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

Masayoshi Son, chairman and CEO of SoftBank. Kiyoshi Ota/Bloomberg via Getty Images.

SoftBank’s OpenAI-Backed Loan Highlights Risks in Financing Strategy

By Martin Peers · Aug 6, 2026 5:00pm PDT

If you’re one of those executives at Alphabet, Meta Platforms or Amazon who deals with investors, here’s an idea: Put a large photo of SoftBank CEO Masayoshi Son on the wall of your office. Next time a visiting investor complains about your AI spending, point to the photo. That should end the discussion.As much as big tech firms are spending on... If you’re one of those executives at Alphabet, Meta Platforms or Amazon who deals with investors,...

Demis Hassabis. Andrej Sokolow/picture alliance via Getty Images.

What Google’s AI Shake-Up Means for Pichai Succession

By Martin Peers · Aug 5, 2026 5:01pm PDT

A flood of June-quarter earnings updates—from the likes of Uber, DoorDash, Shopify and Disney—was interrupted on Thursday by Google’s announcement that its AI guru, Google DeepMind CEO Demis Hassabis, had been elevated to chair of the AI unit and chief scientist of Google’s parent company, Alphabet. That news coincided with the revelation that... A flood of June-quarter earnings updates—from the likes of Uber, DoorDash, Shopify and Disney—was...

Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images

SpaceX Reports Lots of Red Ink and Makes Big Promises

By Martin Peers · Aug 4, 2026 5:00pm PDT

Question: How is the 24-year-old SpaceX like a young startup? It’s burning twice as much cash as it brings in as revenue! That’s one takeaway from SpaceX’s first earnings report as a public company, in which the company revealed it burned $16 billion in the second quarter, on $7.8 billion in revenue. That’s thanks to a whopping $18.4 billion in... Question: How is the 24-year-old SpaceX like a young startup? It’s burning twice as much cash as...

Alex Karp, CEO of Palantir. Photo by John Lamparski/Getty Images

Palantir’s Rocket-Ship Growth

By Martin Peers · Aug 3, 2026 5:01pm PDT

Alex Karp, CEO of Palantir. Photo by John Lamparski/Getty Images

Palantir’s Rocket-Ship Growth

By Martin Peers · Aug 3, 2026 5:01pm PDT

Palantir is truly the Nvidia of AI software. On Monday, the company delivered another rip-roaring quarterly result, showing revenue up a blistering 93%, well ahead of what it had projected. The company has accelerated revenue growth every quarter for three years, from a 13% rate of expansion in the second quarter of 2023. In that time, Palantir’... Palantir is truly the Nvidia of AI software. On Monday, the company delivered another rip-roaring...

Photo by Timothy A. Clary/ Getty Images

SpaceX Leads Crowded Earnings Week

By Martin Peers · Aug 2, 2026 3:01pm PDT

Elon Musk fans have never had so many opportunities to hear from the man. On Tuesday, his newly public SpaceX will deliver its first earnings report, and we all expect Musk will be on the earnings call, in what would be his second call this earnings season following Tesla’s a couple of weeks earlier. (For a more expansive rundown of what will be... Elon Musk fans have never had so many opportunities to hear from the man. On Tuesday, his newly...

Andy Jassy, CEO of Amazon. Photo by Andrej Sokolow/Getty Images

Amazon’s Cloud Surge Wins Over Wall Street

By Martin Peers · Jul 30, 2026 5:01pm PDT

There’s no doubt about it: AI gave the big cloud firms a lift in business in the June quarter. We’ve already heard that from Google and Microsoft, and on Thursday, Amazon, the biggest cloud firm, followed suit by posting 37% growth in its Amazon Web Services cloud unit for the quarter. That’s 9 percentage points faster than it reported for the... There’s no doubt about it: AI gave the big cloud firms a lift in business in the June quarter. We...

Mark Zuckerberg, left, and Satya Nadella. Photos via Getty Images

Meta Could Learn Cost Control From Microsoft

By Martin Peers · Jul 29, 2026 5:01pm PDT

Talk about a tale of two companies. Today’s June-quarter earnings reports from Meta Platforms and Microsoft showed very different approaches to cost control, a discipline that may never be more important for big tech companies. Meta, whose CEO Mark Zuckerberg seems to have a you-only-live-once approach to AI investment, reported a 55% surge in... Talk about a tale of two companies. Today’s June-quarter earnings reports from Meta Platforms and...

