The Information

Meta Platforms CEO Mark Zuckerberg. Image via Getty

Meta Develops AI Search Engine to Lessen Reliance on Google, Microsoft

By Kalley Huang · Oct 28, 2024 8:00am PDT · 1 comment

As Meta Platforms tries to keep up with OpenAI in developing artificial intelligence, the Facebook owner is working on a search engine that crawls the web to provide conversational answers about current events to people using its Meta AI chatbot. In doing so, Meta hopes to lower its reliance on Google Search and Microsoft’s Bing, which... As Meta Platforms tries to keep up with OpenAI in developing artificial intelligence, the...

Art by Clark Miller

Google Preps AI That Takes Over Computers

By Erin Woo · Oct 26, 2024 12:08pm PDT · 3 comments

Google is developing artificial intelligence that takes over a person’s web browser to complete tasks such as gathering research, purchasing a product or booking a flight, according to three people with direct knowledge of the product. The product, code-named Project Jarvis, is similar to one Anthropic announced this week, these people... Google is developing artificial intelligence that takes over a person’s web browser to...

Photo via Getty

TSMC Cut Off Chinese Crypto Mogul’s Firm as US Probes Huawei Link

By The Information Staff · Oct 26, 2024 1:27am PDT

Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. earlier this month stopped making chips for a China-based chip design firm founded by a Chinese crypto mogul, said two people familiar with the situation. TSMC cut the company off around the time the U.S. Commerce Department began investigating whether the Taiwanese giant had supplied chips to Chinese tech... Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. earlier this month stopped making chips for a China-based...

Arjun Sethi. Photo via Collison Conference/Flickr.

Kraken Set to Add Investor Arjun Sethi as Co-CEO

By Kate Clark and Yueqi Yang · Oct 24, 2024 1:33pm PDT

Arjun Sethi. Photo via Collison Conference/Flickr.

Kraken Set to Add Investor Arjun Sethi as Co-CEO

By Kate Clark and Yueqi Yang · Oct 24, 2024 1:33pm PDT

Arjun Sethi, a co-founder of venture capital firm Tribe Capital, is expected to be named co-CEO of cryptocurrency exchange Kraken, working alongside its existing CEO, Dave Ripley, according to two people familiar with the matter. Kraken, founded in 2011, is one of the biggest and oldest U.S. crypto exchanges, and its executives have talked about... Arjun Sethi, a co-founder of venture capital firm Tribe Capital, is expected to be named co-CEO...

Art via Clark Miller

The Startup Fueling OpenAI and Anthropic’s Coding Race

By Amir Efrati · Oct 23, 2024 11:55am PDT · 2 comments

Last fall, several Google artificial intelligence leaders met with Jonathan Siddharth, CEO of a startup that sells access to part-time software engineers on demand. The Google managers asked Siddharth whether the startup, Turing, could use its army of human programmers to teach Google’s AI to be better at completing coding tasks, according... Last fall, several Google artificial intelligence leaders met with Jonathan Siddharth, CEO of a...

Art by Mike Sullivan.

Temu 2.0 Attacks Amazon’s Achilles’ Heel

By Jing Yang and Theo Wayt · Oct 23, 2024 7:26am PDT

Temu is making swift progress in winning over popular Amazon merchants to sell on its bargain site, thanks to a simple pitch: It’s much cheaper for merchants to sell on Temu than on Amazon. Temu has already added more than 60% of major China-based Amazon sellers of products like bedding sets and vacuum cleaners and is enlisting U.S.-based... Temu is making swift progress in winning over popular Amazon merchants to sell on its bargain...

Apple Sharply Scales Back Production of Vision Pro

By Wayne Ma and Qianer Liu · Oct 23, 2024 6:00am PDT

Apple has sharply scaled back production of its Vision Pro mixed reality headset since the early summer and could stop making the existing version of the device entirely by year end, according to multiple people directly involved in building components for the device. The move suggests that Apple has enough inventory built up to meet demand for... Apple has sharply scaled back production of its Vision Pro mixed reality headset since the early...

