The Information

Art by Mike Sullivan

Roku Tries Brinkmanship in the Streaming Wars

By Tom Dotan and Jessica Toonkel · Feb 12, 2020 12:02pm PST · 3 comments

The streaming war between Disney and Netflix has captured the attention of investors, the media and viewers. But a lower-profile yet equally high-stakes battle is underway in the streaming video market—between entertainment companies and a new generation of gatekeepers. The players range from big tech giants like Amazon to smaller firms... The streaming war between Disney and Netflix has captured the attention of investors, the media...

SoftBank CEO Masayoshi Son. Photo by Bloomberg

SoftBank’s Global Vision Tested by China’s Uber for Trucks

By Juro Osawa · Feb 12, 2020 7:00am PST

In 2018, when SoftBank led a $1.9 billion investment in Chinese truck-hailing app Manbang, CEO Masayoshi Son urged the startup to go global, pointing to the worldwide success of his other bets, like Uber and Indian hotel chain Oyo, according to a person familiar with the matter. Two years later, Uber is struggling to cut losses and Oyo has... In 2018, when SoftBank led a $1.9 billion investment in Chinese truck-hailing app Manbang, CEO...

Jigsaw CEO Jared Cohen. Photo by Bloomberg

Google Swallows Another Alphabet Unit—Jigsaw

By Nick Bastone · Feb 10, 2020 3:53pm PST · 1 comment

Another arm of Alphabet, the holding company for Google and a collection of other businesses, has gone away. Within the past month, Alphabet quietly moved Jigsaw, a technology incubator that creates tools to curb online misinformation, harassment and other issues, under Google management, The Information has learned. It previously operated... Another arm of Alphabet, the holding company for Google and a collection of other businesses, has...

YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki. Photo by Bloomberg

YouTube in Talks to Follow Amazon and Apple Into Video Subscriptions Market

By Jessica Toonkel and Alex Heath · Feb 10, 2020 2:31pm PST · 1 comment

YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki. Photo by Bloomberg

YouTube in Talks to Follow Amazon and Apple Into Video Subscriptions Market

By Jessica Toonkel and Alex Heath · Feb 10, 2020 2:31pm PST · 1 comment

YouTube is sending signals that it wants to become a destination site for every part of the TV universe. The Google-owned video giant is considering giving people the ability to sign up, through YouTube, for a wide range of subscription-streaming services run by entertainment companies, according to people familiar with the situation. YouTube... YouTube is sending signals that it wants to become a destination site for every part of the TV...

Inside the Vision Fund’s Civil War: Deal Conflicts, Leak Suspicions

By Amir Efrati and Cory Weinberg · Feb 7, 2020 11:48am PST

For three years, the technology world has been riveted by the seemingly endless cash pouring out of SoftBank’s $100 billion Vision Fund into all manner of startups. The promise was to make a series of long-term bets on the potential of new services and technologies. But lately it’s become clear that at least some of the Vision... For three years, the technology world has been riveted by the seemingly endless cash pouring out...

Twitch CEO Emmett Shear. Photo by Bloomberg

Amazon Considered Selling Streaming Tech Behind Twitch

By Priya Anand and Jessica Toonkel · Feb 6, 2020 10:01am PST

Twitch hasn’t turned into the advertising powerhouse Amazon might have expected when it bought the live-streaming gaming service in 2014. But Amazon may have found a new way to generate more revenue from Twitch—by selling its live-streaming technology to other companies.Amazon has considered launching a service based on... Twitch hasn’t turned into the advertising powerhouse Amazon might have expected when it...

Sequoia Capital's Konstantine Buhler (left), Josephine Chen, Shaun Maguire and Bogomil Balkansky. Photos by Sequoia; illustration by Mike Sullivan

Sequoia Expands Seed Investing Team as Rivals Loom

By Kate Clark · Feb 6, 2020 7:01am PST · 1 comment

Sequoia Capital, already one of the most influential venture capital firms in the world, is putting more boots on the ground to make sure it doesn’t miss out on the next big early-stage startups. In an unusually large expansion of its investing team, Sequoia has hired four new partners—Bogomil Balkansky, Konstantine Buhler,... Sequoia Capital, already one of the most influential venture capital firms in the world, is...

