The Briefing by Martin Peers, Jessica Lessin and the team at The Information

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The Briefing

By Martin Peers, Jessica Lessin and the team at The Information

Get smarter about the day’s news in tech, media and finance by following Silicon Valley’s most-read executive newsletter.

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Recent Editions

Photo via Convoy.

U2 Won’t Save Your Trucking Startup

By Martin Peers · Oct 20, 2023 3:30pm PDT · 3 comments

You have to enjoy a certain level of self-confidence to start a business, particularly if you’re asking other people to help fund it. Too often, though, entrepreneurs have way too much confidence for their own good. Take the people behind Convoy, the trucking startup that fell off a cliff this week, after months spent trying to find a buyer or... You have to enjoy a certain level of self-confidence to start a business, particularly if you’re...

Photo via Shutterstock

Wall Street’s Lost Year: Few Jobs, Smaller Bonuses

By Lauren Tara LaCapra · Oct 19, 2023 5:00pm PDT

It’s not a happy time on Wall Street. As third quarter earnings from Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs revealed this week, the investment banking business has deteriorated lately, as the deal market remains stagnant. Morgan Stanley reported a 27% drop in investment banking revenue in the third quarter, by far the biggest decline on Wall Street,... It’s not a happy time on Wall Street. As third quarter earnings from Morgan Stanley and Goldman...

Photo via Shutterstock.

Netflix Reports Healthy Q3 While Raising Premium Tier Price

By Martin Peers · Oct 18, 2023 5:00pm PDT

Let’s hope the boffins who track inflation are watching video streaming (and not for the entertainment value!). Netflix today raised the price on its premium tier by $3 a month to $22.99, a notably bigger increase than the last time it jacked up prices. Aggressive price increases are becoming standard in streaming, at least among the bigger... Let’s hope the boffins who track inflation are watching video streaming (and not for the...

Midjourney founder David Holz. Photo via Getty.

Why You Want to Watch These Startups

By Scott Thurm · Oct 17, 2023 5:00pm PDT

Midjourney founder David Holz. Photo via Getty.

Why You Want to Watch These Startups

By Scott Thurm · Oct 17, 2023 5:00pm PDT

Earlier Tuesday, we published this year’s edition of The Information 50, our annual list of startups to watch. The list is intended as a guide to companies that haven’t yet broken through, but bear watching as candidates for future public listings or big-ticket acquisitions. Our task was complicated this year by the downturn in startup funding:... Earlier Tuesday, we published this year’s edition of The Information 50, our annual list of...

Photo via Shutterstock

What the Latest Tech Job Cuts Indicate

By Martin Peers · Oct 16, 2023 5:00pm PDT

Whatever job security existed in tech appears to have disappeared. On Monday, LinkedIn said it was cutting 668 people, the third round of layoffs at the Microsoft-owned unit this year. Meanwhile, developer forum Stack Overflow said Monday it would cut its staff by 28%—which, according to the Verge, amounts to 100 jobs. And that’s just today:... Whatever job security existed in tech appears to have disappeared. On Monday, LinkedIn said it...

Photo by Mario Tama via Getty.

Netflix Earnings Next Week Should Be OK But Not Great

By Martin Peers · Oct 13, 2023 3:00pm PDT

Earnings season is back. Banks, always the early birds, began reporting Friday and next week Netflix kicks off tech earnings season with its third quarter report on Wednesday. Big tech—Alphabet, Microsoft, Meta Platforms and the rest—don’t start reporting until the week after. But Netflix’s report will give us plenty to chew over. It will give... Earnings season is back. Banks, always the early birds, began reporting Friday and next week...

Photo via Shutterstock

Atlassian-Loom Discount Deal Suggests M&A Market is Reviving

By Martin Peers · Oct 12, 2023 5:00pm PDT · 2 comments

The brief revival of the IPO market may be petering out, thanks to a spate of disappointing offerings lately. But the M&A market, at least for enterprise software firms, seems to be coming to life—even if the valuations are a little painful for sellers. On Thursday, for instance, Atlassian said it would swallow up video messaging firm Loom... The brief revival of the IPO market may be petering out, thanks to a spate of disappointing...

