AI Startups Are Facing a Reckoning
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The Big Read
Below is a collection of every The Big Read article by The Information.
The Big Read
Daniel Lurie Started Tech’s Favorite Charity. Can He Save Its Favorite City?
By
Jon Steinberg
· Sept. 29, 2023 10:00 AM PDT ·
10 comments
At 11 a.m. last Tuesday, a San Francisco icon stepped up to the podium at the century-old Potrero Hill Neighborhood House. With the Financial District’s half-vacant towers gleaming in the distance and the golden September sun streaming through the windows, the venue seemed stage-designed for a biopic: the room where a political star...
At 11 a.m. last Tuesday, a San Francisco icon stepped up to the podium at the century-old Potrero...
The Big Read
policy
Europe Has Figured Out How to Tame Big Tech. Can the U.S. Learn Its Tricks?
By
Chris Stokel-Walker
· Sept. 22, 2023 11:00 AM PDT ·
23 comments
Late last month in Belgium, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) had a pressing question for Paul Tang, a Dutch politician and member of the European Parliament. How had they done it, she asked him. How had the EU managed to bring big tech to heel? The liberal Massachusetts senator, alongside Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), had stopped off in...
Late last month in Belgium, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) had a pressing question for Paul...
The Big Read
space
entertainment
The Elon Musk Investors With Dreams of a New Social Order
By
Julia Black
· Sept. 15, 2023 9:31 AM PDT ·
5 comments
In February 2021, a Mormon film producer named Jeffrey Harmon returned home to Provo, Utah, raving about an exclusive gathering he’d just attended in Austin, Tex. He’d been invited by an old friend, Stephen Oskoui, who ran Austin-based venture capital firm Gigafund alongside Luke Nosek, a founding partner of Founders Fund and a...
In February 2021, a Mormon film producer named Jeffrey Harmon returned home to Provo, Utah,...
The Instant Oral History of ‘Trench Foot Burning Man’
By
Annie Goldsmith
,
Margaux MacColl
,
Natasha Mascarenhas
,
Akash Pasricha
and
Erin Woo
· Sept. 8, 2023 11:00 AM PDT ·
1 comment
The Big Read
culture
The Instant Oral History of ‘Trench Foot Burning Man’
By
Annie Goldsmith
,
Margaux MacColl
,
Natasha Mascarenhas
,
Akash Pasricha
and
Erin Woo
· Sept. 8, 2023 11:00 AM PDT ·
1 comment
Burning Man 2023 began on Sunday, August 27, as it normally does: with several days of blistering sunshine, pounding bass and playa dust. Then, between Friday and Saturday, a surprise deluge hit northwest Nevada—dumping two months’ worth of rain in 24 hours—and things really began to get interesting. Justin Kan, general partner...
Burning Man 2023 began on Sunday, August 27, as it normally does: with several days of blistering...
The Big Read
startups
ai
‘He Doesn’t Need VC in His Life’: How Midjourney’s Founder Built an AI Winner While Rejecting Venture Capital
By
Kate Clark
· Sept. 5, 2023 6:15 AM PDT ·
5 comments
Ever since David Holz founded Midjourney in mid-2021, venture capitalists have been practically begging him to take their money. On top of cold-calling and emailing Holz incessantly, some have asked his inner circle for “warm” introductions. Others have preemptively sent him term sheets. A lucky few have landed meetings with the...
Ever since David Holz founded Midjourney in mid-2021, venture capitalists have been practically...
The Big Read
asia
policy
‘Excited and Terrified’: On a High-Stakes Trip to China, Gina Raimondo Confronts a Complex Future
By
Jessica E. Lessin
· Sept. 2, 2023 6:00 AM PDT ·
15 comments
A former ambulance driver was whizzing me through the rainy streets of Shanghai to meet an eight-car motorcade and—hopefully—U.S. Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo. She’d been a hard person to wrangle during her three-day diplomatic trip to China, and I had been given the smallest of windows for a face-to-face interview: just 15...
A former ambulance driver was whizzing me through the rainy streets of Shanghai to meet an...
