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

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Recent Editions

Frances Haugen. Photo by Bloomberg.

Whistleblowers’ Moment in Tech

By Nick Wingfield · Oct 8, 2021 5:00pm PDT · 2 comments

It would be an understatement to say whistleblowing in the tech industry had a moment this week. First, Frances Haugen, now forever known as the Facebook Whistleblower, caused a media and political frenzy with her testimony in Washington, D.C., on Tuesday. Also this week, a project headed by Ifeoma Ozoma, a former Pinterest staffer who went... It would be an understatement to say whistleblowing in the tech industry had a moment this week....

A trader on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange last month. Photo by Bloomberg.

An Aborted IPO Reflects Market Jitters About Covid Winners

By Martin Peers · Oct 7, 2021 5:00pm PDT

After a spate of IPO filings earlier this week, including from companies Rent the Runway, Udemy and GlobalFoundries, you might have thought the roller-coaster ups and downs of the market weren’t deterring anyone from going public. Wrong! Today iFit Health & Fitness, a competitor to Peloton, decided to postpone its IPO due to “adverse market... After a spate of IPO filings earlier this week, including from companies Rent the Runway, Udemy...

Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong. Photo by Bloomberg.

Why Coinbase CEO’s Worries About Attacks on Founders Are Misplaced

By Martin Peers · Oct 6, 2021 5:00pm PDT · 1 comment

Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong is worried that attacks from the press and politicians will drive successful CEOs to “leave from burnout.” Given the timing, this tweet seemed to be a response to the pounding that Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has taken lately, although Armstrong mentioned “Gates, Page, Bezos” as though they were examples. This has... Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong is worried that attacks from the press and politicians will drive...

Senators Marsha Blackburn and Richard Blumenthal as Frances Haugen testified today. Photo by Bloomberg.

Facebook Leads to Hyperbole Outbreak

By Martin Peers · Oct 5, 2021 5:00pm PDT

Senators Marsha Blackburn and Richard Blumenthal as Frances Haugen testified today. Photo by Bloomberg.

Facebook Leads to Hyperbole Outbreak

By Martin Peers · Oct 5, 2021 5:00pm PDT

Have we reached peak Facebook-bashing yet? It would be risky to call the top for that exercise, although it may be hard to surpass this week’s one-two punch of the global outage with the public appearances of whistleblower Frances Haugen. The result is commentary notable for its rapidly diminishing quota of common sense. Take, for example,... Have we reached peak Facebook-bashing yet? It would be risky to call the top for that exercise,...

Facebook's Silicon Valley headquarters. Photo by Bloomberg.

Facebook’s Outage and its Future

By Martin Peers · Oct 4, 2021 5:00pm PDT

Fixing the problems caused by Facebook turned out to be easier than everyone thought. Just turn off the site! Today’s global outage affecting all parts of Facebook seems an appropriate coda to the spate of news stories about Facebook’s negative impact on society in recent weeks. The New York Times opined that the recent spate of revelations in... Fixing the problems caused by Facebook turned out to be easier than everyone thought. Just turn...

Zillow co-founder and CEO Rich Barton. Photo by Bloomberg.

Zillow Throws Down Gauntlet to FTC

By Martin Peers · Oct 1, 2021 5:00pm PDT

Zillow Group isn’t typically counted in the list of big bad tech companies that deserve antitrust restraint, but it has become clear that, under Lina Khan, the Federal Trade Commission is casting a wide net for tech targets. As we reported on Thursday, Khan has reopened a review of Zillow’s $500 million purchase of ShowingTime, which schedules... Zillow Group isn’t typically counted in the list of big bad tech companies that deserve antitrust...

Senator Marsha Blackburn at today's hearing. Photo by Bloomberg.

The Limits of Washington’s Facebook Theater

By Martin Peers · Sep 30, 2021 5:00pm PDT

There’s so much theater in the frequent congressional interrogation of tech executives nowadays that you could almost stage these hearings on Broadway. It certainly would be a long-running show, though one that plays to mostly empty seats given how boringly repetitive these hearings have become. That was demonstrated with today’s installment, as... There’s so much theater in the frequent congressional interrogation of tech executives nowadays...