Photo by AFP via Getty.

Birkenstock Stubs Its Toe in IPO

By Nick Wingfield · Oct 11, 2023 5:00pm PDT

Photo by AFP via Getty.

Birkenstock Stubs Its Toe in IPO

By Nick Wingfield · Oct 11, 2023 5:00pm PDT

Did you know the human foot uses 26 bones, 33 muscles and more than 100 tendons and ligaments when a person is walking? Neither did I, until I read the quirky IPO prospectus for Birkenstock, the German maker of sublimely ugly, supremely comfortable sandals that went public on Wednesday. It was a lackluster debut: Birkenstock shares closed at... Did you know the human foot uses 26 bones, 33 muscles and more than 100 tendons and ligaments...

Caroline Ellison arrives at court in New York today. Photo by Bloomberg via Getty.

SBF Didn’t Understand Risk-Reward

By Martin Peers · Oct 10, 2023 5:01pm PDT · 1 comment

Just when it seemed there was nothing new we could learn from the SBF saga, the FTX founder's onetime deputy (and onetime romantic partner) Caroline Ellison testified in court on Tuesday. And her account of Sam Bankman-Fried’s attitudes toward risk, which helped set the stage for FTX’s bankruptcy, was truly mind-blowing. Whatever the outcome of... Just when it seemed there was nothing new we could learn from the SBF saga, the FTX founder's...

Nelson Peltz. Photo by Bloomberg via Getty.

Why Peltz Isn’t the Solution for Disney’s Problems

By Martin Peers · Oct 9, 2023 5:00pm PDT

Here’s a shoutout to those tech folks—among many, many others—who are putting their lives on the line as members of Israel’s defense forces right now, responding to the Hamas attack over the weekend. It puts everything else into perspective. For more details on Israeli tech folks’ involvement, see our story here. Meanwhile, Nelson Peltz has... Here’s a shoutout to those tech folks—among many, many others—who are putting their lives on the...

Photo via Getty

ByteDance Stock Is Very Cheap—for Good Reason

By Martin Peers · Oct 6, 2023 4:00pm PDT

You might have missed it, with all the drama this week about Sam Bankman-Fried’s trial (for our deep dive, see here) and the latest updates from the world of AI, but we got a detailed update on ByteDance’s robust financial performance. And what that told us is that shareholders in the parent company of TikTok have reason to be very frustrated.... You might have missed it, with all the drama this week about Sam Bankman-Fried’s trial (for our...

Photo by Brandon Slater via Getty.

Startup Employees Can Exhale, But Not Relax Too Much

By Cory Weinberg · Oct 5, 2023 5:00pm PDT

Photo by Brandon Slater via Getty.

Startup Employees Can Exhale, But Not Relax Too Much

By Cory Weinberg · Oct 5, 2023 5:00pm PDT

Maybe, just maybe, startup employees who held onto their jobs amid spurts of mass layoffs over the last year and a half can exhale. They have survived. The number of monthly job cuts at tech companies—just over 4,600—hit an 18-month low in September, according to Layoffs.fyi, the venerable tracker of employee career pain. The recent sprinkling... Maybe, just maybe, startup employees who held onto their jobs amid spurts of mass layoffs over...

Elon Musk. Photo via Shutterstock.

Musk’s Counterproductive Moves

By Martin Peers · Oct 4, 2023 5:01pm PDT · 2 comments

What a time to be a tech business reporter! Even as Sam Bankman-Fried’s fraud trial gets underway, our scoop yesterday about AI startup Anthropic’s rising valuation suggests that the disgraced FTX founder may have scored at least one home run with his Anthropic investment. Yes, that’s right: The fast-evolving story about AI startups has... What a time to be a tech business reporter! Even as Sam Bankman-Fried’s fraud trial gets...

