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

Elon Musk. Krisztian Bocsi/Bloomberg via Getty Images

What SpaceX’s Numbers Do and Don’t Tell Us

By Martin Peers · Apr 13, 2026 5:00pm PDT

The mysteries of SpaceX are no more. My colleague Cory Weinberg today wrote the second of two stories in four days that pulled back the curtain on the finances of Elon Musk’s space company, which is planning to go public in a couple of months. You don’t have to wait for the formal IPO filing to get the dirt on SpaceX.The bottom line is that... The mysteries of SpaceX are no more. My colleague Cory Weinberg today wrote the second of two...

Ethan Swope/Bloomberg/Getty.

New SpaceX Numbers Show Reliance on Starlink

By Cory Weinberg · Apr 13, 2026 4:12pm PDT · 1 comment

A new set of numbers for Elon Musk’s SpaceX makes it clear that the success of its potential initial public offering will depend on investors embracing the growth of the company’s Starlink satellite internet business. The other two businesses inside SpaceX—rocket launches and AI—are burning cash and not generating the kind of growth... A new set of numbers for Elon Musk’s SpaceX makes it clear that the success of its potential...

Garrett Lord, Co-Founder and CEO of Handshake. Image via YouTube

Handshake, Mercor Revenue Surges on Demand for Human Contractors to Train AI

By Julia Hornstein and Cory Weinberg · Apr 13, 2026 2:13pm PDT · 1 comment

AI firms’ voracious appetite for more data has lifted sales for obscure startups doing the industry’s unglamorous work: contracting with lawyers, PhD holders and medical doctors who grade the answers AI models generate. The latest is Handshake, a 12-year-old startup that began as a job site for college graduates. Handshake’s gross... AI firms’ voracious appetite for more data has lifted sales for obscure startups doing the...

Chery says it will release the premium Exeed EX7 SUV late this year, powered by a semisolid battery. Photo: Courtesy MIIT.

The Electric: In the U.S. and China, Exaggerated Claims of Solid State Batteries

By Steve LeVine · Apr 13, 2026 9:00am PDT

Chery says it will release the premium Exeed EX7 SUV late this year, powered by a semisolid battery. Photo: Courtesy MIIT.

The Electric: In the U.S. and China, Exaggerated Claims of Solid State Batteries

By Steve LeVine · Apr 13, 2026 9:00am PDT

In a livestreamed event last month, China’s Chery Automobile said it had made a breakthrough in solid-state batteries and would deploy them next year in a luxury electric SUV that would have a whopping 560 miles of range. In a livestreamed event last month, China’s Chery Automobile said it had made a breakthrough in...

Microsoft’s data center project Mount Pleasant, Wis. in late 2025. Joe Timmerman/Wisconsin Watch via Getty Images

AI Infrastructure

Microsoft Slowed AI Spending. Now It’s Playing Catchup

By Ann Davis Vaughan · Apr 13, 2026 8:00am PDT · 1 comment

Microsoft is playing catch-up in the AI power race by grabbing big sites in Texas and West Virginia for data centers fired by natural gas. It wasn’t long ago that the company had a big lead.In the early days of the AI boom, Microsoft’s in-house energy team amassed a 9-gigawatt war chest of grid-powered data center sites that was the envy of the... Microsoft is playing catch-up in the AI power race by grabbing big sites in Texas and West...

Art by Mike Sullivan

‘Reinforcement Learning Gym’ Startup, Buoyed by Labs’ Appetite For Training Data, Reaches $750 Million Valuation

By Stephanie Palazzolo · Apr 13, 2026 7:00am PDT

AI developers are getting more creative in how they acquire data to train AI models. For instance, they’re paying startups to develop copies of popular apps, like Salesforce or Excel, to teach models how to use the apps—otherwise known as reinforcement learning environments or gyms.One beneficiary of this trend is Fleet, a two-year-old startup... AI developers are getting more creative in how they acquire data to train AI models. For...

Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella. Getty Images.

Microsoft Plots New Copilot Features Inspired by OpenClaw

By Aaron Holmes · Apr 13, 2026 6:00am PDT · 2 comments

As Microsoft faces growing competition for business customers from Anthropic, it is developing new features that would make its AI assistant Copilot function more like OpenClaw, the open-source AI agent that has taken the AI industry by storm in recent months. A newly created team under Microsoft corporate vice president Omar Shahine is “... As Microsoft faces growing competition for business customers from Anthropic, it is developing...

