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Databricks CEO, Ali Ghodsi. Photo via Getty.

Databricks Considers Raising Cash to Resolve Employee Stock Squeeze

By Cory Weinberg · Nov 12, 2024 9:45am PST · 3 comments

Enterprise software firm Databricks, one of the world’s most valuable private tech companies, is considering raising several billion dollars in the coming months to allow employees to cash out stock grants that begin to expire in early 2026. Such a move would signal that the firm, whose business of data management software has gotten a... Enterprise software firm Databricks, one of the world’s most valuable private tech...

Spyglass vessels by Saronic Technologies. Photo via Saronic Technologies.

Trump’s Win Stokes Defense Tech Bulls, Despite Talk of a Bubble

By Cory Weinberg · Nov 12, 2024 6:00am PST · 5 comments

Count defense tech bulls among the investor groups buoyed by last week’s election of Donald Trump as president. Some investors and executives are hopeful enough in what the Trump administration will do that they’re downplaying talk of a financial bubble forming among defense and aerospace startups. One bellwether may be Saronic... Count defense tech bulls among the investor groups buoyed by last week’s election of Donald...

Art by Clark Miller

How TikTok Courted Conservatives Before Trump’s Win

By Juro Osawa, Erin Woo and Sri Muppidi · Nov 11, 2024 11:49am PST · 1 comment

More than a year before Donald Trump’s landslide victory in last week’s presidential election, TikTok’s top leaders insisted on a major shift in the app’s content moderation principles to make the platform more appealing for Trump and his supporters. In a series of internal meetings, U.S. public policy chief Michael... More than a year before Donald Trump’s landslide victory in last week’s presidential...

Blackstone’s Spanx and Supergoop Bets Are Stuck in Low Gear

By Ann Gehan and Cory Weinberg · Nov 11, 2024 6:00am PST

Blackstone’s Spanx and Supergoop Bets Are Stuck in Low Gear

By Ann Gehan and Cory Weinberg · Nov 11, 2024 6:00am PST

How tough is it out there for investors that made big consumer bets in recent years? Just take a look at private equity giant Blackstone. Blackstone’s $4.5 billion debut growth equity fund is sitting on steep paper losses in oat milk brand Oatly, whose shares dropped soon after its 2021 initial public offering. The fund’s bet on... How tough is it out there for investors that made big consumer bets in recent years? Just take a...

Art by Clark Miller

OpenAI Shifts Strategy as Rate of ‘GPT’ AI Improvements Slows

By Stephanie Palazzolo, Erin Woo and Amir Efrati · Nov 9, 2024 1:47pm PST · 9 comments

The number of people using ChatGPT and other artificial intelligence products is soaring. The rate of improvement for the basic building blocks underpinning them appears to be slowing down, though. The situation has prompted OpenAI, which makes ChatGPT, to cook up new techniques for boosting those building blocks, known as large language models,... The number of people using ChatGPT and other artificial intelligence products is soaring. The...

Citi Cut Off Temu Payments After Visa Raised Concerns

By Michael Roddan and Qianer Liu · Nov 8, 2024 6:00am PST · 1 comment

In just two years, Chinese-owned Temu has come out of nowhere to become one of the best-known bargain shopping sites, known for its ultracheap and sometimes wacky gadgets and apparel. U.S. consumers are expected to spend about $18 billion on the site this year. Behind the scenes, though, Temu has encountered trouble with the bank that was... In just two years, Chinese-owned Temu has come out of nowhere to become one of the best-known...

Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei and Amazon CEO Andy Jassy. Photos via Getty.

Amazon Discussing New Multibillion-Dollar Investment in Anthropic

By Anissa Gardizy · Nov 7, 2024 3:24pm PST

Amazon is discussing making a second multibillion-dollar investment in OpenAI rival Anthropic, according to a person involved in the discussions. The new deal is similar to Amazon’s initial $4 billion dollar investment in the startup, which was struck last year. But this time, Amazon wants Anthropic to make a concession. The cloud giant is... Amazon is discussing making a second multibillion-dollar investment in OpenAI rival Anthropic,...