The Big Read
ai
entertainment
‘Don’t Put Your Head in the Sand’: Stars Are Quietly Inking Deals to License Their AI Doubles
By
Julia Black
· Aug. 18, 2023 9:00 AM PDT ·
2 comments
In 2008, while working with Will Smith on the set of a film that never ended up getting made, Remington Scott had an epiphany. The visual effects director was watching Smith stand in a photogrammetry booth, with dozens of cameras capturing the actor’s facial features from every possible angle. “Every single major star on that level,...
In 2008, while working with Will Smith on the set of a film that never ended up getting made,...
Is Ruth Porat’s New Job at Alphabet a Coronation or a Last Dance?
By
Anita Raghavan
· Aug. 12, 2023 6:00 AM PDT ·
6 comments
The Big Read
google
Is Ruth Porat’s New Job at Alphabet a Coronation or a Last Dance?
By
Anita Raghavan
· Aug. 12, 2023 6:00 AM PDT ·
6 comments
In February, after Alphabet had put the finishing touches on the technology giant’s 2023 plan, CEO Sundar Pichai and Chief Financial Officer Ruth Porat sat down to brainstorm about the future of the organization and its people. One of the people the two discussed was Porat herself, according to sources familiar with the conversation. The...
In February, after Alphabet had put the finishing touches on the technology giant’s 2023...
The Big Read
venture capital
American Dynamo: An ‘Iconic’ Andreessen Horowitz Investor Is Turning Heads in Defense Tech
By
Margaux MacColl
· Aug. 11, 2023 9:00 AM PDT ·
3 comments
On November 16, 2022, Silicon Valley came to Washington—specifically, to the airy, upscale Italian restaurant Piccolina da Centrolina, where the evening’s co-host, Andreessen Horowitz general partner Katherine Boyle, was waiting. It was the night before Andreessen’s American Dynamism summit, and Boyle had helped convene around...
On November 16, 2022, Silicon Valley came to Washington—specifically, to the airy, upscale...
The Big Read
policy
Lina vs. the Dark Arts: The FTC Wants Big Tech to Know It’s Watching
By
Nancy Scola
· Aug. 4, 2023 9:00 AM PDT ·
7 comments
Lina Khan was hauled before the House Judiciary Committee one morning in mid-July to discuss a favorite Republican topic of the moment: the 34-year-old chair’s supposed mishandling of the Federal Trade Commission and its $430 million budget. Seated at the sprawling witness table next to a bevy of Deer Park water bottles—a sign of the...
Lina Khan was hauled before the House Judiciary Committee one morning in mid-July to discuss a...
The Big Read
venture capital
startups
How Blind Became the App Silicon Valley Bosses Love to Hate
By
Paris Martineau
· July 28, 2023 6:00 AM PDT ·
16 comments
Alex Shin was pretty sure he’d just screwed up the deal. It was early 2021, and Shin was pitching a couple of investors from the venture capital arm of Cisco Systems on the idea of investing in Blind—an app used by millions of workers at tech companies and employers to anonymously gossip about compensation, the horrors of dating in...
Alex Shin was pretty sure he’d just screwed up the deal. It was early 2021, and Shin was...
John Collison’s Land Grab: A Stripe Co-Founder Grows in Power
By
Cory Weinberg
· July 21, 2023 9:00 AM PDT ·
11 comments
The Big Read
startups
Finance
John Collison’s Land Grab: A Stripe Co-Founder Grows in Power
By
Cory Weinberg
· July 21, 2023 9:00 AM PDT ·
11 comments
Visitors to the Abbey Leix estate in County Laois, Ireland, must drive on an unkempt gravel road that leads through a thick forest and past a derelict corn mill to get to the giant old house in the country’s midlands. Stephen Kinsella, an Irish economist, made the journey last May at the invitation of a friend who had recently purchased...
Visitors to the Abbey Leix estate in County Laois, Ireland, must drive on an unkempt gravel road...
The Big Read
google
Google’s Darkest Days: After Three Deaths, a Workforce Reckons with a Changed Company
By
Becky Peterson
· July 14, 2023 8:21 AM PDT ·
21 comments
For Google employees, the news was a devastating turn in an already disorienting year. In May, a 31-year-old senior engineer at the company, later identified by police as Kevin Rawlings, died at Google’s New York office late at night in an apparent suicide. Rawlings’ death followed that of another Google employee in New York, a...
For Google employees, the news was a devastating turn in an already disorienting year. In...
