a low cost prompted a $750 billion sell-off in Nvidia shares in late January, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang wasn’t worried. He told some employees a few days later that DeepSeek had just become Nvidia’s most important customer in China, since any progress in AI will... When DeepSeek’s success in developing competitive artificial intelligence models at a low cost...

Art by Mike Sullivan

Meta Plans New Push for Business Chatbots

By Kalley Huang · Mar 4, 2025 10:00am PST

Meta Platforms is preparing a new push to woo businesses to set up and run artificial intelligence chatbots on Messenger and WhatsApp, according to a current employee.As a newcomer in a crowded market, Meta has pitched its business chatbots as tools to provide customer support, plus information and recommendations that will lead to sales, the... Meta Platforms is preparing a new push to woo businesses to set up and run artificial...

Figure's Helix AI demonstration

Humanoid Robotics Firm ‘Figure’ Attracts $39 Billion Valuation—and Questions

By Rocket Drew · Mar 4, 2025 7:00am PST

Figure AI is the talk of the robotics town these days.The three-year-old startup, which designs humanoid robots for work in factories and homes, is planning to raise $1 billion to $2 billion in equity financing at a $38.5 billion pre-money valuation. That’s a staggering 15 times its valuation from a year ago. However, the venture funds... Figure AI is the talk of the robotics town these days.The three-year-old startup, which designs...

Art by Clark Miller.

Microsoft, Amazon, and Google Race to Use AI to Drive Sales Gains

By Aaron Holmes · Mar 4, 2025 6:00am PST · 1 comment

Art by Clark Miller.

Microsoft, Amazon, and Google Race to Use AI to Drive Sales Gains

By Aaron Holmes · Mar 4, 2025 6:00am PST · 1 comment

The role of salespeople is already changing in the era of artificial intelligence—and big tech companies are notching benefits from using these tools, which could be a leading indicator of how the broader industry is set to transform. At Microsoft, for instance, executives have been touting evidence that custom-built AI tools automating... The role of salespeople is already changing in the era of artificial intelligence—and big...

Traders on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange today. Photo via Getty

Trump’s Stock Sell-Off; Coreweave's IPO Filing

By Martin Peers · Mar 3, 2025 5:00pm PST

This year is really turning into a dud for tech stocks. Monday’s big market sell-off slammed the tech sector across the board, particularly chip companies like Nvidia and Broadcom that have wide exposure to China. That made it a somewhat inauspicious day for CoreWeave, a young cloud company operating data centers for artificial intelligence... This year is really turning into a dud for tech stocks. Monday’s big market sell-off slammed the...

CoreWeave CEO Michael Intrator. Photo via Getty.

CoreWeave Founders Cashed Out Nearly $500 Million Before IPO

By Cory Weinberg · Mar 3, 2025 4:00pm PST · 3 comments

The three founders of CoreWeave will spend the next few weeks trying to sell investors on the cloud provider’s future. What might make that job harder: They’ve already cashed out nearly a half-billion dollars from their stakes, between them. The founders—former commodities traders Mike Intrator, Brian Venturo and Brannin McBee—have... The three founders of CoreWeave will spend the next few weeks trying to sell investors on the...

Poolside co-founder Jason Warner. Photo via Getty.

OpenAI’s GPT-4.5 Underwhelms; Is Poolside Worth $5 Billion?

By Stephanie Palazzolo, Aaron Holmes and Sri Muppidi · Mar 3, 2025 7:00am PST · 1 comment

I enjoyed meeting many of you at AI Agenda Live in San Francisco last week! Thank you for coming. Next up is our April 28 event in New York on how the AI boom is being financed. Right on cue, my colleagues just published articles about the tens of billions of dollars that SoftBank and CoreWeave are hoping to borrow to develop artificial... I enjoyed meeting many of you at AI Agenda Live in San Francisco last week! Thank you for coming....

Art by Mike Sullivan

YouTube Tries Again to Compete With Amazon to Become All-Video Hub

By Sahil Patel · Mar 3, 2025 6:00am PST

Art by Mike Sullivan

YouTube Tries Again to Compete With Amazon to Become All-Video Hub

By Sahil Patel · Mar 3, 2025 6:00am PST

It should have been easy. YouTube in late 2022 began including in its app video-streaming services operated by other media companies, such as Paramount Global’s Paramount+ and Warner Bros. Discovery’s Max. People could sign up for the services directly from the YouTube app—YouTube would get a cut—and watch without toggling around on... It should have been easy. YouTube in late 2022 began including in its app video-streaming...