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

SoftBank CEO Masayoshi Son. Photo via Getty

SoftBank’s Stargate Risks

By Cory Weinberg · Jan 28, 2025 3:00pm PST

Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi gave the tidiest summation six years ago for why tech CEOs have made countless 11-hour flights from San Francisco to Tokyo to court SoftBank’s Masayoshi Son: “Rather than having their capital cannon facing me, I’d rather have their capital cannon behind me, all right?” Sam Altman was the latest to make the... Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi gave the tidiest summation six years ago for why tech CEOs have made...

Ghost Agency cofounders Nicole Rechtszaid and Jenny Woo.

Creator Economy

Why One Founder Is Giving Up On TikTok

By Ann Gehan · Jan 28, 2025 2:00pm PST

TikTok’s roughly 12-hour shutdown earlier this month, however brief, was a reality check for businesses built around the app. Before that, many brands and creators that sell goods on TikTok’s shopping service, TikTok Shop, had been kicking the can down the road on what to do if the app disappeared. Nicole Rechtszaid, the founder of Ghost... TikTok’s roughly 12-hour shutdown earlier this month, however brief, was a reality check for...

Art by Mike Sullivan

DeepSeek Attracts Surge of Business Users

By Jon Victor · Jan 28, 2025 10:00am PST

The DeepSeek open-source reasoning model, R1, has barely been out for a week, but businesses are already champing at the bit to use the Chinese model in their products because it’s so cheap compared to American ones.Take ZoomInfo, a provider of data about businesses, which its customers use as sales leads. The company already found that it could... The DeepSeek open-source reasoning model, R1, has barely been out for a week, but businesses are...

Photo via Getty

Is DeepSeek an Extinction Event?; A New Reasoning-Focused AI Lab Lands Funding

By Stephanie Palazzolo · Jan 28, 2025 7:00am PST · 4 comments

Photo via Getty

Is DeepSeek an Extinction Event?; A New Reasoning-Focused AI Lab Lands Funding

By Stephanie Palazzolo · Jan 28, 2025 7:00am PST · 4 comments

If you spent any time yesterday or this weekend on X, you might have concluded that AI developers, venture capitalists, Nvidia and cloud providers are totally screwed, thanks to new uber-cheap and impressive AI models from High-Flyer Capital Management, a Chinese hedge fund.The truth is a lot more nuanced, though, and there are still a lot of... If you spent any time yesterday or this weekend on X, you might have concluded that AI...

President Trump and Softbank CEO Masayoshi Son. Photo by AP.

How SoftBank’s Son Made It Back to the White House

By Cory Weinberg and Juro Osawa · Jan 28, 2025 6:13am PST

When President Donald Trump announced a $500 billion plan for data centers to power artificial intelligence last Tuesday, one of the men standing to his left was already getting ready to write the checks. SoftBank CEO Masayoshi Son was already making plans to put a total of about $40 billion into the Stargate data center project as well as the... When President Donald Trump announced a $500 billion plan for data centers to power artificial...

Outside the Nasdaq MarketSite in Times Square today. Photo via Getty.

Investors’ Deep Search For AI Meaning

By Martin Peers · Jan 27, 2025 5:00pm PST · 1 comment

Talk about a jittery market! Shares of some tech firms exposed to artificial intelligence tumbled today, prompted by new evidence that China’s DeepSeek is giving AI folks in the U.S. a run for their money. Nvidia and Broadcom each fell 17%, while Alphabet dropped 4% and Microsoft 2%. Oh, and let’s not forget Oracle, a small player in the... Talk about a jittery market! Shares of some tech firms exposed to artificial intelligence tumbled...

Photo by Getty

DeepSeek’s Implications For AI; Why Stargate Should Be Taken Seriously

By Anissa Gardizy · Jan 27, 2025 7:00am PST · 2 comments

Before we get to our main item, I’d recommend you read yesterday’s scoop about Meta Platforms and other American developers reacting to the threat posed by DeepSeek, the hottest new artificial intelligence model (and consumer mobile app!) that has been sweeping the industry.On to the news…Last week I was at one of the largest data center... Before we get to our main item, I’d recommend you read yesterday’s scoop about Meta Platforms and...