The Big Read
startups
ai
‘Sometimes, It Feels Real’: Character.AI Gives Humans the Chatbots They Desire
By
Jon Victor
· July 7, 2023 9:00 AM PDT ·
5 comments
One Saturday morning earlier this year, Noam Shazeer, CEO of Character.AI and one of the world’s foremost machine-learning researchers, looked out his window to see a stranger perched on a folding chair outside his home in Palo Alto, Calif. The man had come to Shazeer’s quiet residential street to deliver a message that had been...
One Saturday morning earlier this year, Noam Shazeer, CEO of Character.AI and one of the...
The Big Read
venture capital
ai
Rishi and the VCs: London Is Calling, and Silicon Valley Is Happy to Answer
By
Chris Stokel-Walker
· June 30, 2023 9:00 AM PDT ·
3 comments
It was the worst-kept secret in U.K. tech. For months, the Conservative government of Prime Minister Rishi Sunak had been wooing Sam Altman’s OpenAI, trying to coax the San Francisco–based artificial intelligence firm into opening its first non-U.S. office in London. Then, in early June, two weeks after Altman met with Sunak in his...
It was the worst-kept secret in U.K. tech. For months, the Conservative government of Prime...
Can Adobe Catch the AI Bug?
By
Margaux MacColl
· June 23, 2023 9:00 AM PDT ·
1 comment
The Big Read
culture
ai
Can Adobe Catch the AI Bug?
By
Margaux MacColl
· June 23, 2023 9:00 AM PDT ·
1 comment
Six months ago, Adobe’s chief strategy officer, Scott Belsky, was in a New York conference room with around two dozen top marketing executives. They had gathered to discuss how artificial intelligence could transform advertising, allowing them to turn a string of words into a visual ad. At first, Belsky thought they were on the same page...
Six months ago, Adobe’s chief strategy officer, Scott Belsky, was in a New York conference...
The Big Read
Twitch’s New CEO Tries to Strike the Right Chords
By
Annie Goldsmith
· June 16, 2023 9:00 AM PDT ·
1 comment
I will start with John Denver,” said Dan Clancy. “There’s one note that’s kind of high, so I mangle it a little. But that’s OK. Part of doing this is being comfortable mangling a note or two.” Clancy, CEO of the $45 billion livestreaming platform Twitch, then launched into an emphatic keyboard rendition of...
I will start with John Denver,” said Dan Clancy. “There’s one note that’s...
The Big Read
venture capital
space
The Overlapping Galaxies of Delian Asparouhov
By
Margaux MacColl
· June 9, 2023 9:00 AM PDT ·
2 comments
Delian Asparouhov, newly minted Founders Fund partner and co-founder of Varda Space Industries, is obsessed with speed. As a hobby, he’s getting his pilot’s license, hoping to eventually fly a fighter jet. On the ground, he prefers to listen to audiobooks at triple the normal tempo. And when he started Varda in late 2020, he set a...
Delian Asparouhov, newly minted Founders Fund partner and co-founder of Varda Space Industries,...
The Big Read
markets
Finance
The Master of Destruction Rides Again
By
Michelle Celarier
· May 26, 2023 9:00 AM PDT ·
10 comments
In the spring of 2022, the irascible Wall Street short seller Marc Cohodes was in a particularly foul mood. The 62-year-old’s second marriage was on the rocks. He was recuperating from shoulder surgery after his horse rammed him. He couldn’t do much of anything besides fume and tweet about the financial markets. On April 29,...
In the spring of 2022, the irascible Wall Street short seller Marc Cohodes was in a particularly...
The Hot New Trophy Asset: A Pro Pickleball Team
By
Abram Brown
· May 19, 2023 9:00 AM PDT ·
11 comments
The Big Read
culture
The Hot New Trophy Asset: A Pro Pickleball Team
By
Abram Brown
· May 19, 2023 9:00 AM PDT ·
11 comments
It was power lunch hour in midtown Manhattan and Central Park’s new pickleball courts had filled up with the type of sporty executives who once preferred to talk business over 18 holes of golf. I’d gone to paddle around with Samin Odhwani, an investor at NBA star Kevin Durant’s 35 Ventures, and hear about one of the...
It was power lunch hour in midtown Manhattan and Central Park’s new pickleball courts had...
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