How to Grease a Chatbot: E-Commerce Companies Seek a Backdoor Into AI Responses
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The Briefing
apple
crypto
The Flaw in Apple’s ‘Installed Base’ Metric
By
Martin Peers
· Feb. 9, 2023 5:00 PM PST ·
2 comments
Here’s an idea for the new AI-powered Bing: Write the script for the next Apple quarterly earnings call with Wall Street analysts. It wouldn’t be difficult. Throw in the phrases “installed base rose to a new all-time high” and “customers are loving the new iPhone” and you’re halfway there. The same would be true for many other big tech...
Here’s an idea for the new AI-powered Bing: Write the script for the next Apple quarterly...
The Briefing
media/telecom
enterprise
Iger’s Disney Fix-It Plan Has Something for Everyone
By
Martin Peers
· Feb. 8, 2023 5:00 PM PST
Bob Iger really should have run for president, as he once considered doing. His political instinct is unmatched, at least among CEOs. On Wednesday, in his first quarterly earnings call since returning to the top job at Disney, Iger offered something for everyone. A return of the dividend! Layoffs! Creative executives get their power back!...
Bob Iger really should have run for president, as he once considered doing. His political...
The Briefing
microsoft
enterprise
Microsoft Might Keep Losing in Search and Still Win
By
Nick Wingfield
· Feb. 7, 2023 5:00 PM PST
Could Microsoft win even if it loses in the next chapter of internet search? That was the question running through my head at an event in Redmond, Wash., earlier today, where Microsoft confirmed reporting from The Information and others when it announced it will remake its Bing search engine using artificial intelligence technology from...
Could Microsoft win even if it loses in the next chapter of internet search? That was the...
What Google’s AI Catch-Up Reveals
By
Martin Peers
· Feb. 6, 2023 5:00 PM PST
The Briefing
google
media/telecom
What Google’s AI Catch-Up Reveals
By
Martin Peers
· Feb. 6, 2023 5:00 PM PST
Google is finally waking up. After weeks of excitement coursing through tech about OpenAI’s ChatGPT chatbot, paired with news coverage of how Microsoft plans to incorporate it into products like Bing and Word, Google has made a move. The tech company once seen as a leader in artificial intelligence on Monday unveiled its version of a...
Google is finally waking up. After weeks of excitement coursing through tech about OpenAI’s...
The Briefing
apple
amazon
For Tech CEOs, ‘Challenging’ Means Dismal
By
Martin Peers
· Feb. 2, 2023 5:00 PM PST ·
1 comment
Challenging! That’s the euphemism of the moment, used by way too many tech CEOs (including Tim Cook and Sundar Pichai tonight and Mark Zuckerberg and Evan Spiegel in recent days) to describe either 2022 or the current moment or both. Translated from corporate-speak into conversational English, it means business is bad. Just how bad became clear...
Challenging! That’s the euphemism of the moment, used by way too many tech CEOs (including Tim...
The Briefing
markets
facebook
Meta Declares ‘Year of Efficiency’ as Revenue Stagnates
By
Martin Peers
· Feb. 1, 2023 5:00 PM PST
We’re in the middle of Chinese New Year celebrations at the start of the Year of the Rabbit. At Meta Platforms, though, it’s the “year of efficiency,” as CEO Mark Zuckerberg declared Wednesday on announcing fourth-quarter results. Investors such as Altimeter Capital, which last fall called on Meta to streamline, will be happy. It’s just a pity...
We’re in the middle of Chinese New Year celebrations at the start of the Year of the Rabbit. At...
The Briefing
amazon
media/telecom
Snap’s Spaghetti Strategy Is Cause for Concern
By
Jessica E. Lessin
· Jan. 31, 2023 5:00 PM PST ·
1 comment
Snap’s abysmal financial forecast for the current quarter continued the company’s string of rough news. While the social media company said revenues in the fourth quarter were largely flat from a year earlier, it warned that business is going to get worse. “Our internal forecast assumes revenue will be between -10% to -2% year-over-year in...
