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

Square's Jack Dorsey. Photo by Bloomberg

What Dorsey’s Square Deal for Afterpay Means For Affirm

By Martin Peers · Aug 2, 2021 5:00pm PDT

Affirm CEO Max Levchin owes Jack Dorsey big time. Just two weeks ago, news that Apple was working on an Affirm-like buy-now-pay-later consumer service sent Affirm shares plunging 14%. Today, after Dorsey’s Square unveiled plans to buy Affirm’s bigger rival, Australia-based Afterpay, Affirm’s stock jumped back 15%. Competition from Square cancels... Affirm CEO Max Levchin owes Jack Dorsey big time. Just two weeks ago, news that Apple was working...

Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella. Photo by Bloomberg.

Microsoft’s Dubious Cloud Growth Tactic

By Martin Peers · Jul 30, 2021 5:00pm PDT · 4 comments

One of the more eyebrow-raising stories of this week, in a week full of big tech news, was that Microsoft is considering investing in India-based hotel chain Oyo. If true—and Microsoft declined to comment on the report, which appeared first in TechCrunch—it would be a truly bizarre use of the software giant’s cash resources. Forget, for a... One of the more eyebrow-raising stories of this week, in a week full of big tech news, was that...

Robinhood co founders Baiju Bhatt, left, and Vladimir Tenev, walk on Wall Street following their company's IPO. Photo by AP

Robinhood’s Dismal Opening Is a Telling Sign

By Martin Peers · Jul 29, 2021 5:00pm PDT · 2 comments

The stock market may be at record highs, but there were plenty of red lights flashing today. The most glaring of these would have to be the dismal opening day performance of Robinhood, the company most obviously associated with the post-Covid bull market. After pricing at the bottom end of its preliminary range, the stock fell sharply shortly... The stock market may be at record highs, but there were plenty of red lights flashing today. The...

FTC Chair Lina Khan. Photo by Bloomberg

FTC’s Khan Accuses Big Tech of Promoting Fraud, Targets S. 230

By Martin Peers · Jul 28, 2021 5:02pm PDT

FTC Chair Lina Khan. Photo by Bloomberg

FTC’s Khan Accuses Big Tech of Promoting Fraud, Targets S. 230

By Martin Peers · Jul 28, 2021 5:02pm PDT

Lina Khan ratcheted up the rhetoric against big tech on Wednesday, accusing digital platforms owned by “some of the world’s largest companies” of promoting fraud. Gee, who could the FTC chair be talking about? What she said next should make it clear, if there was any doubt: “Business models singularly focused on scale and engagement coupled with... Lina Khan ratcheted up the rhetoric against big tech on Wednesday, accusing digital platforms...

Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai. Photo by Bloomberg.

Big Tech's Boffo Performance

By Martin Peers · Jul 27, 2021 5:00pm PDT

Apple, Microsoft and Alphabet each reported impressively robust earnings results for the June quarter, demonstrating that these giant companies continue to go from strength to strength even as they face greater regulatory scrutiny. If there is any downside for the companies and their shareholders, it’s that the results will only concentrate... Apple, Microsoft and Alphabet each reported impressively robust earnings results for the June...

A Meituan food delivery courier in Beijing in April. Photo by Bloomberg.

China’s Tech Crackdown Rattles Investors

By Martin Peers · Jul 26, 2021 5:00pm PDT · 1 comment

American critics of U.S. tech giants must be looking a little enviously at how China is clamping down on its tech industry. On almost every issue that tech’s U.S. detractors have focused on—alleged antitrust breaches, data privacy and most recently, the rights of workers handling food delivery—the Chinese government has taken action against... American critics of U.S. tech giants must be looking a little enviously at how China is clamping...

Photo by Bloomberg

Cloudflare Complaint Pinpoints Amazon’s Antitrust Weak Spot

By Martin Peers · Jul 23, 2021 5:00pm PDT · 4 comments

Today’s blog post from top executives at Cloudflare blasting Amazon Web Services for the “egregious” fees it charges customers who move their data out of AWS’ servers raises an interesting question. Could the most fertile ground for pursuing antitrust action against Amazon lie in its cloud business, not the ecommerce business that gets all the... Today’s blog post from top executives at Cloudflare blasting Amazon Web Services for the “...

