The Weekend by The Information Staff

Every Saturday

The Weekend

By The Information Staff

Know what happens when Silicon Valley logs off—the trends and people shaping culture, technology and everything in between.

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Recent Editions

'If Hell Is a Party Like This...'

'If Hell Is a Party Like This...'

By Jon Steinberg · Sep 9, 2023 7:00am PDT

Hi, welcome to your Weekend.“The playa doesn’t give you what you want. It gives you what you need.” I’ve been hearing that old Burning Man saw around these parts since the early 2000s—most recently by a participant in this weekend’s cover story, The Instant Oral History of ‘Trench Foot Burning Man.’ But never has the truism seemed more true... Hi, welcome to your Weekend.“The playa doesn’t give you what you want. It gives you what you...

The Botched Reveal of California Forever

The Botched Reveal of California Forever

By Jon Steinberg · Sep 2, 2023 7:00am PDT

Hi, welcome to your Weekend.This week, we’re publishing stories from near (a testosterone party in San Francisco) and far (Jessica's four-day reporting junket in China). But there’s another story we’re tracking that is geographically close to home and psychologically close to Never Never Land. I’m talking about the dream city of California... Hi, welcome to your Weekend.This week, we’re publishing stories from near (a testosterone party...

Tech Leaders Spend How Much(?!) on Their Bodies?

Tech Leaders Spend How Much(?!) on Their Bodies?

By Jon Steinberg · Aug 26, 2023 6:00am PDT

Hi, welcome to your Weekend.It’s Annie here, stealing this week’s newsletter opener from Jon (don’t worry, he knows). I wanted to properly introduce The Information Weekend’s first ever Brain-Body Investment Survey, which we’ve been working on over the past month. In my nearly two years at The Information, I’ve taken special interest in... Hi, welcome to your Weekend.It’s Annie here, stealing this week’s newsletter opener from Jon (don...

Stars Learn to Love Their AI Doppelgängers

Stars Learn to Love Their AI Doppelgängers

By Jon Steinberg · Aug 19, 2023 6:00am PDT

Stars Learn to Love Their AI Doppelgängers

Stars Learn to Love Their AI Doppelgängers

By Jon Steinberg · Aug 19, 2023 6:00am PDT

Hi, welcome to your Weekend.There’s been a lot of bed-wetting down in Southern California this summer about the dangers of the artificial intelligence boom. Maybe bed-wetting isn’t fair: The Hollywood actors who are striking, in part, over how their AI-generated likenesses will be scanned, stored and monetized, have valid concerns. And they... Hi, welcome to your Weekend.There’s been a lot of bed-wetting down in Southern California this...

Evangelists of Two Different Silicon Valleys

Evangelists of Two Different Silicon Valleys

By Jon Steinberg · Aug 12, 2023 7:00am PDT · 1 comment

Heads up, Weekenders: The Information is asking subscribers how much time and money they spend on their various fitness and wellness routines. Please fill out our completely anonymous Brain-Body Investment survey (done in five minutes, tops), and we'll share the results soon. Thanks for participating! Hi, welcome to your Weekend.... Heads up, Weekenders: The Information is asking subscribers how much time and money they spend on...

The Superconductor of the Summer

The Superconductor of the Summer

By Jon Steinberg · Aug 5, 2023 6:00am PDT

Hi, welcome to your Weekend.Culturally, it’s been a very Barbie-Taylor-Tom (Cruise) summer. A season of mega-popular, mega-lucrative, four-quadrant entertainments that have returned us, however briefly, to the pre-internet days of the monoculture. So imagine my surprise when the online discourse shifted abruptly this week to the very niche... Hi, welcome to your Weekend.Culturally, it’s been a very Barbie-Taylor-Tom (Cruise) summer. A...

Illustration by Clark Miller

Blind Loyalty to an Anonymous Chat App

By Jon Steinberg · Jul 29, 2023 6:00am PDT

Hi, welcome to your Weekend.What’s that I hear? It’s the sound of thousands of techies in the Bay Area calling in favors and taking out second mortgages to score tickets to Taylor Swift’s concert at Levi’s Stadium last night and tonight in Santa Clara. If you succeeded, congratulations! Speaking of Taylor, I stumbled across a fascinating... Hi, welcome to your Weekend.What’s that I hear? It’s the sound of thousands of techies in the Bay...