Snap’s abysmal financial forecast for the current quarter continued the company’s string of rough...
Stripe’s Trajectory Has Echoes of Uber; BuzzFeed’s AI-Fueled Rally
By
Martin Peers
· Jan. 30, 2023 5:00 PM PST
The Briefing
enterprise
media/telecom
Stripe’s Trajectory Has Echoes of Uber; BuzzFeed’s AI-Fueled Rally
By
Martin Peers
· Jan. 30, 2023 5:00 PM PST
Once upon a time, there was a private tech company that bankers thought could be worth as much as $120 billion when it went public. Its potential initial public offering was described in news reports like this one in 2018 as the “most hotly anticipated on Wall Street and Silicon Valley.” Today, it’s worth only about $60 billion. Can you guess...
Once upon a time, there was a private tech company that bankers thought could be worth as much as...
The Briefing
media/telecom
venture capital
Why Stripe Won’t Go Public Soon
By
Jessica E. Lessin
· Jan. 26, 2023 5:00 PM PST
Sorry, Silicon Valley. Stripe isn’t going public anytime soon. Today, The Information was the first to report that the Silicon Valley payments company told employees it would go public in the next year or find another way for them to cash out of some of their stock. In an icy-cold IPO market, the news sparked a glimmer of hope that the...
Sorry, Silicon Valley. Stripe isn’t going public anytime soon. Today, The Information was...
The Briefing
facebook
markets
Trump’s Meta Return; Massage Therapists, Matthew McConaughey and Elon Musk
By
Martin Peers
· Jan. 25, 2023 5:00 PM PST
So much for Facebook’s efforts to become less political. Meta Platforms’ decision Wednesday to allow former President Donald Trump back onto both Facebook and Instagram threatens to undermine efforts Meta has made over the past two years to reduce the amount of political content people see in their Facebook feed. That promises to be bad for...
So much for Facebook’s efforts to become less political. Meta Platforms’ decision Wednesday to...
The Briefing
microsoft
google
DOJ’s Latest Case Against Google Is Intricate But Important
By
Jessica E. Lessin
· Jan. 24, 2023 5:01 PM PST
Over my career as a tech reporter, regulators have sued or threatened to sue Google for exerting monopoly power in its ads business so many times it’s hard to keep track. Today the U.S. Department of Justice and eight states filed the fifth challenge by U.S. officials against the company, building on a case several states filed back in...
Over my career as a tech reporter, regulators have sued or threatened to sue Google for exerting...
Salesforce’s Board Needs Fresh Talent and Spotify Needs an Activist
By
Martin Peers
· Jan. 23, 2023 5:00 PM PST ·
1 comment
The Briefing
enterprise
media/telecom
Salesforce’s Board Needs Fresh Talent and Spotify Needs an Activist
By
Martin Peers
· Jan. 23, 2023 5:00 PM PST ·
1 comment
Investors sometimes seem to have over-the-top expectations of what activists can achieve in a poorly run company. But the bar is low for them to make an impact at Salesforce. The stock is in the doghouse thanks to weak profit margins, partly a result of costly acquisitions such as the Slack deal, as well as a revolving door of top management....
Investors sometimes seem to have over-the-top expectations of what activists can achieve in a...
The Briefing
crypto
media/telecom
Hastings Turns Wheel Over as Streaming Market Slows
By
Martin Peers
· Jan. 19, 2023 5:00 PM PST
It’s the end of an era in streaming. Reed Hastings, co-founder of video-streaming pioneer Netflix, is stepping down as co-CEO, kicking himself upstairs to be executive chair (as he was already chair, he’s giving up more than he’s gaining). Greg Peters, chief operating officer and a 15-year veteran of Netflix, was promoted to be Ted Sarandos’...
It’s the end of an era in streaming. Reed Hastings, co-founder of video-streaming pioneer...