Nikolay Storonsky, CEO of Revolut, last August. Photo by Bloomberg

Financial Figures for Fintech Firm Show Soaring Demand for Digital Banking

By Zoë Bernard · Feb 5, 2020 1:07pm PST · 1 comment

Nikolay Storonsky, CEO of Revolut, last August. Photo by Bloomberg

Financial Figures for Fintech Firm Show Soaring Demand for Digital Banking

By Zoë Bernard · Feb 5, 2020 1:07pm PST · 1 comment

Revolut, a financial technology company based in the U.K. whose backers include DST Global, told potential investors recently it expected revenues to soar to $3.37 billion in 2022 from $279 million in expected revenue for 2019, The Information has learned. Revolut also predicted it would turn its first full-year profit in 2022. The figures... Revolut, a financial technology company based in the U.K. whose backers include DST Global, told...

Casper CEO Philip Krim. Photo by Bloomberg.

Casper Pursued Private Fundraising Before IPO Filing

By Kevin Dugan · Feb 3, 2020 1:25pm PST

Direct-to-consumer mattress firm Casper was pursuing plans to privately raise up to $200 million until days before its early January filing to go public, say people familiar with the situation. The fundraising, if it had been completed, would have allowed Casper to stay private through 2020, the people said.People close to Casper say company... Direct-to-consumer mattress firm Casper was pursuing plans to privately raise up to $200 million...

An airport official in Thailand talking to people flying to Wuhan this week. Photo by AP

Huawei, Xiaomi Research Hubs Paralyzed by Virus Outbreak

By Juro Osawa and Yunan Zhang · Jan 31, 2020 10:06am PST

Huawei’s leafy campus in Wuhan, a research center built for 8,000 workers, is usually bustling with engineers developing everything from laptops and smart TVs to optical chips. But now, the company’s sleek, modern buildings are almost empty. Wuhan, a manufacturing center 500 miles from Shanghai, has become the epicenter of the... Huawei’s leafy campus in Wuhan, a research center built for 8,000 workers, is usually...

Jessica Biel speaks at the premiere of Facebook Watch's "Limetown" last September. Photo by AP

Facebook Cuts Back on Original Programming for Watch Video

By Tom Dotan and Jessica Toonkel · Jan 29, 2020 10:09am PST

Facebook is refining the programming strategy for its Facebook Watch video service, pulling back on expensive original shows and sports rights.Facebook continues to increase its programming budget for Watch—it will rise to around $1.4 billion this year, from the company’s initial $1 billion budget in 2017, according to a person... Facebook is refining the programming strategy for its Facebook Watch video service, pulling back...

Apple CEO Tim Cook at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, this month. Photo by Bloomberg

Apple Ends AI Startup’s Work on ‘Project Maven’ After Acquisition

By Nick Wingfield and Ashley Gold · Jan 29, 2020 7:00am PST

Apple CEO Tim Cook at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, this month. Photo by Bloomberg

Apple Ends AI Startup’s Work on ‘Project Maven’ After Acquisition

By Nick Wingfield and Ashley Gold · Jan 29, 2020 7:00am PST

Big technology companies like Microsoft, Amazon and Google have jockeyed to secure lucrative contracts supplying their products and services to the military. Apple, though, has shown less interest in the market. And when it recently bought a startup that was working on a controversial Pentagon project, Apple ended that company’s work on... Big technology companies like Microsoft, Amazon and Google have jockeyed to secure lucrative...

Google Cloud CEO Thomas Kurian. Photo by Bloomberg

Google Developing New ‘Unified’ Communications App for Businesses

By Kevin McLaughlin · Jan 28, 2020 1:05pm PST · 9 comments

Google is working on a mobile application for businesses that brings together the functions of several standalone apps the company already offers, including Gmail and its online storage service Drive. The move could help it compete more effectively with application suites from Microsoft and others, according to two people who have used the... Google is working on a mobile application for businesses that brings together the functions of...