Warby Parker's signage out the front of the New York Stock Exchange today. Photo by AP

Warby Parker’s Triumphant Market Debut is Good and Bad News

By Martin Peers · Sep 29, 2021 5:00pm PDT

Warby Parker's signage out the front of the New York Stock Exchange today. Photo by AP

Warby Parker’s Triumphant Market Debut is Good and Bad News

By Martin Peers · Sep 29, 2021 5:00pm PDT

Warby Parker’s sterling debut on the public markets today makes two things about the markets clear. One is that digitally-savvy, venture-backed consumer goods startups such as Warby Parker aren’t as unpopular on Wall Street as would appear from the disastrous IPOs of others in that category, such as Casper and Honest Co. The second is that... Warby Parker’s sterling debut on the public markets today makes two things about the markets...

Dave Limp, Amazon's senior vice president of devices and services. Photo by Bloomberg

Amazon’s Spray-and-Pray Hardware Strategy

By Martin Peers · Sep 28, 2021 5:00pm PDT

Yes, Amazon wants to be bigger in the consumer gadget business. The ecommerce-and-cloud- behemoth introduced so many new devices today that it's tough to fit a mention of all of them into one sentence. Everything from a robot that roams around the home to a new Fitbit-like health tracker to a video doorbell and a new video-calling device. One... Yes, Amazon wants to be bigger in the consumer gadget business. The ecommerce-and-cloud- behemoth...

Instagram chief Adam Mosseri. Photo by Bloomberg.

Facebook’s Instagram Kids Retreat Signals Limits on Expansion Potential

By Martin Peers · Sep 27, 2021 5:00pm PDT · 2 comments

It’s hard to imagine a more predictable announcement than the one made by Facebook today. Less than two weeks after an uproar over the damage being done to teenage girls by Facebook’s Instagram, sparked by a Wall Street Journal report, is anyone surprised by today’s news that the company isn’t going forward with a version of “Instagram Kids”?... It’s hard to imagine a more predictable announcement than the one made by Facebook today. Less...

Barry Diller. Photo by Bloomberg.

Barry Diller’s Puzzling Magazine Drive

By Martin Peers · Sep 24, 2021 5:00pm PDT · 1 comment

What is the fascination that internet billionaires have with print media? First Jeff Bezos buys The Washington Post, then Marc Benioff snaps up Time magazine. And now Barry Diller is in “advanced talks” to buy Meredith Corp., the company behind People, Better Homes and Gardens, Entertainment Weekly, among others, according to the Wall Street... What is the fascination that internet billionaires have with print media? First Jeff Bezos buys...

European Commissioner competition commissioner Margrethe Vestager. Photo by Bloomberg.

Europe Aims to Solve Tech’s Knottiest Problem: Too Many Chargers

By Martin Peers · Sep 23, 2021 5:00pm PDT

European Commissioner competition commissioner Margrethe Vestager. Photo by Bloomberg.

Europe Aims to Solve Tech’s Knottiest Problem: Too Many Chargers

By Martin Peers · Sep 23, 2021 5:00pm PDT

The FTC’s new chair, Lina Khan, wants to drastically shake up antitrust enforcement in the U.S., by taking into account the interests of “workers and independent businesses as well as consumers,” she outlined in a memo made public this week. Over in Europe, antitrust czar Margrethe Vestager, no stranger to vigorous antitrust enforcement, is... The FTC’s new chair, Lina Khan, wants to drastically shake up antitrust enforcement in the U.S.,...

Epic CEO Tim Sweeney. Photo by Bloomberg

Today’s Lessons in How Apple Wields Power

By Martin Peers · Sep 22, 2021 5:01pm PDT

Apple’s legal battle with Tim Sweeney of Epic Games is turning into one of those off-putting television dramas where none of the characters are likable. Sweeney, in particular, is losing credibility by the day. After the court ruling on his antitrust case against Apple two weeks ago, he described the decision as a loss for developers and... Apple’s legal battle with Tim Sweeney of Epic Games is turning into one of those off-putting...

Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi. Photo by Bloomberg.