A Stripe Co-Founder’s Billionaire Flex

A Stripe Co-Founder’s Billionaire Flex

By Jon Steinberg · Jul 22, 2023 6:00am PDT

A Stripe Co-Founder’s Billionaire Flex

A Stripe Co-Founder’s Billionaire Flex

By Jon Steinberg · Jul 22, 2023 6:00am PDT

Hi, welcome to your Weekend.You’re likely not intimately familiar with the world of John Collison, and that is mostly by design. Unlike other millennial tech titans like Sam Altman, Brian Chesky and Brian Armstrong, relatively little has been written about Collison, the intensely private, Irish-born co-founder of the $50 billion payments... Hi, welcome to your Weekend.You’re likely not intimately familiar with the world of John...

Tech's Proudest Workforce No Longer

Tech's Proudest Workforce No Longer

By Jon Steinberg · Jul 15, 2023 6:00am PDT

Hi, welcome to your Weekend.The problems that have afflicted Google over the past 12 months are not unique to the search giant or its parent company Alphabet. The entire tech industry has been in correction mode after the hyper-growth years of 2020-2021, with more than 218,000 jobs slashed thus far in 2023, according to Layoffs.fyi.But Google’s... Hi, welcome to your Weekend.The problems that have afflicted Google over the past 12 months are...

An AI Company and Its Fanatical Following

An AI Company and Its Fanatical Following

By Jon Steinberg · Jul 8, 2023 6:00am PDT

Hi, welcome to your Weekend.Since we launched our Weekend section in November 2021, we’ve been near-obsessive chroniclers of the generative AI boom. Our very first cover story, written by yours truly, was on Sam Altman and his optimistic vision for OpenAI. We followed that up with reports on how AI image generators would disrupt the... Hi, welcome to your Weekend.Since we launched our Weekend section in November 2021, we’ve been...

A Mogul Smackdown We Could Get Behind

A Mogul Smackdown We Could Get Behind

By Jon Steinberg · Jul 1, 2023 6:00am PDT

Hi, welcome to your Weekend.It should be pretty clear by now what a lame idea the whole Mark Zuckerberg vs. Elon Musk cage match was. The spectacle of two middle-aged men working out their self-esteem issues by beating on each other was not worthy of their companies—or our time. But a pitch from the producers of the Discovery show “BattleBots”... Hi, welcome to your Weekend.It should be pretty clear by now what a lame idea the whole Mark...

Adobe Flies Towards Generative AI

Adobe Flies Towards Generative AI

By Jon Steinberg · Jun 24, 2023 6:00am PDT

Adobe Flies Towards Generative AI

Adobe Flies Towards Generative AI

By Jon Steinberg · Jun 24, 2023 6:00am PDT

Hi, welcome to your Weekend.For about 11 months after OpenAI released its text-to-image generator Dall-E 2 in April 2022, many of us wondered when Adobe would come to market with a rival product, which could be neatly integrated into design programs like Photoshop, Illustrator and Premiere. The wait felt long, especially considering how... Hi, welcome to your Weekend.For about 11 months after OpenAI released its text-to-image generator...

Inside the CEO Switch at Twitch

Inside the CEO Switch at Twitch

By Jon Steinberg · Jun 17, 2023 6:00am PDT

Hi, welcome to your Weekend.On Wednesday night, while editing Annie’s thoroughly delightful cover story on new Twitch CEO Dan Clancy, I hopped over to Clancy’s Twitch page, just to see if he was livestreaming. To my surprise and delight, he was.Almost two hours into a four-and-a-half hour jam session and open-mic night, the CEO sat facing... Hi, welcome to your Weekend.On Wednesday night, while editing Annie’s thoroughly delightful cover...