The Briefing
crypto
media/telecom
What’s Really Holding Back Twitter Ads
By
Jessica E. Lessin
· Jan. 18, 2023 5:39 PM PST
A few weeks ago, I was having lunch with a former magazine editor in New York when the subject of Elon Musk and Twitter came up. We talked about the advertisers spooked by Musk’s disastrous rollout of the Twitter Blue subscription service, among other things. “Oh, they’ll come back,” he said. “They always do.”Now, we all know how bad the...
A few weeks ago, I was having lunch with a former magazine editor in New York when the subject of...
The Briefing
asia
media/telecom
VC’s $8 Billion ByteDance Headache
By
Jessica E. Lessin
· Jan. 17, 2023 5:00 PM PST ·
2 comments
Amid all the crises venture capitalists are facing, there’s one that deserves more attention and it centers on a number: $8 billion. That's roughly the amount of money investors like Sequoia, Susquehanna International Group, Coatue Management and Tiger Global Management have poured into TikTok owner ByteDance—money that is largely locked up...
Amid all the crises venture capitalists are facing, there’s one that deserves more attention and...
What’s Google Cloud So Worried About?
By
Jessica E. Lessin
· Jan. 12, 2023 5:03 PM PST
The Briefing
cloud
google
What’s Google Cloud So Worried About?
By
Jessica E. Lessin
· Jan. 12, 2023 5:03 PM PST
What is going on at Google Cloud? Today, Jon, Kevin and Amir had an important story about an executive shakeup involving the departure of Google’s top sales executive in the U.S., Kirsten Kliphouse. You may recall that Google Cloud, after 10 years of trying, is still a distant second to Amazon and Microsoft in the business. Google didn’t...
What is going on at Google Cloud? Today, Jon, Kevin and Amir had an important story about an...
The Briefing
apple
media/telecom
Why Musk’s User-Pays Twitter Policy Makes Sense; Hell Freezes Over at Apple
By
Martin Peers
· Jan. 11, 2023 5:00 PM PST ·
3 comments
Give Elon Musk some credit. While his tornadolike upheaval of Twitter has apparently devastated its ad business (see an update with our latest story on that subject), there is upside in what he’s doing for the tech industry. Musk has indicated he wants to make Twitter users pay up for some features—so much so that, as The New York Times reported...
Give Elon Musk some credit. While his tornadolike upheaval of Twitter has apparently devastated...
The Briefing
crypto
Coinbase May Have the Best Shot of Weathering the Crypto Winter
By
Akash Pasricha
· Jan. 10, 2023 5:40 PM PST
By crypto standards, today was like any other day—both newsy and noisy. Let’s see, Coinbase laid off 20% of its staff, and the Winklevoss twins escalated their public battle with crypto conglomerate Digital Currency Group with an open letter demanding the removal of its chief, Barry Silbert. Meanwhile, a former Coinbase manager's brother was...
By crypto standards, today was like any other day—both newsy and noisy. Let’s see, Coinbase laid...
The Briefing
apple
media/telecom
Why Netflix’s Streaming Edge Won’t Erode
By
Martin Peers
· Jan. 9, 2023 5:00 PM PST
It’s the quiet before the earnings storm, which makes it a good time to take a step back and consider the situation of Netflix, the first big tech name to report December quarter numbers, on Jan. 19. Its stock has nearly doubled since it bottomed out at around $167 in June, although even at current levels of around $315 it is still down 47% from...
It’s the quiet before the earnings storm, which makes it a good time to take a step back and...
Amazon’s Cuts Were Inevitable After Years of Excessive Spending
By
Martin Peers
· Jan. 5, 2023 5:00 PM PST ·
2 comments
The Briefing
e-commerce
Amazon’s Cuts Were Inevitable After Years of Excessive Spending
By
Martin Peers
· Jan. 5, 2023 5:00 PM PST ·
2 comments
It’s a bleak moment for the retail sector. Today brought word that home goods chain Bed Bath & Beyond has “substantial doubt” about its “ability to continue as a going concern,” given how much money it has been losing. Another retailer, Everlane, is cutting 17% of its corporate staff, we scooped today. Meanwhile, Amazon on Wednesday said it...
It’s a bleak moment for the retail sector. Today brought word that home goods chain Bed Bath...
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