Attorney General Bill Barr. Photo by Bloomberg

DOJ Setting Up Interviews With Facebook Rivals in Antitrust Probe

By Alex Heath and Ashley Gold · Jan 27, 2020 3:08pm PST

The U.S. Department of Justice’s antitrust investigation into Facebook is heating up.The agency is arranging interviews with social media company executives to learn their views about the competitive landscape of the industry, along with their perspectives on and relationship to Facebook, according to an email from the Justice Department... The U.S. Department of Justice’s antitrust investigation into Facebook is heating up.The...

Paytm CEO Vijay Shekhar Sharma. Photo: Bloomberg

Once-Dominant Paytm Stalls in India

By Juro Osawa · Jan 27, 2020 7:00am PST · 4 comments

Last July, at a SoftBank conference in Tokyo, CEO Masayoshi Son brought on stage Vijay Shekhar Sharma, the founder of Indian startup Paytm. Son described Paytm as the “uncontested No. 1” payment service in India. SoftBank had invested $1.4 billion in the startup, helping to fuel India’s mobile payment boom a few years... Last July, at a SoftBank conference in Tokyo, CEO Masayoshi Son brought on stage Vijay Shekhar...

A Galvanize workspace. Photo by Shutterstock

Coding Bootcamp Galvanize Agrees to $165 Million Acquisition

By Kate Clark · Jan 24, 2020 6:21pm PST

A Galvanize workspace. Photo by Shutterstock

Coding Bootcamp Galvanize Agrees to $165 Million Acquisition

By Kate Clark · Jan 24, 2020 6:21pm PST

A wave of consolidation in the education technology market appears set to continue this year. K12 Inc., a publicly-traded education company, has agreed to acquire Galvanize, a provider of coding bootcamps and co-working spaces across eight locations in the U.S., for $165 million in cash, according to an email addressed to Galvanize... A wave of consolidation in the education technology market appears set to continue this...

Lambda School CEO Austen Allred. Photo courtesy of Lambda; Illustration by Mike Sullivan

Lambda School’s Growing Pains: Big Buzz, Student Complaints

By Kate Clark · Jan 23, 2020 10:51am PST · 6 comments

Silicon Valley has no shortage of companies promising to disrupt higher education with technology. The buzziest of them all may be Lambda School, a company that provides free coding courses in exchange for a cut of its students’ future incomes.The online school has won a following among high-profile investors, who see Lambda as a way to... Silicon Valley has no shortage of companies promising to disrupt higher education with...

Zoom Video CEO Eric Yuan on the day Zoom went public on the Nasdaq market last April. Photo by Bloomberg

Quid Pro IPO? Software Tech IPO Practice Raises Disclosure Questions

By Kevin Dugan and Priya Anand · Jan 23, 2020 7:00am PST · 4 comments

In 2017, executives at the cloud security company Zscaler were interviewing bankers ahead of an initial public offering expected to value the company at more than $1.5 billion. During a meeting with bankers from Barclays, one of the dozen or so firms vying to underwrite the IPO, Zscaler’s chief financial officer Remo Canessa commented that... In 2017, executives at the cloud security company Zscaler were interviewing bankers ahead of an...

Quibi CEO Meg Whitman. Photo by Bloomberg

Quibi’s CEO Meg Whitman Compared Reporters to Sexual Predators

By Tom Dotan and Jessica Toonkel · Jan 21, 2020 5:43pm PST · 7 comments

Quibi CEO Meg Whitman lashed out against the media at an “all-hands” staff meeting last Thursday, drawing an analogy between reporters who cultivate sources and sexual predators who prey on underage victims, according to two people who heard her comments.Whitman, a veteran tech executive who once ran for governor of California, made... Quibi CEO Meg Whitman lashed out against the media at an “all-hands” staff meeting...

China’s Didi Chuxing Seeks Revival Through Management Shake-Up

By Yunan Zhang · Jan 21, 2020 10:59am PST · 1 comment

China’s Didi Chuxing Seeks Revival Through Management Shake-Up

By Yunan Zhang · Jan 21, 2020 10:59am PST · 1 comment

Chinese ride-hailing giant Didi Chuxing is hoping a vastly overhauled management team can help it jumpstart growth.The installation of a new executive team to its core ride-hailing business last month capped more than a year of management changes across the company, as Didi attempts to turn the corner from a growth slump sparked by the murder of... Chinese ride-hailing giant Didi Chuxing is hoping a vastly overhauled management team can help it...