PayPal CEO shot credit: Art by Clark Miller; YouTube.

PayPal's Message to Shareholders: 'Trust Us'

By Martin Peers · Jul 28, 2026 5:01pm PDT

PayPal CEO shot credit: Art by Clark Miller; YouTube.

PayPal's Message to Shareholders: 'Trust Us'

By Martin Peers · Jul 28, 2026 5:01pm PDT

PayPal has a message for Wall Street and would-be buyers: “We got this.” That’s the upshot of CEO Enrique Lores’ response to what he called “recent M&A speculation”—also known as Stripe’s reported $53 billion takeover bid for the struggling payments firm. Lores wouldn’t comment about anything specific, but his comments implied Stripe’s offer... PayPal has a message for Wall Street and would-be buyers: “We got this.” That’s the upshot of CEO...

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang. Getty Images.

Why Investors Shouldn’t Panic About Nvidia’s Commitments

By Martin Peers · Jul 27, 2026 5:01pm PDT

Talk about a nervous market! Shares of Nvidia fell 5% on Monday on news of a $500 billion partnership the AI chip giant struck with South Korean conglomerate SK Group, along with a Wall Street Journal report that Nvidia was separately in talks to help OpenAI finance a $500 billion data center campus in Ohio. Investors should take a chill pill:... Talk about a nervous market! Shares of Nvidia fell 5% on Monday on news of a $500 billion...

What to Expect From Big Tech’s Earnings This Week

What to Expect From Big Tech’s Earnings This Week

By Martin Peers · Jul 26, 2026 3:01pm PDT

Get ready. We’ve got a slew of big tech earnings reports this week—from Meta Platforms, Microsoft, Amazon and Apple—that will pick up from Google’s report last week on the state of AI spending and business. PayPal is also reporting on Tuesday, so we should get some insight into the payment firm’s attitude toward Stripe’s recent takeover offer... Get ready. We’ve got a slew of big tech earnings reports this week—from Meta Platforms,...

Spencer Platt/Getty Images.

Wall Street Sends Google a Message

By Martin Peers · Jul 23, 2026 5:00pm PDT · 1 comment

Maybe, just maybe, big tech firms need to do a better job of explaining their AI investment strategies. Shares of Google parent Alphabet fell 7% on Thursday after the company disclosed a further increase in capital expenditures this year—money it will spend on new AI chips, servers and data centers. The drop all but wiped out the gains the stock... Maybe, just maybe, big tech firms need to do a better job of explaining their AI investment...

Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai. Getty Images.

Google Cloud’s Revenue Is Rocketing—but Costs of AI Expansion Are as Well

By Martin Peers · Jul 22, 2026 5:01pm PDT

Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai. Getty Images.

Google Cloud’s Revenue Is Rocketing—but Costs of AI Expansion Are as Well

By Martin Peers · Jul 22, 2026 5:01pm PDT

Wow. Google Cloud’s business exploded in the second quarter, with revenue soaring 82%, nearly 20 percentage points faster than for the previous quarter. Rapid demand for AI services—and in this quarter, the impact of AI chip sales—has lifted Google Cloud’s growth rate by nearly 50 percentage points in the past four quarters. But while cloud... Wow. Google Cloud’s business exploded in the second quarter, with revenue soaring 82%, nearly 20...

Jack Dorsey, CEO of Block. Getty Images.

Dorsey Wants Buzz to Loosen Slack’s Hold on Workers

By Martin Peers · Jul 21, 2026 5:01pm PDT

Who says software is dead? Jack Dorsey’s Block today unveiled a new “collaboration workspace”—software people can use to communicate and work together—which Dorsey says aims to reduce “our dependency on Slack and GitHub.” That’s a bit of a provocative statement from Dorsey, who also co-founded Twitter and therefore knows a thing or two... Who says software is dead? Jack Dorsey’s Block today unveiled a new “collaboration workspace”—...

David Sacks. Matt McClain/The Washington Post via Getty Images.