Image via Getty

Two OpenAI Business Partners Each Discuss $2 Billion Valuation

By Natasha Mascarenhas and Jon Victor · Nov 6, 2024 7:04pm PST

Image via Getty

Two OpenAI Business Partners Each Discuss $2 Billion Valuation

By Natasha Mascarenhas and Jon Victor · Nov 6, 2024 7:04pm PST

OpenAI’s rapid growth continues to boost the prospects of suppliers and other business partners whose sales are also climbing quickly. Anysphere, which develops Cursor, an artificial intelligence coding assistant powered in part by OpenAI technology, has received investment offers from venture capitalists at a valuation of around $2.5... OpenAI’s rapid growth continues to boost the prospects of suppliers and other business...

Art by Mike Sullivan

TikTok Sees Trump Victory As App’s Best Hope

By Juro Osawa and Kaya Yurieff · Nov 5, 2024 1:40pm PST

Donald Trump used to be TikTok’s biggest threat. But now, four years after he tried to ban the app, he may be TikTok’s last hope for survival. As Americans vote in Tuesday’s election, TikTok’s top executives believe the company would be better off with a Trump presidency than a Harris administration. Trump has come out in... Donald Trump used to be TikTok’s biggest threat. But now, four years after he tried to ban...

A visitor wears a virtual reality headset Meta Quest as he takes part in an immersive experience stand in Paris last May. Photo by Getty.

Meta’s VR App Funding Retreat Forces Developers to Slash Staff

By Sylvia Varnham O'Regan and Kalley Huang · Nov 5, 2024 12:02pm PST

Meta Platforms is becoming more discriminating in its spending for games and other apps for its Quest mixed reality headsets. Over the past year, as Meta has confronted weakening sales in the mixed reality market, its staffers have been rethinking the millions of dollars it spends on app development. In recent months, the company has closed one... Meta Platforms is becoming more discriminating in its spending for games and other apps for its...

Photo by Getty

TikTok Maintains Solid First-Half Revenue Growth Despite U.S. Ban Threat

By Juro Osawa and Jing Yang · Nov 4, 2024 1:36pm PST · 1 comment

TikTok parent ByteDance increased its international revenue more than 60% to about $17 billion in the first half of 2024, according to two people with knowledge of the financial results. As TikTok accounts for most of ByteDance’s revenue outside China, the growth suggests that TikTok’s advertising and other businesses have remained... TikTok parent ByteDance increased its international revenue more than 60% to about $17 billion in...

Art via Clark Miller

Corporate Spending on OpenAI Threatens Salesforce, Other Enterprise Apps

By Aaron Holmes · Nov 4, 2024 6:00am PST · 1 comment

Art via Clark Miller

Corporate Spending on OpenAI Threatens Salesforce, Other Enterprise Apps

By Aaron Holmes · Nov 4, 2024 6:00am PST · 1 comment

Artificial intelligence is supposed to transform the business world and boost the software industry that’s selling it. But as companies spend more money on chatbots and other conversational AI (see related chart), some say they plan to reduce spending on other types of software, such as expensive enterprise applications and non-AI cloud... Artificial intelligence is supposed to transform the business world and boost the software...

The Generative AI Spending of 50 Companies, From Coke to Walmart

By Aaron Holmes · Nov 4, 2024 6:00am PST · 8 comments

Companies large and small are incorporating more artificial intelligence into their workflows and products. Interviews with tech executives and new data reveal that some companies are on track to spend tens of millions of dollars annually on conversational AI powered by large language models. This list is a first-of-its-kind look at how 50... Companies large and small are incorporating more artificial intelligence into their workflows and...

CoreWeave CEO Michael Intrator at a July event on AI legislation with N.J. Governor Phil Murphy. Photo via Flickr.