Snap CEO Evan Spiegel. Photo by Bloomberg

Snap, Twitter Show Digital Ad Market is Booming

By Martin Peers · Jul 22, 2021 4:59pm PDT

Snap CEO Evan Spiegel. Photo by Bloomberg

Snap, Twitter Show Digital Ad Market is Booming

By Martin Peers · Jul 22, 2021 4:59pm PDT

Digital advertising was on fire in the second quarter, judging by results from Twitter and Snap today. That implies next week’s reports from Facebook and Alphabet could be even stronger than anticipated.Snap reported a stunning 116% top line increase, lifting its quarterly revenue to nearly $1 billion dollars. That means Snap’s growth rate has... Digital advertising was on fire in the second quarter, judging by results from Twitter and Snap...

Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff. Photo by Bloomberg.

Salesforce Faces Skeptical Wall Street as Slack Deal closes

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

Salesforce completed its $27.7 billion purchase of Slack Technologies today, thus ending Slack’s roughly two-year sojourn as a public company. No one who bought Slack at the beginning would put it down as a barn burner of an investment. Slack shares began trading in June 2019 at just above $38 and the effective sales price is around $45.50. That... Salesforce completed its $27.7 billion purchase of Slack Technologies today, thus ending Slack’s...

Netflix CEO Reed Hastings. Photo by Bloomberg

Netflix’s Domestic Subscriber Dip Might Be Worse News for Rivals

By Martin Peers · Jul 20, 2021 5:00pm PDT · 2 comments

Things are getting interesting in video streaming. Netflix reported today that it lost 430,000 subscribers in North America in the second quarter. On top of The Information’s report from a few weeks ago that Disney’s flagship service Disney+ has essentially flatlined in the U.S. this year, it implies the two of the biggest players have hit a... Things are getting interesting in video streaming. Netflix reported today that it lost 430,000...

Zoom CEO Eric Yuan. Photo by Bloomberg

Zoom’s Five9 Deal Begs Question of What Comes Next

By Martin Peers · Jul 19, 2021 5:01pm PDT

Zoom Video kicked off its long-expected expansion, unveiling plans to acquire contact center software provider Five9 Inc. for $14.7 billion in stock. That gives Zoom a second business to complement its original videoconferencing service, which proved vital for companies and consumers during the pandemic. Contact center software, which helps... Zoom Video kicked off its long-expected expansion, unveiling plans to acquire contact center...

Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai. Photo by Bloomberg

Tech Earnings Kick Off Next Week—and Growth Numbers Will Be Big

By Martin Peers · Jul 16, 2021 5:05pm PDT

Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai. Photo by Bloomberg

Tech Earnings Kick Off Next Week—and Growth Numbers Will Be Big

By Martin Peers · Jul 16, 2021 5:05pm PDT

Fasten your seat belt. Next week kicks off the tech earnings season. And we’re in for some extraordinary numbers as companies report second-quarter results that compare with the pandemic-depressed period from a year ago. That will make for somewhat artificially inflated growth rates this time around that are sure to grab headlines. To get a real... Fasten your seat belt. Next week kicks off the tech earnings season. And we’re in for some...

Netflix's Los Angeles office building. Photo by Bloomberg

Netflix for Games Will Require Lots of Hard Work

By Martin Peers · Jul 15, 2021 5:10pm PDT · 3 comments

Netflix’s hiring of a former Facebook executive to oversee an expansion into gaming will be welcome news for investors who are fretting about the company’s ability to maintain its robust growth of the past few years. But no one should be under any illusions about the rocky road ahead for Netflix as it seeks to become a force in gaming. This... Netflix’s hiring of a former Facebook executive to oversee an expansion into gaming will be...

Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella. Photo by Bloomberg

Microsoft’s Cybersecurity Weapon in the Cloud

By Martin Peers · Jul 14, 2021 5:00pm PDT

Microsoft struck a major blow in the cybersecurity wars today, with its decision to offer a cloud-based version of its Windows operating system. Windows 365, as it is dubbed, will make it easier for people to switch from outdated versions of Windows, those that are most likely to have software vulnerabilities that hackers can exploit. That is... Microsoft struck a major blow in the cybersecurity wars today, with its decision to offer a...

Netflix CEO Reed Hastings. Photo by Bloomberg.

Netflix Stock Drifts Into Unusual Territory: Stagnation

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

What’s the thing that investors fear far more than antitrust regulators? Slowing growth. That’s one takeaway from comparing the stock performance of Netflix this year with Apple, Amazon, Alphabet and Facebook. The stock prices of all four big tech giants, each under the crosshairs of U.S. and European antitrust regulators, are up between 10% and... What’s the thing that investors fear far more than antitrust regulators? Slowing growth. That’s...

Amazon's new CEO Andy Jassy. Photo by Bloomberg

The Danger Posed by AWS’ Paper Pushing Culture

By Martin Peers · Jul 12, 2021 5:00pm PDT

Amazon's new CEO Andy Jassy. Photo by Bloomberg

The Danger Posed by AWS’ Paper Pushing Culture

By Martin Peers · Jul 12, 2021 5:00pm PDT

If you want to understand the biggest threat facing Amazon today—and no, it's not new FTC chair Lina Khan—check out The Information’s story today about the bureaucratic creep at Amazon Web Services. One former AWS salesperson told our reporter, Kevin McLaughlin, that at AWS he was spending around 70% of his work hours on paperwork, including... If you want to understand the biggest threat facing Amazon today—and no, it's not new FTC chair...

The FTC Chair, Lina Khan. Photo by Bloomberg.

Why FTC’s Amazon-MGM Probe Is Based on Flawed Logic

By Martin Peers · Jul 9, 2021 5:00pm PDT

The Federal Trade Commission’s decision today to formally open an in-depth probe into Amazon’s $8.5 billion purchase of MGM signals just how much the Biden administration is changing the course of antitrust inquiries into tech. It’s not just about the obvious targets—Google’s self-evident dominance of the search market, for instance. Instead,... The Federal Trade Commission’s decision today to formally open an in-depth probe into Amazon’s...

Instacart's new CEO Fidji Simo. Photo by AP

Instacart’s Simo Hiring Caps Management Overhaul

By Martin Peers · Jul 8, 2021 5:07pm PDT

Instacart’s hiring of Facebook’s Fidji Simo as CEO is a masterful stroke by the grocery delivery app, capping six months of executive hiring that has built out its management team ahead of an expected public debut later this year. It speaks well of Apoorva Mehta that he made way for Simo, a sign that he knows that building Instacart into a much... Instacart’s hiring of Facebook’s Fidji Simo as CEO is a masterful stroke by the grocery delivery...

Amazon's just-retired CEO Jeff Bezos.

Amazon’s Much Feared Day Two May Already Have Started

By Martin Peers · Jul 7, 2021 5:00pm PDT · 1 comment

One of Jeff Bezos’ big fears about Amazon is the notion that it could one day enter “Day Two,” which he has defined as “stasis,” followed in close order by irrelevance and then death. By at least one measure, the size of Amazon’s senior management team, it looks like the sun has started to rise on Day Two. And that occurred even before Bezos... One of Jeff Bezos’ big fears about Amazon is the notion that it could one day enter “Day Two,”...

Didi's Beijing offices. Photo by Bloomberg.

The Real Lesson of Didi Global’s Stock Drop

By Martin Peers · Jul 6, 2021 5:00pm PDT

Didi's Beijing offices. Photo by Bloomberg.

The Real Lesson of Didi Global’s Stock Drop

By Martin Peers · Jul 6, 2021 5:00pm PDT

For a brief moment last week, it looked like Chinese ride-hailing firm Didi Global was going to get away with a more successful IPO than that of its U.S. counterparts Uber and Lyft two years ago. That was until the Chinese government, with a weekend edict about data security, reminded the company who’s really in charge, lopping 20% off the value... For a brief moment last week, it looked like Chinese ride-hailing firm Didi Global was going to...