The Debate About Chinese Open-Source AI; Ellison’s Bad Day

By Martin Peers · Jul 20, 2026 5:00pm PDT

How protectionist is the Trump administration? Sure, President Donald Trump loves tariffs. But does he really want to drive up AI costs for U.S. business by banning Chinese open-source AI? Chatter about that is growing in the wake of a story we published on Saturday, which revealed that the administration had discussed the idea of banning open... How protectionist is the Trump administration? Sure, President Donald Trump loves tariffs. But...

Google CEO Sundar Pichai. Karl Mondon/AFP/Getty Images.

Google and Tesla Headline Tech Earnings This Week

By Martin Peers · Jul 19, 2026 3:01pm PDT

It’s midsummer, but now is not the time to be on the beach. This week, we’ve got Alphabet, Google’s parent, and Tesla reporting second-quarter earnings, and the week after, we’ll get Meta Platforms, Amazon, Microsoft, Apple and PayPal, a company in the takeover spotlight right now. Of most interest, of course, is how Google, Amazon and Microsoft... It’s midsummer, but now is not the time to be on the beach. This week, we’ve got Alphabet, Google...

Uber CEO, Dara Khosrowshahi. Jemal Countess/Getty Images.

Uber Does a Big Deal and Netflix’s Growth Slows

By Martin Peers · Jul 16, 2026 5:01pm PDT

Uber CEO, Dara Khosrowshahi. Jemal Countess/Getty Images.

Uber Does a Big Deal and Netflix’s Growth Slows

By Martin Peers · Jul 16, 2026 5:01pm PDT

Busy day. Uber unveiled its biggest-ever acquisition, the roughly $14 billion purchase of Delivery Hero, a German-based food-delivery giant with operations around the world. Netflix reported slower growth for the second quarter, as it had telegraphed, sending the stock down 8% to a two-year low. And SpaceX stock closed below its $135 a share IPO... Busy day. Uber unveiled its biggest-ever acquisition, the roughly $14 billion purchase of...

Stripe co-founder Patrick Collison. Niall Carson/Getty Images.

Stripe’s PayPal Bid Puts Payments Firm in Play—Could Musk Jump In?

By Martin Peers · Jul 15, 2026 5:01pm PDT

Are the Collison brothers looking to spice up their life? According to Reuters and other news outlets, the Collisons’ payments firm, Stripe, has teamed up with private equity firm Advent to make a $53 billion acquisition offer for PayPal. While the aging payments firm has lost the plot in recent years, this is not exactly a generous offer. ... Are the Collison brothers looking to spice up their life? According to Reuters and other news...

Demis Hassabis, CEO of Google DeepMind. Shane Anthony Sinclair/Getty Images.

Hassabis’ AI Standards Idea Gets Support—What’s Next?

By Martin Peers · Jul 14, 2026 5:01pm PDT

Way to go, Demis Hassabis! The Google DeepMind co-founder and CEO won plaudits from much of the AI industry—including rivals OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, Block co-founder Jack Dorsey and investors Ashton Kutcher and Chamath Palihapitiya—for proposing the creation of a new AI standards group funded by industry but... Way to go, Demis Hassabis! The Google DeepMind co-founder and CEO won plaudits from much of the...

Mark Zuckerberg. Getty Images.

Meta’s Louisiana Purchase

By Martin Peers · Jul 13, 2026 5:01pm PDT

You have to admire Meta Platforms’ public relations savvy. Its Monday announcement that it was putting an additional $40 billion into its giant Louisiana data center—making its total investment in the facility $50 billion—was perfectly designed to win over what has become a critical constituency in the data center market: local communities. “... You have to admire Meta Platforms’ public relations savvy. Its Monday announcement that it was...

Getty Images.

Netflix’s Q2 Earnings This Week Spotlights Growth Concerns

By Martin Peers · Jul 12, 2026 3:00pm PDT · 1 comment

Getty Images.

Netflix’s Q2 Earnings This Week Spotlights Growth Concerns

By Martin Peers · Jul 12, 2026 3:00pm PDT · 1 comment

Guess what—tech earnings season is back. Yes, you know you missed it. Netflix, as usual, will kick off the quarterly parade of earnings updates, releasing its second-quarter numbers on Thursday. The video-streaming giant’s quarterly updates have become humdrum affairs lately, but this one might be different, given that the company’s stock has... Guess what—tech earnings season is back. Yes, you know you missed it. Netflix, as usual, will...