Netflix co-CEO Greg Peters. Photo by Getty

Netflix on Deck This Week; Pressure on Software Stocks Intensifies

By Martin Peers · Apr 12, 2026 3:00pm PDT

Netflix co-CEO Greg Peters. Photo by Getty

Netflix on Deck This Week; Pressure on Software Stocks Intensifies

By Martin Peers · Apr 12, 2026 3:00pm PDT

We interrupt our regular AI programming to talk about something more entertaining: Netflix! The video-streaming giant kicks off tech earnings season on Thursday with its first-quarter earnings. It’s the first quarterly report since Netflix walked away from its $82.7 billion deal to buy Warner Bros. Discovery’s streaming and studio operations, so... We interrupt our regular AI programming to talk about something more entertaining: Netflix! The...

Sunday Insights

Atlassian and Figma Lead the R&D Arms Race

By Laura Bratton · Apr 12, 2026 8:00am PDT · 4 comments

Wall Street’s sell-off of enterprise software stocks resumed in earnest late last week, sending stocks such as ServiceNow and Snowflake down around 8% or so on Friday, as jitters over the impact of new AI tools on older software firms intensified. But the panic may be too indiscriminate. One way of sorting out which software firms may have more... Wall Street’s sell-off of enterprise software stocks resumed in earnest late last week, sending...

Illustration: Clark Miller (Photos: AMC)

Silicon Valley, Ready to Laugh Again?

By Abram Brown · Apr 11, 2026 8:23am PDT

Welcome, Weekenders! In this newsletter:• The Big Read: Meet the father of Claude Code• Artificial Intelligence: The hijinks around tokenmaxxing • Plus, Recommendations—our weekly pop culture picks: “Who Blew Up the Georgia Guidestones?” “Those Who Are About to Die” and “It Was Just an Accident”Over a good many years, “Silicon Valley,”... Welcome, Weekenders! In this newsletter:• The Big Read: Meet the father of Claude Code• ...

Art by Clark Miller

The ‘Tokenmaxxing’ Tide May Already Be Turning

By Jyoti Mann, Nick Wingfield and Catherine Perloff · Apr 11, 2026 7:00am PDT

At tech giants like Meta Platforms, employees may have embraced the idea of “tokenmaxxing” as a way to show off how dedicated they are to using AI in their jobs. Don’t expect businesses beyond the deepest-pocketed tech giants to follow their lead, though. As The Information reported on Monday, employees inside Meta have been competing to see who... At tech giants like Meta Platforms, employees may have embraced the idea of “tokenmaxxing” as a...

Jeetu Patel, president and chief product officer at Cisco Systems Inc..

Cisco in Talks to Buy AI Security Startup Astrix for at Least $250 Million

By Valida Pau and Stephanie Palazzolo · Apr 10, 2026 2:18pm PDT

Jeetu Patel, president and chief product officer at Cisco Systems Inc..

Cisco in Talks to Buy AI Security Startup Astrix for at Least $250 Million

By Valida Pau and Stephanie Palazzolo · Apr 10, 2026 2:18pm PDT

Cisco Systems is in talks to acquire Astrix Security, a five-year-old Israeli cybersecurity startup that sells software to monitor and secure AI agents, for between $250 million and $350 million, according to people with knowledge of the deal. That would represent at least a 25% premium to the startup’s last valuation of around $200 million, one... Cisco Systems is in talks to acquire Astrix Security, a five-year-old Israeli cybersecurity...

Art by Clark Miller .

‘Tokenmaxxing’ and the AI Margin Squeeze

By The Information Staff · Apr 10, 2026 11:11am PDT

Debate around the prospects for companies like Anthropic and OpenAI has long centered on growth in both users and revenue. In recent months, the bigger story is how usage is changing and what that means for costs. Instead of asking a chatbot a single question, some users are increasingly relying on tools like Claude Code or ChatGPT’s coding... Debate around the prospects for companies like Anthropic and OpenAI has long centered on growth...