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman. Collage via Shane Burke

OpenAI, in Duel With Anthropic, Doubles Down on AI That Writes Software

By Erin Woo, Stephanie Palazzolo and Amir Efrati · Oct 22, 2024 3:59pm PDT · 1 comment

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman. Collage via Shane Burke

OpenAI, in Duel With Anthropic, Doubles Down on AI That Writes Software

By Erin Woo, Stephanie Palazzolo and Amir Efrati · Oct 22, 2024 3:59pm PDT · 1 comment

OpenAI’s ChatGPT has become a multibillion-dollar business in large part because programmers use it to write and check their code, fix bugs and translate code into different programming languages. Now, facing competition from rival artificial intelligence startup Anthropic, OpenAI is putting more effort into improving the tools it offers... OpenAI’s ChatGPT has become a multibillion-dollar business in large part because...

Photo via Getty

Shein’s Rocky Financial Performance Complicates IPO Plans

By Jing Yang and Cory Weinberg · Oct 22, 2024 10:24am PDT

Shein’s march toward an initial public offering has gotten tangled in a web of regulatory scrutiny on three continents this year. Now, as its executives try to restart IPO talks, executives at the fast fashion retailer face another problem: having to explain a first-half slump in the business. The company’s revenue growth decelerated... Shein’s march toward an initial public offering has gotten tangled in a web of regulatory...

Art by Mike Sullivan

Amazon Sofas for $20? Retailer Sets Price Caps for New Temu-like Store

By Theo Wayt · Oct 22, 2024 6:00am PDT · 5 comments

As Amazon prepares to launch a new low-price storefront to combat Temu, it’s imposing severe price caps on what merchants can charge for their wares on the outlet, including an $8 limit for jewelry, $9 for bedding sets, $13 for guitars and $20 for sofas, according to messages from Amazon to merchants seen by The Information. The price caps... As Amazon prepares to launch a new low-price storefront to combat Temu, it’s imposing...

Physical Intelligence CEO Karol Hausman. Photo: YouTube screengrab.

Robotics Startup Discusses $2 Billion Valuation Months After Founding

By Natasha Mascarenhas, Stephanie Palazzolo and Kate Clark · Oct 21, 2024 6:32pm PDT · 1 comment

The race to develop physical robots powered by artificial intelligence is on again, despite the industry’s track record of failures—and the threat that OpenAI, which has dominated advances in conversational AI, will become a bigger rival. Physical Intelligence, a startup developing software for robots that could work in a range of... The race to develop physical robots powered by artificial intelligence is on again, despite the...

GoPuff's fired CTO, Sree Kotay. Photos via Broward County Mugshots (Instagram) and Shutterstock.

Gopuff Fires CTO Months After Battery Arrest

By Theo Wayt · Oct 21, 2024 10:37am PDT

GoPuff's fired CTO, Sree Kotay. Photos via Broward County Mugshots (Instagram) and Shutterstock.

Gopuff Fires CTO Months After Battery Arrest

By Theo Wayt · Oct 21, 2024 10:37am PDT

Gopuff fired its chief technology officer on Friday several months after he was arrested on a felony battery charge for allegedly assaulting his longtime romantic partner, according to an internal company email and public records. Sreekant Kotay, who goes by Sree, was arrested in Broward County, Fla., on June 25 and charged with battery and... Gopuff fired its chief technology officer on Friday several months after he was arrested on a...

Art by Mike Sullivan.

Bank Drama for PayPal, Square After Wells Fargo Bows Out

By Michael Roddan · Oct 21, 2024 6:00am PDT · 2 comments

For more than two decades, Wells Fargo was a juggernaut in a behind-the-scenes business that supported some of the biggest payments companies in the world. The bank’s abrupt exit from that market this year has left a major hole. Block’s Square, for instance, is still hunting for a replacement for Wells Fargo to work on credit card... For more than two decades, Wells Fargo was a juggernaut in a behind-the-scenes business that...

Greg Brockman (left) and Sam Altman. Art by Clark Miller. Brockman image via Getty; Altman via YouTube

Can Greg Brockman Find a Future Back at OpenAI?

By Stephanie Palazzolo and Amir Efrati · Oct 18, 2024 6:00am PDT · 5 comments

When Greg Brockman returns to OpenAI in the next month or so, as senior leaders expect him to, the artificial intelligence startup’s co-founder will rejoin a company that’s already changed a lot in the two months since he started a sabbatical. In the time he was gone, OpenAI Chief Technology Officer Mira Murati and several other... When Greg Brockman returns to OpenAI in the next month or so, as senior leaders expect him to,...