Art by Mike Sullivan

Before Google’s $2.7 Billion Deal With AI Startup, a Stark Warning on Safety

By Kalley Huang and Paris Martineau · Jan 27, 2025 6:00am PST

Art by Mike Sullivan

Before Google’s $2.7 Billion Deal With AI Startup, a Stark Warning on Safety

By Kalley Huang and Paris Martineau · Jan 27, 2025 6:00am PST

Late last summer, leaders at Character.AI were worried: The company—which offers artificial intelligence chatbots that simulate conversations with Aristotle, Pikachu and other historic or invented characters—was seeing a sharp slowdown in user growth. In September messages to staff, which The Information viewed, Character’s... Late last summer, leaders at Character.AI were worried: The company—which offers artificial...

Digit, Agility Robotics' humanoid. Photo: Getty

The Electric: Humanoid Robots Are Cool—but How Will Their Battery Problem Be Solved?

By Steve LeVine · Jan 27, 2025 4:30am PST · 3 comments

Adam Jonas made his name as one of the biggest Tesla bulls. These days, people are flooding the Morgan Stanley analyst with questions about humanoid robots. The volume of calls has exceeded “the entirety of our [automaker], dealer and supplier coverage combined,” he said in a note Friday. Adam Jonas made his name as one of the biggest Tesla bulls. These days, people are flooding the...

Art via Clark Miller

Meta Scrambles After Chinese AI Equals Its Own, Upending Silicon Valley

By Kalley Huang and Stephanie Palazzolo · Jan 26, 2025 12:51pm PST · 8 comments

Artificial intelligence researchers at Meta Platforms have been in panic mode. In recent days, leaders of some of the company’s AI teams openly worried that new conversational AI made by a Chinese hedge fund meant Meta was falling behind in the AI race. Leaders including AI infrastructure director Mathew Oldham have told numerous colleagues they... Artificial intelligence researchers at Meta Platforms have been in panic mode. In recent days,...

Donald Trump at the Bitcoin 2024 conference in Nashville last summer. (Getty Images)

Crypto’s Glory Days Hide An Uncomfortable Reality

By Abram Brown · Jan 25, 2025 7:00am PST · 1 comment

Welcome, Weekenders! In this newsletter:• The Big Read: How Poppi hopes to win the battle of the bubbles • Space Inc.: What India’s space odyssey could look like • Plus, our Recommendations: An explanation for our problematic shopping; a master novelist’s slim oeuvre; and a movie podcast for the nerdiest film nerdsThe most powerful and... Welcome, Weekenders! In this newsletter:• The Big Read: How Poppi hopes to win the battle of the...

Art by Clark Miller

A Satellite Startup Envisions a Top Spot in India’s Space Odyssey

By Anita Raghavan · Jan 25, 2025 5:00am PST · 3 comments

Art by Clark Miller

A Satellite Startup Envisions a Top Spot in India’s Space Odyssey

By Anita Raghavan · Jan 25, 2025 5:00am PST · 3 comments

Back in November, Awais Ahmed, dressed all in black from his glasses to his trousers, paused for a moment outside his startup’s Bangalore laboratory to peer through a glass window at a stout contraption: a 2.5-foot-tall satellite partially covered in gold foil. A giant eye stared back at him. Mounted atop the satellite was a hyperspectral... Back in November, Awais Ahmed, dressed all in black from his glasses to his trousers, paused for...

Photo via Getty

How Trump’s Order Blitz Played Out for Tech

By Rocket Drew · Jan 24, 2025 3:47pm PST · 1 comment

What a week! President Donald Trump had promised a slew of executive orders once he took office, and the tech and finance industry executives who threw their support behind him expected several would address their long-held beefs with Biden administration policies.Trump delivered on the deluge. The crypto industry got almost everything it... What a week! President Donald Trump had promised a slew of executive orders once he took office,...

Trump Inauguration, Stargate, and the Meme Economy

By Jessica E. Lessin · Jan 24, 2025 10:35am PST

On this week's More or Less: Silicon Valley goes to Trump's inauguration and the truth behind Stargate. Apple Spotify On this week's More or Less: Silicon Valley goes to Trump's inauguration and the truth...