Photo via Shutterstock

Streaming Services Should Beware Becoming Like Cable Companies

By Nick Wingfield · Oct 3, 2023 5:00pm PDT · 1 comment

About a month ago, I finally reached my breaking point with YouTube TV, the streaming service I had subscribed to years earlier as a replacement for cable TV. I didn’t think twice about paying $40 a month for it in 2018, but after years of price increases—YouTube TV now costs $73 a month—I realized my family wasn’t watching it nearly enough to... About a month ago, I finally reached my breaking point with YouTube TV, the streaming service I...

Photo via Nasdaq

DoorDash Should Buy Instacart Now

By Martin Peers · Oct 2, 2023 5:01pm PDT · 2 comments

Instacart’s stock price performance so far brings to mind a variation on the old line about love: Is it better to have gone public and lost, or never to have gone public at all? The shares fell 9% on Monday to $26.96, 10% below its IPO price, following our scoop that the Wall Street analysts at the banks underwriting the offering are projecting... Instacart’s stock price performance so far brings to mind a variation on the old line about love:...

Photo via Getty.

Apple’s Hiccup, Blue Apron Gets Picked Up

By Martin Peers · Sep 29, 2023 3:00pm PDT

Photo via Getty.

Apple’s Hiccup, Blue Apron Gets Picked Up

By Martin Peers · Sep 29, 2023 3:00pm PDT

It’s hard to feel sympathy for Apple, given how much money it makes ($9.2 million in net income every hour in the most recent quarter). But the flood of complaints on social media about overheating in the latest line of iPhones makes you feel a bit for the tech giant and its executives. Here’s a company that wanted to make its high-end phones... It’s hard to feel sympathy for Apple, given how much money it makes ($9.2 million in net income...

Linda Yaccarino, CEO of X. Photo via Getty.

Linda Yaccarino May Have the Toughest CEO Job

By Martin Peers · Sep 28, 2023 5:00pm PDT · 1 comment

Here’s a question: How long can someone stay as CEO of a company when the owner of that company is publicly repudiating what they’re saying? Take Linda Yaccarino, CEO of X, previously known as Twitter. On Wednesday, Elon Musk confirmed a report in The Information about layoffs at X’s election integrity team—Musk even went further than what we... Here’s a question: How long can someone stay as CEO of a company when the owner of that company...

Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI. Photo by Bloomberg via Getty.

Why the AI Race Is Getting Weird

By Jessica E. Lessin · Sep 27, 2023 5:00pm PDT · 1 comment

There comes a point in every major new technology cycle where new alliances form, especially between the incumbents and the younger upstarts nipping at their heels.This is happening at superspeed in artificial intelligence—but the pattern is frankly pretty weird, and I think it points to the fact that AI, in a lot of ways, is going to be... There comes a point in every major new technology cycle where new alliances form, especially...

FTC Chair Lina Khan. Photo by Chip Somodevilla via Getty.

The Flaws in FTC’s Amazon Case

By Martin Peers · Sep 26, 2023 5:00pm PDT

Talk about anticlimactic. We’ve been expecting today’s Federal Trade Commission antitrust lawsuit against Amazon since the day commission chair Lina Khan was sworn into office in June 2021. After all, she rose to antitrust fame with her 2017 Yale Law Journal paper arguing that modern competition policy wasn’t equipped to deal with the threat... Talk about anticlimactic. We’ve been expecting today’s Federal Trade Commission antitrust lawsuit...

Photo by Getty

Amazon’s Anthropic Deal Signals Cloud Sector Turbulence

By Martin Peers · Sep 25, 2023 5:00pm PDT

Photo by Getty

Amazon’s Anthropic Deal Signals Cloud Sector Turbulence

By Martin Peers · Sep 25, 2023 5:00pm PDT

You know the cloud industry is in upheaval when industry leader Amazon Web Services has to copy a tactic used by its smaller rivals to compete more effectively. The Amazon unit’s decision on Monday to invest up to $4 billion in AI startup Anthropic, as part of a broader deal in which AWS becomes the startup’s “primary cloud provider,” looks a... You know the cloud industry is in upheaval when industry leader Amazon Web Services has to copy a...