Photo by Getty

U.S. Probes TSMC’s Dealings With Huawei

By Qianer Liu · Oct 17, 2024 5:13pm PDT · 1 comment

The U.S. Commerce Department is investigating whether Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. has been making artificial intelligence or smartphone chips for Chinese tech giant Huawei Technologies in what would be a breach of U.S. export rules, said two people with direct knowledge of the matter. Since 2020, the U.S. has banned Huawei from buying... The U.S. Commerce Department is investigating whether Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. has...

LinkedIn's San Francisco headquarters. Photo via Getty.

LinkedIn is News Publishers’ New Best Friend

By Sahil Patel · Oct 17, 2024 1:00pm PDT

LinkedIn's San Francisco headquarters. Photo via Getty.

LinkedIn is News Publishers’ New Best Friend

By Sahil Patel · Oct 17, 2024 1:00pm PDT

As Facebook owner Meta Platforms has backed away from news, Microsoft’s LinkedIn has leaned into it. LinkedIn is doubling down on its long-standing efforts to promote news articles and work with news publishers, in hopes of driving both usage and ad revenue. In the latest sign of that, in the next few days it will start testing a new News... As Facebook owner Meta Platforms has backed away from news, Microsoft’s LinkedIn has leaned...

Art by Mike Sullivan

TikTok Tries to Woo American Shoppers, One Livestream at a Time

By Kaya Yurieff and Ann Gehan · Oct 16, 2024 10:31am PDT

As TikTok’s U.S. shopping service enters its second year of operation, the ByteDance-owned company has become stingier about wooing online merchants with cash. TikTok has cut back on subsidizing deep discounts for retailers, a tactic it used last year when TikTok Shop launched, and has tripled its cut of sales to 6%. But TikTok has started... As TikTok’s U.S. shopping service enters its second year of operation, the ByteDance-owned...

Nvidia's Jensen Huang, left, and TSMC's Morris Chang. Photos by Getty

Nvidia and TSMC’s Lucrative AI Alliance Shows Signs of Stress

By Qianer Liu · Oct 16, 2024 6:00am PDT · 2 comments

The most successful and lucrative partnership in the artificial intelligence business is showing signs of strain. In March, Jensen Huang, CEO of chip giant Nvidia, trumpeted the arrival of a family of new chips, known as Blackwell, designed to run the latest, most powerful AI software. Microsoft’s Satya Nadella, Tesla’s Elon Musk and... The most successful and lucrative partnership in the artificial intelligence business is showing...

Art by Clark Miller.

Compliance Pros in Hot Demand as Crypto and Fintech Firms Staff Up

By Yueqi Yang · Oct 15, 2024 6:00am PDT · 2 comments

For years, many crypto and fintech startups viewed hiring staffers to ensure their businesses followed the rules as an afterthought. Hires to oversee compliance with financial regulations aren’t a flashy sign of growth like software engineers or big-name product hires. Now, compliance staffing has become top of mind for these companies,... For years, many crypto and fintech startups viewed hiring staffers to ensure their businesses...

Hannah McClellan, VP of Operations and Amazon Pharmacy, speaks at Amazon's Delivering the Future conference in Nashville last week. Photo via Getty.

Amazon Looks to Streamline Its Mishmash of Grocery and Pharmacy Brands

By Theo Wayt · Oct 14, 2024 6:00am PDT · 2 comments

Hannah McClellan, VP of Operations and Amazon Pharmacy, speaks at Amazon's Delivering the Future conference in Nashville last week. Photo via Getty.

Amazon Looks to Streamline Its Mishmash of Grocery and Pharmacy Brands

By Theo Wayt · Oct 14, 2024 6:00am PDT · 2 comments

After a decade of acquisitions and internal product launches in groceries and pharmacy delivery, Amazon is taking steps to streamline the mishmash of services it now operates and reinvigorate growth in both markets. For instance, Amazon has begun to unify its two online pharmacy operations, which consist of PillPack, a service Amazon bought for... After a decade of acquisitions and internal product launches in groceries and pharmacy delivery,...