Art by Clark Miller; YouTube

How a Self-Taught Programmer Became the Father of Claude Code

By Rocket Drew · Apr 10, 2026 9:09am PDT

Boris Cherny, the head of Claude Code, almost parted ways with Anthropic for good last summer. Instead, he has helped shape the coding agent into a megahit that has closed the distance with rival OpenAI. Claude Code has supercharged Anthropic’s growth. After rising from $1 billion in December to $2.5 billion in February, Claude Code’s annualized... Boris Cherny, the head of Claude Code, almost parted ways with Anthropic for good last summer....

SeongJoon Cho/Bloomberg via Getty Images.

SK Hynix Is the Overlooked Memory Chip Maker

By Anita Ramaswamy · Apr 10, 2026 6:00am PDT · 2 comments

The memory chip market right now is governed by a triumvirate of companies, led by South Korean firm SK Hynix, followed by Samsung, also of South Korea, and U.S. chipmaker Micron. The three stocks soared more than 200% over the last year—and yet they’re still cheap, especially relative to Nvidia’s stock. Investors aren’t giving the... The memory chip market right now is governed by a triumvirate of companies, led by South Korean...

Photo by Kyle Grillot/Getty Images

OpenAI Stargate Leaders Depart in Latest Shakeup to Data Center Strategy

By Anissa Gardizy · Apr 9, 2026 8:25pm PDT · 2 comments

Photo by Kyle Grillot/Getty Images

OpenAI Stargate Leaders Depart in Latest Shakeup to Data Center Strategy

By Anissa Gardizy · Apr 9, 2026 8:25pm PDT · 2 comments

Three senior OpenAI executives who helped launch the company’s original Stargate data center initiative have left or are preparing to depart the ChatGPT maker in the coming days, according to several people with direct knowledge of the matter. Peter Hoeschele, an OpenAI executive who played a key role in getting the Stargate effort off the... Three senior OpenAI executives who helped launch the company’s original Stargate data center...

Photo by Mario Tama/Getty Images

xAI Spending Pushed SpaceX to a Nearly $5 Billion Loss

By Cory Weinberg · Apr 9, 2026 5:13pm PDT

SpaceX lost just under $5 billion last year while generating more than $18.5 billion in revenue, two people familiar with the figures said. The financial figures include xAI, the Elon Musk-founded artificial intelligence company that SpaceX acquired in February. The net loss, as well as other financial figures that consolidate SpaceX and... SpaceX lost just under $5 billion last year while generating more than $18.5 billion in revenue,...

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman. Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images.

OpenAI, Forecasts and Guesses

By Martin Peers · Apr 9, 2026 5:00pm PDT · 5 comments

Here’s a suggestion for OpenAI’s management: Stop issuing long-range revenue forecasts to investors. While we at The Information love getting our hands on these, as they make for good stories, it’s doubtful they’re doing OpenAI much good. How can anyone take seriously forecasts for revenue reaching as far out as 2030? (OpenAI projects total... Here’s a suggestion for OpenAI’s management: Stop issuing long-range revenue forecasts to...

Dan Klein, Vinod Khosla and Anita Ramaswamy speak onstage during the “Super Reliability vs. Super Intelligence” panel at the HumanX Conference on April 08, 2026 in San Francisco, California.

At HumanX, Anthropic Stokes AI Optimism

By Katie Roof · Apr 9, 2026 4:51pm PDT

This year’s HumanX—the second AI conference from the team that puts on Money 20/20 and Shoptalk—had a different vibe than the inaugural event did. The fact that it was held at Moscone Center in San Francisco instead of a posh hotel in Las Vegas was a big part of it.While the location made it easier to attract high-profile speakers, it also meant... This year’s HumanX—the second AI conference from the team that puts on Money 20/20 and Shoptalk—...

Art by Mike Sullivan.

SpaceX Woos Investors As C-Suite Shakeups Continue

By Theo Wayt, Cory Weinberg and Valida Pau · Apr 9, 2026 10:53am PDT

Art by Mike Sullivan.

SpaceX Woos Investors As C-Suite Shakeups Continue

By Theo Wayt, Cory Weinberg and Valida Pau · Apr 9, 2026 10:53am PDT

Some of the biggest Wall Street fund managers are planning to trek to the southernmost tip of Texas, then about 950 miles to Memphis, Tenn, in two weeks, for exclusive visits to SpaceX facilities ahead of what could be the biggest initial public offering of all time, three people familiar with the matter said. The two-day trip is sure to inspire... Some of the biggest Wall Street fund managers are planning to trek to the southernmost tip of...