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

David and Larry Ellison. Photos via Getty

OpenAI’s Microsoft Deal; Ellison’s Risky Business

By Martin Peers · Sep 11, 2025 5:00pm PDT

We got big news this afternoon from the folks at OpenAI and Microsoft: They are close to a peace deal. Yes, after nearly a year of talks over changes to their partnership, the companies announced they had signed a “non-binding memorandum of understanding for the next phase of our partnership.” Contractual terms now have to be finalized. Hmmm.... We got big news this afternoon from the folks at OpenAI and Microsoft: They are close to a peace...

Photo via Getty

Oracle Frenzy Spreads

By Ken Brown · Sep 10, 2025 5:00pm PDT · 1 comment

Years from now, today may be remembered as the moment of peak euphoria for artificial intelligence. Not only did Oracle’s stock jump 36%—thanks to the company’s stunningly optimistic forecast for AI-related cloud revenue growth—but the enthusiasm spread to a range of companies that may not get the same boost from AI.I’ll be quick with the... Years from now, today may be remembered as the moment of peak euphoria for artificial...

Larry Ellison. Photo via Getty

Oracle’s Blockbuster Projections; Apple’s New iPhones

By Martin Peers · Sep 9, 2025 5:00pm PDT

The biggest news today wasn’t Apple’s new line of iPhones—that was about as much of a secret as the time of tomorrow’s sunrise (for more details of the Apple presentation, see below)—but Oracle’s blockbuster revenue projections. The software-and-cloud firm is enjoying what you might call its Nvidia moment. It is finally showing the benefits of... The biggest news today wasn’t Apple’s new line of iPhones—that was about as much of a secret as...

Oracle CEO Safra Catz. Photo via Getty

Oracle Is Squeezing Employees as AI Development Costs Mount

By Martin Peers · Sep 8, 2025 5:00pm PDT

Oracle CEO Safra Catz. Photo via Getty

Oracle Is Squeezing Employees as AI Development Costs Mount

By Martin Peers · Sep 8, 2025 5:00pm PDT

Of all the tech companies to reinvent themselves through the power of artificial intelligence, Oracle may be the most surprising. The software giant of yesteryear (well, the 1980s and ‘90s), which stumbled in software’s transition to the cloud, has gotten a new lease on life as an AI cloud provider. We’ll get an update on its progress on Tuesday... Of all the tech companies to reinvent themselves through the power of artificial intelligence,...

Photo via Getty

Musk’s Money

By Martin Peers · Sep 5, 2025 3:00pm PDT · 1 comment

Elon Musk is putting his money where his mouth is. In a securities filing on Friday, Tesla disclosed a new stock award for its CEO worth as much as $1 trillion. It hinges entirely on Musk’s ambitious claims that his focus on humanoid robots and robotaxis will turn Tesla into “the most valuable company in the world by far,” as he has often... Elon Musk is putting his money where his mouth is. In a securities filing on Friday, Tesla ...

Photo via Getty

Nvidia’s Chip Round-Trip Deals

By Martin Peers · Sep 4, 2025 5:00pm PDT · 2 comments

What would you think if Apple set up a company to buy iPhones and then rented those devices back for use by Apple staffers? It would make you wonder, right? Yet that’s more or less what Nvidia has taken to doing. As we reported today, Nvidia has struck a couple of deals to rent its own chips from Lambda, a cloud startup Nvidia partly owns.... What would you think if Apple set up a company to buy iPhones and then rented those devices back...

Photo via Getty

Why Google Data-Sharing Decision Could Affect All of Big Tech

By Martin Peers · Sep 3, 2025 5:00pm PDT

Google is out of Wall Street’s doghouse! Stock of Google’s parent company Alphabet shot up 9% on Wednesday as investors rushed to buy up stock of a company whose future is no longer overshadowed by a looming antitrust ruling. Now the focus of antitrust anxiety turns to the other three big tech firms facing government lawsuits—Meta Platforms, ... Google is out of Wall Street’s doghouse! Stock of Google’s parent company Alphabet shot up 9% on...

