The Information

Airbnb policy and communications chief Chris Lehane. Photo by Getty. Photo illustration by Mike Sullivan

Airbnb’s Spin Master

By Cory Weinberg · Oct 28, 2020 8:18am PDT · 1 comment

Chris Lehane was piping mad. Laurence Tosi, Airbnb’s chief financial officer, had accused the Airbnb policy and communications chief of spending millions of dollars before Tosi had signed off on the plans, approval Lehane didn’t think he needed. Their dispute flared up near the parking lot behind Airbnb’s headquarters one... Chris Lehane was piping mad. Laurence Tosi, Airbnb’s chief financial officer, had accused...

Photos by Bloomberg; photo illustration by Mike Sullivan

Inside Apple’s Eroding Partnership With Foxconn

By Wayne Ma · Oct 27, 2020 11:05am PDT · 2 comments

When Apple’s 2018 iPad Pro was undergoing production trials at the company’s largest outside manufacturer, Foxconn Technology, the Taiwanese firm gave Apple a list of how many workers it needed to develop the new product. That was standard procedure for Foxconn, whose factories across China have been responsible for assembling the... When Apple’s 2018 iPad Pro was undergoing production trials at the company’s largest...

Photo by Bloomberg

AWS Warms Up to ‘Multicloud’ With Changes to Management Tools

By Kevin McLaughlin · Oct 26, 2020 12:21pm PDT · 1 comment

Amazon Web Services is taking another step towards acknowledging it’s not the only game in town. The cloud giant has never been happy with the idea that its customers might use other cloud providers for some of their computing needs. At one point, it even forbade its business partners from using the term “multicloud” in... Amazon Web Services is taking another step towards acknowledging it’s not the only...

Zillow CEO Richard Barton. Photo courtesy of Zillow. Photo illustration by Mike Sullivan

Tech Firms Leapt Into Remote Work. Now Comes the Hard Part

By Cory Weinberg · Oct 23, 2020 11:56am PDT · 2 comments

Zillow CEO Richard Barton. Photo courtesy of Zillow. Photo illustration by Mike Sullivan

Tech Firms Leapt Into Remote Work. Now Comes the Hard Part

By Cory Weinberg · Oct 23, 2020 11:56am PDT · 2 comments

Over the summer, Zillow Group joined a swarm of companies telling employees they would never have to return to their offices on a regular basis. This marked a reversal for the online home-buying firm, which had leased some of Seattle’s most expensive real estate and added amenities like air hockey and pingpong. But after a few weeks... Over the summer, Zillow Group joined a swarm of companies telling employees they would never have...

Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, left, and Slack CEO Stewart Butterfield. Photos by Bloomberg

Microsoft Bashes Slack Complaint in European Antitrust Filing

By Mark Di Stefano and Nick Wingfield · Oct 23, 2020 6:01am PDT

Microsoft has privately told European competition authorities that Slack’s antitrust complaint against the tech giant was motivated essentially by sour grapes. In a recent confidential filing, Microsoft told the European Commission, which oversees competition regulation, that Slack brought its complaint against Microsoft because the... Microsoft has privately told European competition authorities that Slack’s antitrust...

Apple CEO Tim Cook, left, and with then-Chief Design Officer Jony Ive in 2018. Photo: Bloomberg

Airbnb Taps Jony Ive for Design Help

By Zoë Bernard and Cory Weinberg · Oct 21, 2020 4:05pm PDT

Airbnb has hired famed former Apple designer Jony Ive as a creative consultant ahead of its initial public offering, CEO Brian Chesky said Wednesday. The hire is the most significant in a series of moves that has shaken up Airbnb’s creative team, a key department in a company known for its emphasis on branding. The company told employees... Airbnb has hired famed former Apple designer Jony Ive as a creative consultant ahead of its...

Quibi CEO Meg Whitman. Photo by Bloomberg

The Investors Who Face Big Losses From the Quibi Collapse

By Tom Dotan and Jessica Toonkel · Oct 21, 2020 2:27pm PDT · 9 comments

On Wednesday, video startup Quibi told its investors that it will shut down, a dramatic collapse of a digital media startup that launched just six months ago. Now those investors—from Quibi CEO Meg Whitman to Google, Facebook and J.P. Morgan—are facing losses and figuring out what they may recoup from the flop. Quibi revealed to... On Wednesday, video startup Quibi told its investors that it will shut down, a dramatic...

Snap's Jared Grusd. Photo by Erin Beach.

