The Information

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

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

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

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....

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

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, 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

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’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

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 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

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...