Photo via Getty

Google Wins Antitrust War

By Martin Peers · Sep 2, 2025 5:07pm PDT

Photo via Getty

Google Wins Antitrust War

By Martin Peers · Sep 2, 2025 5:07pm PDT

Google just won the antitrust war. Yes, it might have lost the initial skirmish, having had its search business branded a monopoly, but it couldn’t have asked for a kinder ruling on how to deal with that monopoly. Google essentially got what it wanted, as the judge said he had accepted “in full” Google’s proposed remedies, with a few... Google just won the antitrust war. Yes, it might have lost the initial skirmish, having had its...

President Trump and Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang in April. Photo via Getty

Nvidia’s Puzzling China PR Play

By Martin Peers · Aug 29, 2025 3:00pm PDT · 1 comment

As we wrap up for the Labor Day weekend, one question has persisted through this week: Why is Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang so determined to demonstrate his need for the Chinese market? With Nvidia’s ability to sell its artificial intelligence chips to China currently in limbo—caught between U.S. and Chinese government restrictions—another CEO might... As we wrap up for the Labor Day weekend, one question has persisted through this week: Why is...

Photo via Getty

The Lessons of Google’s Ad Tech Business

By Martin Peers · Aug 28, 2025 5:00pm PDT

Every day this week, we and other close watchers of Google have been holding our breath, waiting for Judge Amit Mehta of the federal court in Washington to issue a ruling on how Google’s illegal search monopoly should be remedied. Options include a forced divestiture of its Chrome browser (where many Google searches originate), ending Google’s... Every day this week, we and other close watchers of Google have been holding our breath, waiting...

Photo via Getty

Nvidia’s (Slightly) Slower Quarter; Musk’s Phone Ambitions

By Martin Peers · Aug 27, 2025 5:00pm PDT

Nvidia’s quarterly results, out Wednesday, have become the event of the earnings season. And who can be surprised? After all, here’s a company whose July revenue hit $46.7 billion, up 56% on a year earlier. Little more than two years ago, Nvidia’s quarterly revenue was around $7 billion! Of course, Wall Street traders have long ago lost their... Nvidia’s quarterly results, out Wednesday, have become the event of the earnings season. And who...

Tim Cook. Photo via Getty

Why Tim Cook Is Right to Avoid Big Acquisitions

By Martin Peers · Aug 26, 2025 5:00pm PDT

Tim Cook. Photo via Getty

Why Tim Cook Is Right to Avoid Big Acquisitions

By Martin Peers · Aug 26, 2025 5:00pm PDT

Apple shareholders should be glad Eddy Cue isn’t running the iPhone maker. As a story we published today revealed, Cue has been an advocate for Apple making big acquisitions—including of Netflix and Tesla in the past—that CEO Tim Cook rebuffed. More recently, Cue has suggested that Apple should do bolder deals in artificial intelligence. The... Apple shareholders should be glad Eddy Cue isn’t running the iPhone maker. As a story we...

Photo via Getty

Musk’s Litigation-Led AI Strategy

By Martin Peers · Aug 25, 2025 5:00pm PDT · 2 comments

It’s not obvious that filing lawsuits against your competitors is the way to succeed in artificial intelligence, if only because a lawsuit can take years to resolve and AI is evolving extremely rapidly. Nonetheless, litigation is the approach Elon Musk is taking to try to protect his startup, xAI, from bigger rivals. You might wonder if this is... It’s not obvious that filing lawsuits against your competitors is the way to succeed in...

AWS data centers in Manassas, Va. Photo via Getty

Bankers Doing Data Center Financings Had No Respite This Summer

By Ken Brown · Aug 22, 2025 3:00pm PDT

There were no August vacations for bankers who do data center financing deals.At the start of the month, Meta reached a deal to borrow $26 billion and get $3 billion in equity tied to its data center build-out, according to Bloomberg. This week, JPMorgan Chase and Japanese lender Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group agreed to underwrite $22 billion in... There were no August vacations for bankers who do data center financing deals.At the start of the...