Why We Must Love A Moonshot

Why We Must Love A Moonshot

By Jon Steinberg · Jun 10, 2023 7:00am PDT

Hi, welcome to your Weekend.Jon, our intrepid Weekender in Chief, is out. I’m happily subbing for him. Indeed, I feel particularly energized this week after spotting something I haven’t seen in what feels like for-ev-er: an actually audacious piece of technology—that might never take off. I’m talking, of course, about Apple’s newly debuted... Hi, welcome to your Weekend.Jon, our intrepid Weekender in Chief, is out. I’m happily subbing for...

Live from SF, It’s Tech Week

Live from SF, It’s Tech Week

By Jon Steinberg · Jun 3, 2023 6:00am PDT

Hi, welcome to your Weekend.It was the boom-iest of times, it was the doom-iest of times. At least that’s how it feels right now in Dickensian San Francisco, where AI companies are setting up shop on every avenue, while fentanyl dealers are hanging out in every alley. I joke—but seriously, it’s wild out here. No fewer than 17 of the 35 startups... Hi, welcome to your Weekend.It was the boom-iest of times, it was the doom-iest of times. At...

The Short Seller Who Told Us So

The Short Seller Who Told Us So

By Jon Steinberg · May 27, 2023 6:00am PDT

The Short Seller Who Told Us So

The Short Seller Who Told Us So

By Jon Steinberg · May 27, 2023 6:00am PDT

Hi, welcome to your Weekend.Wall Street short sellers are not everyone’s cup of tea. That goes double for a lifelong contrarian like Marc Cohodes, who sees himself as an anti-fraud vigilante fighting for the little guys—while also being a loudmouth bully on Twitter. Nobody knows this better than veteran finance journalist Michelle Celarier,... Hi, welcome to your Weekend.Wall Street short sellers are not everyone’s cup of tea. That goes...

The Great Pickleball Gold Rush

The Great Pickleball Gold Rush

By Jon Steinberg · May 20, 2023 6:00am PDT

Hi, welcome to your Weekend.Not everyone can be Josh Harris, the private equity mogul who just dropped $6 billion to purchase the NFL’s Washington Commanders. Most people who want a piece of a pro sports franchise have to start a little lower. Enter pickleball. A sport you probably hadn’t heard of before it became a thing around five... Hi, welcome to your Weekend.Not everyone can be Josh Harris, the private equity mogul who just...

The Hero’s Journey of Marissa Mayer

The Hero’s Journey of Marissa Mayer

By Jon Steinberg · May 13, 2023 6:00am PDT

Hi, welcome to your Weekend.Marissa Mayer has been a mainstay of tech journalism for almost two decades, ever since she was anointed the glamorous geek goddess of Google back in its “don’t be evil” days. She’s had quite a ride since then, becoming Yahoo CEO in 2012, bumping along in the role for five acquisition-heavy years, then selling the... Hi, welcome to your Weekend.Marissa Mayer has been a mainstay of tech journalism for almost two...

Taking Stock of Sequoia’s Miserable Year

Taking Stock of Sequoia’s Miserable Year

By Jon Steinberg · May 6, 2023 7:00am PDT

Hi, welcome to your Weekend.You won't find many venture investors who are shedding tears for Roelof Botha. As only the fourth person to lead Sequoia Capital over the past 51 years, Botha now occupies a seat at the very highest echelons of the trade. But despite his lofty perch, little has gone easy for Botha since he was handed the reins... Hi, welcome to your Weekend.You won't find many venture investors who are shedding tears for...

Revenge of the Social Media Clones

Revenge of the Social Media Clones

By Jon Steinberg · Apr 29, 2023 7:00am PDT

Revenge of the Social Media Clones

Revenge of the Social Media Clones

By Jon Steinberg · Apr 29, 2023 7:00am PDT

Hi, welcome to your Weekend.While we wait around for another bank to collapse (First Republic, we hardly knew ye), the opposite is happening in social media. A thousand new apps are blooming! With Bluesky and Lemon8 and Mastodon and T2 soaking up attention, it feels like 2008 again in the Valley—except that all the coding is being done by GPTs... Hi, welcome to your Weekend.While we wait around for another bank to collapse (First Republic, we...