Snapchat’s Indian Users Rise 150% as Growth Stalls in Home Market

By Alex Heath · Oct 21, 2020 5:00am PDT · 1 comment

Snap's Jared Grusd. Photo by Erin Beach.

Snapchat’s Indian Users Rise 150% as Growth Stalls in Home Market

By Alex Heath · Oct 21, 2020 5:00am PDT · 1 comment

Snapchat, which once faced a boycott in India, has more than doubled its users there in the last year as it has benefited from “changes in the competitive landscape” and a stream of deals with local celebrities, media companies and mobile carriers, said a senior executive. The messaging app’s users rose 150% in the country... Snapchat, which once faced a boycott in India, has more than doubled its users there in the last...

Jeffrey Katzenberg. Photo by Bloomberg

Katzenberg May Shut Down Quibi as Options Run Short

By Tom Dotan and Jessica Toonkel · Oct 20, 2020 4:19pm PDT · 3 comments

Jeffrey Katzenberg may be nearing the end of the road with his mobile video streaming service Quibi. He recently tried to sell its catalog of programming to companies such as NBCUniversal and Facebook. Both passed, according to several people familiar with the matter. Meanwhile, Katzenberg has told people in the industry that he may have to... Jeffrey Katzenberg may be nearing the end of the road with his mobile video streaming service...

Elon Musk speaks during the Tesla China-Made Model 3 Delivery Ceremony at the company's Gigafactory in Shanghai, China, in January 2020. Photo by Bloomberg.

How Tesla is Winning From the U.S.-China Trade War

By Juro Osawa · Oct 19, 2020 6:02am PDT · 1 comment

On Nov. 1 last year, Tesla invited executives from dozens of China-based automotive parts suppliers to the carmaker’s new Shanghai factory, where its first made-in-China Model 3 sedans were about to roll out. At the event, Roshan Thomas, Tesla’s senior executive in charge of managing suppliers, gave a speech explaining that Tesla... On Nov. 1 last year, Tesla invited executives from dozens of China-based automotive parts...

Hopin's virtual events software. Screen shot provided by Hopin

Virtual Events Startup Hopin Discusses Valuation As High as $2 Billion in New Round

By Kate Clark · Oct 16, 2020 4:33pm PDT · 1 comment

The pandemic-related shutdown of conferences could make one startup a tech unicorn in a fraction of the time it normally takes to pass that $1 billion valuation milestone. Only four months after Hopin, a startup that powers online events, was valued by investors at around $350 million, the company has held discussions with venture capital firms... The pandemic-related shutdown of conferences could make one startup a tech unicorn in a fraction...

A TuSimple facility in Tucson. Photo by TuSimple

New Data Show Reality Behind Self-Driving Truck Startup’s Funding

By Yunan Zhang and Amir Efrati · Oct 14, 2020 12:35pm PDT · 2 comments

A TuSimple facility in Tucson. Photo by TuSimple

New Data Show Reality Behind Self-Driving Truck Startup’s Funding

By Yunan Zhang and Amir Efrati · Oct 14, 2020 12:35pm PDT · 2 comments

TuSimple, a prominent developer of self-driving semitrailer trucks that is worth more than $1 billion on paper, said last fall it had secured funding of $215 million from investors. Part of the funding came from U.S. package delivery giant UPS, which that summer also struck a deal to have TuSimple prototype trucks haul packages in Arizona. ... TuSimple, a prominent developer of self-driving semitrailer trucks that is worth more than $1...

Google employees working in a Berlin office in 2019. Photo by Bloomberg

Google’s Internal Data Show Engineers Found It Harder to Code From Home

By Nick Bastone and Amir Efrati · Oct 12, 2020 2:06pm PDT · 4 comments

Google’s engineering directors are grappling with a worrisome trend: internal data that indicate productivity during the coronavirus shutdowns deteriorated among engineers, particularly newly hired ones. One internal survey viewed by The Information found that in the three months ended in June, only 31% of the company’s engineers... Google’s engineering directors are grappling with a worrisome trend: internal data that...

Art by Shutterstock/Mike Sullivan

Microsoft, AWS, Others Boast of ‘Exclusive’ Cloud Customers Who Aren’t

By Kevin McLaughlin and Amir Efrati · Oct 12, 2020 6:02am PDT · 2 comments

Microsoft and OpenAI, a hot new artificial intelligence startup co-founded by Elon Musk, first began cozying up to each other in 2016. That year, OpenAI began to buy cloud services from Microsoft, dubbing the company’s Azure business the startup’s “primary” cloud provider. In July 2019, OpenAI got even tighter with... Microsoft and OpenAI, a hot new artificial intelligence startup co-founded by Elon Musk, first...

