The Briefing by Martin Peers, Jessica E. Lessin and the team at The Information

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The Briefing

By Martin Peers, Jessica E. Lessin and the team at The Information

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Recent Editions

Snap CEO Evan Spiegel. Getty Images.

Tech’s New Trend: Ugly Spectacles

By Martin Peers · Sep 20, 2026 3:00pm PDT

It’s that time of year again—when geeky men stand on stage wearing ugly glasses. Last week, Snap CEO Evan Spiegel gave a detailed demonstration of his forthcoming Specs augmented reality glasses, which were first unveiled in June. This week, it’s Meta Platforms CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s turn. Meta holds its annual Connect conference, where it shows... It’s that time of year again—when geeky men stand on stage wearing ugly glasses. Last week, Snap...

Angela Weiss/AFP via Getty Images.

AI Executives Fret About Existential Threat AI Poses—to Publishers

By Martin Peers · Sep 17, 2026 5:00pm PDT

It’s not just humanity that AI folks worry the new technology could wipe out—it’s publishers as well! (Publishers are, of course, people!) That’s what we learned from a court filing today by a group of news publishers including The New York Times Co. in a copyright infringement lawsuit against OpenAI and Microsoft. The filing cited an OpenAI... It’s not just humanity that AI folks worry the new technology could wipe out—it’s publishers as...

Federal Reserve Chair Kevin Warsh. Getty Images.

Fed Hike Changes AI Funding Story

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

Put aside, for just a moment, all the arguments about AI safety. Today’s decision by the Federal Reserve to raise interest rates may be a bigger issue for the AI sector in the short term. Long-term bond yields had already risen, of course. But the Fed’s action—pushing up short- and medium-term borrowing costs—seems sure to crimp the debt-fueled... Put aside, for just a moment, all the arguments about AI safety. Today’s decision by the Federal...

Getty Images.

Meta Joins Tech’s AI-Fueled Subscription Rush

By Martin Peers · Sep 15, 2026 5:00pm PDT

Getty Images.

Meta Joins Tech’s AI-Fueled Subscription Rush

By Martin Peers · Sep 15, 2026 5:00pm PDT

When it comes to product names, companies tend to move in packs. In video streaming, almost every company included a plus sign in the name brands of their services (Disney+, Paramount+, Apple TV+—you get the picture). In tech, we’ve got Apple One, Google One and now Meta One (we used to have Amazon One, but that has been dropped). Does no one... When it comes to product names, companies tend to move in packs. In video streaming, almost every...

Angela Weiss/AFP via Getty Images.

Wall Street Delivers Verdict on AI Slowdown’s Winners and Losers

By Martin Peers · Sep 14, 2026 5:00pm PDT

Guess who likes the idea of an AI development slowdown? Software investors! Stocks of enterprise software firms, such as Salesforce, Shopify, ServiceNow and Figma, all gained ground on Monday—ServiceNow jumped 7%, for instance, while Salesforce rose nearly 5%. Software firms, of course, have been seen as threatened by AI. Meanwhile, stocks of... Guess who likes the idea of an AI development slowdown? Software investors! Stocks of enterprise...

Dario Amodei. Photo by Chance Yeh/Getty Images

AI’s ‘Pacing’ Obsession Misses Real Political Problem

By Cory Weinberg · Sep 13, 2026 3:00pm PDT

Dario Amodei typically isn’t considered some camera-ready media maestro. His interview quotes aren’t particularly pithy, and he struggles to control his strained facial expressions. But his habit of sending his most high-stakes messages via essays posted on his own website, darioamodei.com, has proven to be a brilliant media strategy. “The... Dario Amodei typically isn’t considered some camera-ready media maestro. His interview quotes...

Oracle coCEO Clay Magouyrk. Kyle Grillot/Bloomberg/Getty Images.

Oracle Keeps a Lid on Capex as Customers Pay Up-Front

By Martin Peers · Sep 10, 2026 5:00pm PDT

Forget all that chatter about AI killing us all. We’re back to looking at what really matters—the revenue! Oracle demonstrated on Thursday that demand for AI computing capacity remains pretty darn robust. Larry Ellison’s software and cloud firm reported 30% top-line growth for the quarter ending Aug. 31, a tad better than the company projected... Forget all that chatter about AI killing us all. We’re back to looking at what really matters—the...

Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei. Krisztian Bocsi/Bloomberg/Getty Images.

Anthropic’s IPO Marketing Meets Extinction Risk

By Martin Peers · Sep 9, 2026 5:01pm PDT

Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei. Krisztian Bocsi/Bloomberg/Getty Images.

Anthropic’s IPO Marketing Meets Extinction Risk

By Martin Peers · Sep 9, 2026 5:01pm PDT

Are we sleepwalking our way into AI-caused extinction? It feels a little like that, given an Anthropic researcher’s X post on Tuesday night that there’s a greater than 10% chance that “AI could kill all humans” within the next decade! Despite that rather gruesome note, for tech executives posting on X today, it was business as usual. (See our... Are we sleepwalking our way into AI-caused extinction? It feels a little like that, given an...

OpenAI CFO Sarah Friar. Getty Images.

Why Price Cuts May Rattle Anthropic's IPO Pitch

By Martin Peers · Sep 8, 2026 5:00pm PDT

Anthropic’s IPO paperwork is expected to become public sometime soon. But it was OpenAI finance chief Sarah Friar who drew a standing-room-only crowd Tuesday at San Francisco’s Palace Hotel, as Goldman Sachs kicked off its annual Communacopia + Technology conference with a Q&A with Friar. In her talk, Friar made clear how important price has... Anthropic’s IPO paperwork is expected to become public sometime soon. But it was OpenAI finance...

Oracle co-founder and executive chairman Larry Ellison. Getty Images.

Apple, Oracle and Adobe Dominate the Week

By Martin Peers · Sep 7, 2026 3:01pm PDT

We haven’t had much of a summer lull, let’s face it, what with the relentless pace of AI-related deal news, not to mention earnings. Nevertheless, the end of summer vacation changes the pace a bit this week, when we’ve got both Apple’s annual iPhone event and earnings announcements from Oracle and Adobe. And we’re also on the lookout for... We haven’t had much of a summer lull, let’s face it, what with the relentless pace of AI-related...

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang and Hugging Face CEO Clément Delangue. Images via Getty Images and YouTube/Face the Nati

Nvidia’s Hugging Face Embrace Burnishes AI Kingmaker Status

By Martin Peers and Phoebe Liu · Sep 3, 2026 5:01pm PDT

Nvidia’s AI chip design rival, Broadcom, may be forecasting rocketing growth. But Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang needn’t worry. He’s deftly parlayed Nvidia’s early AI winnings into what’s likely to be an enduring role as kingmaker in the sector, as he demonstrated by confirming the $12.9 billion purchase of Hugging Face on Thursday, a week after we... Nvidia’s AI chip design rival, Broadcom, may be forecasting rocketing growth. But Nvidia CEO...

Google’s (Small) Antitrust Victory and Microsoft’s Azure Shift

Google’s (Small) Antitrust Victory and Microsoft’s Azure Shift

By Martin Peers · Sep 2, 2026 5:00pm PDT

Google’s (Small) Antitrust Victory and Microsoft’s Azure Shift

Google’s (Small) Antitrust Victory and Microsoft’s Azure Shift

By Martin Peers · Sep 2, 2026 5:00pm PDT

We had lots of news today, including Microsoft’s decision to start breaking out Azure numbers, and Broadcom projecting bonanza growth in its AI chip business in the next couple of years. Oh, and the Trump administration threw its weight behind OpenAI in its copyright lawsuit against The New York Times Co. We have more on all those below. ... We had lots of news today, including Microsoft’s decision to start breaking out Azure numbers,...

SoftBank CEO Masayoshi Son. Kiyoshi Ota/Bloomberg via Getty Images

Why SoftBank Is Rushing SB Energy to the Public Markets

By Martin Peers · Sep 1, 2026 5:00pm PDT

People used to complain that some private tech companies waited too long to go public. Thanks to the AI boom, now we’ve got tech companies going public with hardly any operating business at all. The latest example of that is SB Energy, a SoftBank-controlled solar and battery power firm that filed to go public on Tuesday. SB Energy proudly... People used to complain that some private tech companies waited too long to go public. Thanks to...