Microsoft Is a CoreWeave Rival. It’s Also a Big Customer

By Cory Weinberg and Anissa Gardizy · Nov 1, 2024 11:31am PDT · 1 comment

CoreWeave, a fast-growing cloud startup that operates data centers for artificial intelligence developers, pitches itself to investors as a nimble rival to behemoths like Microsoft, Amazon and Alphabet. And yet the speed of CoreWeave’s rise has only been possible thanks to its relationship with one of the giants it says it’s trying... CoreWeave, a fast-growing cloud startup that operates data centers for artificial intelligence...

Elon Musk, photo by Getty.

Musk’s XAI Has Discussed Raising $5 Billion at $45 Billion Valuation

By Kate Clark, Natasha Mascarenhas and Stephanie Palazzolo · Oct 30, 2024 1:04pm PDT

Elon Musk’s artificial intelligence startup xAI has discussed raising $5 billion from investors at a valuation of about $45 billion, according to a person familiar with the discussions. Investors could include a mix of returning backers, including Valor Equity Partners. Existing investors Sequoia Capital, Andreessen Horowitz and Vy Capital... Elon Musk’s artificial intelligence startup xAI has discussed raising $5 billion from investors...

Andrey Khusid, CEO of Miro. Photo by Getty.

Productivity Startup Miro To Lay Off Roughly 18% of Staff

By Jon Victor · Oct 30, 2024 6:24am PDT · 7 comments

Andrey Khusid, CEO of Miro. Photo by Getty.

Productivity Startup Miro To Lay Off Roughly 18% of Staff

By Jon Victor · Oct 30, 2024 6:24am PDT · 7 comments

Miro, a startup which sells productivity software for businesses and was last valued at $17.5 billion, told employees Wednesday that it plans to lay off roughly 18% of its workforce or around 275 employees. The layoffs are the latest example of how startups focused on selling niche business software are suffering as customers get more selective... Miro, a startup which sells productivity software for businesses and was last valued at $17.5...

Art by Clark Miller via Midjourney

‘Fear and Skepticism’: AI Automation Arrives for Salespeople

By Jon Victor and Aaron Holmes · Oct 29, 2024 12:01pm PDT · 8 comments

Earlier this year, executives at finance software startup Runway had an idea about how they could boost sales. Using artificial intelligence from OpenAI and other software, Runway’s engineers built a tool that scanned a list of potential corporate customers and drafted custom emails based on information in each of the customers’... Earlier this year, executives at finance software startup Runway had an idea about how they could...

Tim Cook at the opening of India's first Apple Store in 2023.

Apple Taps India to Build New iPhone From Ground Up, In a First

By Wayne Ma · Oct 29, 2024 6:00am PDT

When Apple CEO Tim Cook visited China last week, he pledged to government officials that the company would continue to increase its investment in the country, where the vast majority of its products are made, according to the state-run Xinhua news agency. But Apple recently reached a new milestone in its manufacturing efforts in India, which... When Apple CEO Tim Cook visited China last week, he pledged to government officials that the...

Photo by Getty

Struggling Battery Maker Northvolt Misses Payment to Laid Off Employees

By Steve LeVine · Oct 28, 2024 12:06pm PDT

Struggling Swedish battery manufacturer Northvolt failed to pay employees of its shuttered Cuberg subsidiary a scheduled final paycheck this month, or for their remaining paid time off, as required by California law, according to four former Cuberg employees. The missed payments came as Northvolt, once the darling of Europe’s clean tech... Struggling Swedish battery manufacturer Northvolt failed to pay employees of its shuttered Cuberg...

Art by Clark Miller

Why AI Founders Are Starting Their Own Venture Funds

By Natasha Mascarenhas · Oct 28, 2024 10:00am PDT

Art by Clark Miller

Why AI Founders Are Starting Their Own Venture Funds

By Natasha Mascarenhas · Oct 28, 2024 10:00am PDT

It hasn’t been this hard for first-time fund managers to raise capital in about a decade. But one group of newbie venture capitalists is having more luck: founders and other alumni of artificial intelligence startups. One example is Jeff Arnold, co-founder and chief operating officer of artificial intelligence accounting company Pilot and... It hasn’t been this hard for first-time fund managers to raise capital in about a decade....