Quibi's Jeffrey Katzenberg and Meg Whitman unveiling the service earlier this year. Photo by Bloomberg.

Katzenberg Strikes Out on Quibi Sale Efforts, So Far

By Jessica Toonkel and Tom Dotan · Oct 9, 2020 11:33am PDT · 2 comments

Six months after launching his revolutionary video-streaming service, Quibi, Hollywood mogul Jeffrey Katzenberg is looking for a buyer. So far, he is coming up short. Over the past few weeks, Katzenberg has pitched several tech and entertainment executives about buying Quibi, only to be turned down. Among those he approached was Eddy Cue,... Six months after launching his revolutionary video-streaming service, Quibi, Hollywood mogul...

ByteDance CEO Zhang Yiming. Photo by Bloomberg; photo illustration by Mike Sullivan

In TikTok Saga, ByteDance CEO Confronts His Blind Spot: Politics

By Juro Osawa and Yunan Zhang · Oct 9, 2020 6:02am PDT · 1 comment

ByteDance CEO Zhang Yiming. Photo by Bloomberg; photo illustration by Mike Sullivan

In TikTok Saga, ByteDance CEO Confronts His Blind Spot: Politics

By Juro Osawa and Yunan Zhang · Oct 9, 2020 6:02am PDT · 1 comment

Zhang Yiming was shocked. China’s government had just announced new rules that could kill his chances of saving TikTok, the viral video app, from being banned in the U.S. The 37-year-old founder and CEO of TikTok’s Chinese parent ByteDance confided to some of his executives that Beijing’s action, in late August, blindsided him.... Zhang Yiming was shocked. China’s government had just announced new rules that could kill...

Illustration by J. Claeys

Audio Startups Multiply as Investors Seek the Next Clubhouse

By Kate Clark · Oct 8, 2020 6:02am PDT · 1 comment

This spring, Silicon Valley investors watched with a mix of envy and disbelief as top VC firms battled for a stake in tiny audio app Clubhouse. Now others are getting in on the act. Dozens of audio startups, including Betty Labs, Geneva, Chalk, Rodeo and Spoon, are raising capital from venture firms such as Greylock Partners, Alphabet’s GV... This spring, Silicon Valley investors watched with a mix of envy and disbelief as top VC firms...

Mapbox's office in Washington, D.C. Photo by Shutterstock

A New Target in Antitrust Battle Against Google: Maps

By Amir Efrati and Nick Bastone · Oct 8, 2020 6:02am PDT

Maps have suddenly become a new front in the antitrust war against Google. Credit for that goes to Mapbox, a growing rival to Google Maps that steered federal investigators to alleged abuses by the company, according to two people with direct knowledge of the situation. A congressional report on Tuesday, which made antitrust claims against four... Maps have suddenly become a new front in the antitrust war against Google. Credit for that goes...

Airbnb Burned Through $1.2 Billion as IPO Loomed

By Cory Weinberg, Amir Efrati and Zoë Bernard · Oct 7, 2020 6:01am PDT

Airbnb burned through more than $1.2 billion in cash between mid-2019 and mid-2020, according to previously undisclosed figures, as the plunge in global travel earlier this year eroded a balance sheet already weakened by big increases in spending on hiring and marketing. The cash drain wiped away more than a third of what the company had on hand... Airbnb burned through more than $1.2 billion in cash between mid-2019 and mid-2020, according to...

From left: Kevin Mayer, Peter Rice and Bob Iger. Photos by Disney; AP

How Iger Intervened to Mediate a Power Struggle at Disney+

By Tom Dotan · Oct 6, 2020 6:02am PDT

From left: Kevin Mayer, Peter Rice and Bob Iger. Photos by Disney; AP

How Iger Intervened to Mediate a Power Struggle at Disney+

By Tom Dotan · Oct 6, 2020 6:02am PDT

Last fall, Disney’s then-CEO Bob Iger sent a terse email to two of his top executives, Kevin Mayer and Peter Rice. Mayer, who then ran Disney’s video-streaming effort, had been feuding with Rice, who runs Disney’s television studios, over who had the power to pick the shows that would run on the company’s about-to-launch... Last fall, Disney’s then-CEO Bob Iger sent a terse email to two of his top executives,...