Art by Clark Miller. Ellsworths image via Getty.

How Poppi Hopes to Win the Battle of the Bubbles

By Ann Gehan · Jan 24, 2025 9:01am PST

On the ground floor of a nondescript condo building in east Austin last month, the wife-and-husband co-founders of Poppi made good on a promise they made to me: that they would offer me a taste test of their beverage company’s in-the-works flavors. It wasn’t quite like getting access to the secret Coca-Cola recipe, but it was as... On the ground floor of a nondescript condo building in east Austin last month, the...

Mark Zuckerberg, Lauren Sanchez, Jeff Bezos, Sundar Pichai and Elon Musk at Donald Trump's inauguration on Monday. Photo by Getty

Pro Weekly: The Trump Bump on Reader Sentiment

By Akash Pasricha · Jan 24, 2025 8:00am PST

Mark Zuckerberg, Lauren Sanchez, Jeff Bezos, Sundar Pichai and Elon Musk at Donald Trump's inauguration on Monday. Photo by Getty

Pro Weekly: The Trump Bump on Reader Sentiment

By Akash Pasricha · Jan 24, 2025 8:00am PST

Call it the Trump effect. Leaders of Google, Meta Platforms, Amazon and Apple all appeared at the president’s inauguration Monday. And respondents to our latest reader survey said they were decidedly more optimistic about the outlook for those four companies. The survey drew 803 responses between Jan. 15 and Tuesday, covering the long... Call it the Trump effect. Leaders of Google, Meta Platforms, Amazon and Apple all appeared at the...

Andy Jassy photo by Getty. Art by Mike Sullivan

Amazon’s Prime Video Shifts to Profits, Promoting Rival Streamers

By Sahil Patel · Jan 24, 2025 6:00am PST · 1 comment

In the summer of 2022, a year after becoming CEO of Amazon, Andy Jassy wanted the executives running the company’s Prime Video business to tell him why it was spending billions of dollars a year on expensive shows such as “Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power” and “Citadel.” At an annual planning meeting, Jassy... In the summer of 2022, a year after becoming CEO of Amazon, Andy Jassy wanted the executives...

Donald Trump, left, and Xi Jinping. Photo by Getty.

Trump Loves TikTok—Does Xi?

By Martin Peers · Jan 23, 2025 5:00pm PST · 1 comment

It’s a good bet that President Donald Trump cares a lot more about TikTok than Chinese President Xi Jinping does. That suggests the Chinese leader will have some bargaining leverage over Trump in whatever discussions the two have about the fate of the ByteDance-owned app. You can just imagine Xi pressing for big concessions on tariffs or Chinese... It’s a good bet that President Donald Trump cares a lot more about TikTok than Chinese President...

From Left: Elon Musk, Donald Trump, Jensen Huang, Satya Nadella, Masayoshi Son, Larry Ellison and Sam Altman. Photos by Getty; AP.

Behind the OpenAI-Oracle Pact, an Elon Musk Threat Loomed

By Aaron Holmes, Anissa Gardizy and Amir Efrati · Jan 23, 2025 3:00pm PST · 1 comment

As 2024 was drawing to a close, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman faced two major problems. He wasn’t getting enough server capacity from Microsoft, his company’s biggest backer, to stay ahead of rivals developing artificial intelligence. And he was facing a legal challenge from one of his biggest foes, Elon Musk, who had forged a close bond... As 2024 was drawing to a close, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman faced two major problems. He wasn’t...

Chart by Shane Burke

U.S. TikTok Employees Flee to Meta, Google

By Kaya Yurieff · Jan 23, 2025 2:00pm PST · 2 comments

Chart by Shane Burke

Creator Economy

U.S. TikTok Employees Flee to Meta, Google

By Kaya Yurieff · Jan 23, 2025 2:00pm PST · 2 comments

As uncertainty around TikTok’s future has built for months, some U.S.-based employees at the short-form video app have left for other companies. Nearly one in ten of those departures have been to Meta Platforms, the parent of Instagram and Facebook, according to a new analysis from Live Data Technologies, which tracks personnel movements... As uncertainty around TikTok’s future has built for months, some U.S.-based employees at the...