Photo via Getty

What Rent the Runway’s Lender Takeover Means

By Martin Peers · Aug 21, 2025 5:10pm PDT

Some companies should never go public—or maybe even exist. Rent the Runway might be in that group. The clothing-rental subscription service—one of a bunch of mid-sized online shopping companies to go public in recent years—says its mission “is to power women to feel their best every day.” How about trying to make money? After years of steady... Some companies should never go public—or maybe even exist. Rent the Runway might be in that...

Sierra's Bret Taylor, The Information's Jessica Lessin and Harvey's Winston Weinberg.

Why AI Model Makers Might Develop Like Cable and Cellular Companies

By Martin Peers · Aug 20, 2025 5:00pm PDT

Sierra's Bret Taylor, The Information's Jessica Lessin and Harvey's Winston Weinberg.

Why AI Model Makers Might Develop Like Cable and Cellular Companies

By Martin Peers · Aug 20, 2025 5:00pm PDT

Could the artificial intelligence business develop like cable TV or cellular, where the real money is made by apps running on top of internet pipes, rather than by the telecom firms that spent billions building those pipes? That would be a big deal for AI. It implies that AI agent developers will end up more profitable than AI model makers, like... Could the artificial intelligence business develop like cable TV or cellular, where the real...

Photo via Eight Sleep

Eight Sleep Embraces AI For Mattress Topper

By Martin Peers · Aug 19, 2025 5:00pm PDT

What is it about sleep technology that causes tech investors to dream of immense riches? Eight Sleep, which makes high-tech mattress toppers and is a favorite brand of many tech luminaries, announced Tuesday it had raised $100 million partly to—in all seriousness—“supercharge its AI roadmap”with projects including an “AI Agent for Sleep... What is it about sleep technology that causes tech investors to dream of immense riches? Eight...

Outside the Lordstown, Ohio plant in 2018. Photo via AP.

What Foxconn’s Ohio Factory Deal Says About the Increasing Reach of AI

By Martin Peers · Aug 18, 2025 5:00pm PDT · 2 comments

Talk about symbolism. Foxconn chair Young Liu said today that the electronics manufacturer was selling its Lordstown, Ohio, electric vehicle factory to SoftBank, which will use it to make artificial intelligence computer servers. It’s the latest example of how AI is supplanting other newish technologies. (Notably, the Lordstown factory, which... Talk about symbolism. Foxconn chair Young Liu said today that the electronics manufacturer was...

Carrie Wheeler and Keith Rabois. Photos via Opendoor/Getty

Online Critics Push Opendoor CEO Out

By Martin Peers · Aug 15, 2025 3:00pm PDT · 1 comment

Carrie Wheeler isn’t one of tech’s big names, but she may go down in history as the latest victim of an online mob. The CEO of home-buying firm Opendoor stepped down Friday after weeks of relentless attacks on her on X, including from investor Eric Jackson and venture capitalist Keith Rabois, a co-founder and onetime executive chair of Opendoor.... Carrie Wheeler isn’t one of tech’s big names, but she may go down in history as the latest victim...

Lip-Bu Tan, CEO of Intel, leaves a meeting at the White House on Monday. Photo via Getty.

Trump’s Intel Play

By Martin Peers · Aug 14, 2025 5:00pm PDT

Lip-Bu Tan, CEO of Intel, leaves a meeting at the White House on Monday. Photo via Getty.

Trump’s Intel Play

By Martin Peers · Aug 14, 2025 5:00pm PDT

We’re in a new era of government intervention in corporate America. The latest example is Bloomberg’s report on Thursday that the Trump administration was in talks to “take a stake” in Intel. Just on Monday, President Donald Trump said he and Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang had agreed that Nvidia would pay the government 15% of whatever revenues it... We’re in a new era of government intervention in corporate America. The latest example is ...