News Media Is Underplaying Risks of Rogue AI Agent Swarms

News Media Is Underplaying Risks of Rogue AI Agent Swarms

By Martin Peers · Aug 31, 2026 5:00pm PDT

Stripe co-founder Patrick Collison might have a career as a newspaper editor if this whole payments thing doesn't work out. His weekend X post expressing “surprise at how little media coverage there’s been around the OpenAI / Hugging Face attack” was spot on. While there’s no doubt the attack has had some coverage, the details—as laid out in an... Stripe co-founder Patrick Collison might have a career as a newspaper editor if this whole...

Apple’s outgoing and incoming Tim Cook and John Ternus. Michael Buckner/Variety via Getty Images.

Apple’s Changing of the Guard

By Martin Peers · Aug 30, 2026 3:01pm PDT

Tim Cook winds up 15 years as Apple CEO tomorrow, succeeded by John Ternus, which is probably the most significant event of the week in tech. We can’t call it news, as it was announced a few months ago, but it’s worth taking note of now that it’s actually happening. After all, while CEOs of small to midsize tech companies come and go fairly... Tim Cook winds up 15 years as Apple CEO tomorrow, succeeded by John Ternus, which is probably the...

Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff. Getty Images.

Wall Street Learns to Love Software, Again

By Martin Peers · Aug 27, 2026 5:00pm PDT

Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff. Getty Images.

Wall Street Learns to Love Software, Again

By Martin Peers · Aug 27, 2026 5:00pm PDT

Forget the SaaSpocalypse! It's a SaaS renaissance (SaaSaissance, anyone?). Shares of Salesforce rocketed 23% on Thursday, leading a recovery for many of the most beaten-down software stocks, including ServiceNow, Figma and Asana, after Salesforce reported upbeat July-quarter earnings on Wednesday night. The rally signaled a striking change in... Forget the SaaSpocalypse! It's a SaaS renaissance (SaaSaissance, anyone?). Shares of Salesforce...

Getty Images.

Bill Gates’ AI Warning and Nvidia’s Boffo Quarter

By Martin Peers · Aug 26, 2026 5:01pm PDT · 1 comment

You couldn’t miss the disconnect in the AI discussion among major tech figures on Wednesday. Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates warned in a lengthy essay about the dangers posed by the technology, noting that he would support a global slowdown in AI advances if someone had a “credible plan” for doing so. Then Nvidia, the dominant seller of AI... You couldn’t miss the disconnect in the AI discussion among major tech figures on Wednesday....

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman. Getty Images.

Why OpenAI’s Jalapeño Might Sicken Nvidia

By Martin Peers · Aug 25, 2026 5:00pm PDT

Exactly who at OpenAI decided to name the company’s first internally designed chip Jalapeño? That might have seemed like a good idea a few months ago—perhaps OpenAI imagined that name would serve as a subtle indicator that the chip is a hot property. But it’s not ideal right now, when the Food and Drug Administration is warning that products... Exactly who at OpenAI decided to name the company’s first internally designed chip Jalapeño? That...

John Malone and Jensen Huang. Getty Images.

Nvidia's John Malone Dealmaking Opportunity

By Martin Peers · Aug 24, 2026 5:01pm PDT · 1 comment

Here’s a thought about Nvidia’s future: All the equity stakes it’s accumulating in AI companies—including, as we reported on Sunday, an expanded stake in Perplexity—could become more useful in ways other than simply guaranteeing demand for its chips. Over time the stakes could end up being worth a lot of money and could also make CEO Jensen... Here’s a thought about Nvidia’s future: All the equity stakes it’s accumulating in AI companies—...

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang.

Nvidia, Salesforce Are in Spotlight This Week

By Martin Peers · Aug 23, 2026 3:01pm PDT

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang.

Nvidia, Salesforce Are in Spotlight This Week

By Martin Peers · Aug 23, 2026 3:01pm PDT

Some of the hardest-working people in tech right now have to be the corporate communications folks at Nvidia, which is pretty much never out of the news. Aside from updates on its latest AI chips, Nvidia seems to be investing in almost every part of the AI sector, from data center developers to AI model makers to data-labeling providers. And... Some of the hardest-working people in tech right now have to be the corporate communications...