Uber Stock Rebounds But Investor Optimism May Be Temporary

By Martin Peers · Sep 21, 2021 5:00pm PDT

When a stock is as down as Uber’s has been, a little dose of good news can work wonders as an antidepressant. Uber shares jumped nearly 12% today after the company disclosed it was closer to profitability than previously thought. The rally put DoorDash, a smaller company that rose above Uber’s market valuation last week, back in its place. You... When a stock is as down as Uber’s has been, a little dose of good news can work wonders as an...

Twitter's former CFO Anthony Noto. Photo by Bloomberg.

What Twitter’s $809.5 Million Legal Payout Tells Us

By Martin Peers · Sep 20, 2021 5:00pm PDT

It’s tempting to view Twitter’s $809.5 million settlement today of a shareholder lawsuit—which alleged that top executives misled investors with overly optimistic statements about user growth—as a meaningful development. The news media spends much of its time obsessing over the massive gulf between company executives’ public statements and... It’s tempting to view Twitter’s $809.5 million settlement today of a shareholder lawsuit—which...

Zoom CEO Eric Yuan. Photo by Bloomberg

Zoom Video’s Stock Decline Raises Questions About Five9 Deal

By Martin Peers · Sep 17, 2021 5:01pm PDT · 1 comment

Zoom CEO Eric Yuan. Photo by Bloomberg

Zoom Video’s Stock Decline Raises Questions About Five9 Deal

By Martin Peers · Sep 17, 2021 5:01pm PDT · 1 comment

How Zoom Video’s star has fallen. The videoconferencing hit of the pandemic is on the outs with investors, not horribly but enough that it may have trouble winning over shareholders of Five9. That’s the contact-center software firm Zoom proposed buying in July for a price then estimated at $14.7 billion. A 20% drop in Zoom’s stock price since... How Zoom Video’s star has fallen. The videoconferencing hit of the pandemic is on the outs with...

DoorDash CEO Tony Xu talking at a conference in 2019. Photo by Bloomberg.

DoorDash Passes Uber in Market Cap—And What That Means

By Martin Peers · Sep 16, 2021 5:00pm PDT

DoorDash shares today hit their highest level since the company went public last December. At $221.50, DoorDash shares are worth more than double the IPO price, valuing the company at $74.8 billion in market cap. For those who see life as a contest, that means DoorDash is worth a tad more than Uber, which is a significantly bigger and more... DoorDash shares today hit their highest level since the company went public last December. At...

Goldman CEO David Solomon. Photo by Bloomberg

Goldman’s GreenSky Purchase Shows Blue Sky Belief in Online Lending

By Martin Peers · Sep 15, 2021 5:00pm PDT

It’s a good time to be in the business of lending people money to buy stuff online, at least if you’re one of those credit-card alternatives that have reclaimed the age-old term “buy now, pay later.” Until recently, some of these companies couldn’t get the time of day from investors. But that’s all changed. Take today’s deal, Goldman Sachs’ $2.2... It’s a good time to be in the business of lending people money to buy stuff online, at least if...

An image from Apple's streamed presentation today. Photo by Bloomberg

Apple’s iPhone Commercial Highlights Environmental Challenge

By Martin Peers · Sep 14, 2021 5:00pm PDT · 2 comments

In its annual product advertisement-disguised-as-news-event today, Apple executives went out of their way to highlight the environmentally friendly techniques they now employ to make hardware. The iPhone 13’s antenna lines will use recycled material from water bottles, for instance, while Apple has eliminated the outer plastic wrap on iPhone... In its annual product advertisement-disguised-as-news-event today, Apple executives went out of...

Investor Tim Draper. Photo by Bloomberg

Mammoth Funding Deal Signals Frothiness of VC Funding Market

By Martin Peers · Sep 13, 2021 5:00pm PDT

Investor Tim Draper. Photo by Bloomberg

Mammoth Funding Deal Signals Frothiness of VC Funding Market

By Martin Peers · Sep 13, 2021 5:00pm PDT

If only Michael Crichton had lived to see this day. The author of “Jurassic Park,” the 1990 novel that became a monster hit movie, would be pleased to see his fiction become reality in the biotech firm Colossal, which revealed today that it has raised $15 million in venture funding to bring back to life the woolly mammoth. That creature has been... If only Michael Crichton had lived to see this day. The author of “Jurassic Park,” the 1990 novel...