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Illustration: Clark Miller (Photos: Apple TV)
Media and Entertainment

The ‘For All Mankind’ Showrunners Think They Know What Silicon Valley Likes

By Abram Brown · Mar 28, 2026 7:01am PDT
Over five seasons, the fictional human beings in “For All Mankind,” Apple TV’s alt-history space race drama, have accomplished any number of feats: They’ve landed on the moon. And on Mars. They’ve put a woman in the White House—mainstreamed nuclear fusion, too. In another dramatic moment, a group even managed to lasso an asteroid laden... Over five seasons, the fictional human beings in “For All Mankind,” Apple TV’s alt-history space...
Art by Clark Miller
The Big Read

Whatnot’s Schlock Empire Shows Digital Live Shopping Can Thrive in America

By Ann Gehan · Dec 12, 2025 9:02am PST
In the weird, wild world of Whatnot, the startup defying Silicon Valley’s dismal track record with live shopping, the merchants speak a unique lingo. Whatnot is a resale market, where sellers auction off items like sports cards, last season’s suede sneakers and off-brand cologne through video livestreams: It’s eBay crossed with TikTok. So if... In the weird, wild world of Whatnot, the startup defying Silicon Valley’s dismal track record...
Beehiiv CEO Tyler Denk (left) speaks with The Information's Akash Pasricha.
Creator Economy

How Beehiiv Is Taking on Substack

By Kaya Yurieff and Akash Pasricha · Aug 19, 2025 3:16pm PDT
Newsletter publishers are having a moment again. Beehiiv, a four-year-old competitor to the larger and older Substack, is on pace to double its total revenue this year, to $30 million, CEO and co-founder Tyler Denk told my colleague Akash Pasricha on Tuesday during an interview on TITV, The Information’s new daily streaming show. Investors... Newsletter publishers are having a moment again. Beehiiv, a four-year-old competitor to the...
Chart by Shane Burke
Why Payouts Keep Rising at Online Course Provider Kajabi
By Kaya Yurieff · Aug 14, 2025 2:22pm PDT
Chart by Shane Burke
Creator Economy

Why Payouts Keep Rising at Online Course Provider Kajabi

By Kaya Yurieff · Aug 14, 2025 2:22pm PDT
Kajabi, a 15-year-old software service best known for selling online courses, supercharged sales a few years ago when—armed with a big check from Tiger Global Management—it started heavily marketing itself to creators, who pay a monthly fee to host courses and sell other digital goods, such as newsletters, podcasts, coaching and memberships.The... Kajabi, a 15-year-old software service best known for selling online courses, supercharged sales...
Photo via Getty
Creator Economy

YouTube Makes Strong Start to Social Media Earnings

By Erin Woo and Kaya Yurieff · Jul 23, 2025 4:14pm PDT
Alphabet kicked off earnings season for social media companies with good news from YouTube: the video juggernaut’s advertising revenue rose 13% year over year in the second quarter, beating its growth rate in the first quarter and calming fears that President Trump’s tariffs would be a headwind for social media revenues. Another positive... Alphabet kicked off earnings season for social media companies with good news from YouTube: the...
Art by Clark Miller
The Weekend

OpenAI and Meta Should Call a Cease-Fire

By Abram Brown · Jul 5, 2025 7:00am PDT · 3 comments
Welcome, Weekenders! In this newsletter:• Lists: 25 great books for summer 2025 • The Arena: A counter-terrorism startup is a surprise WNBA partner• Artificial Intelligence: Why Meta and Google learned to love art• Plus, our Recommendations: a pop-critic laureate; Alexander Hamilton’s dual roles; and a nightly island getawayThe holiday... Welcome, Weekenders! In this newsletter:• Lists: 25 great books for summer 2025 • The Arena:...
Art by Clark Miller
Artificial Intelligence

AI’s Unexpected Consequence: Meta, Google and Big Tech Learn to Appreciate Art

By Josh Duboff · Jul 5, 2025 6:00am PDT · 1 comment
On an unseasonably warm May afternoon in Manhattan’s bustling Rockefeller Center, the designers Wade Jeffree and Leta Sobierajski stood a few yards in front of a large, colorful sculpture—a “vibrant mirrored maze,” as a nearby placard puts it—that they’d spent the past year building. Billed as a Google Labs Collaboration, the... On an unseasonably warm May afternoon in Manhattan’s bustling Rockefeller Center, the designers...
TikTok employees Khartoon Weiss, Sofia Hernandez, Kim Farrell, David Kaufman and Moritz Bartsch speak at the TikTok Cannes Lions press preview today. Photo via Getty.
TikTok Wants Time on Your TV Screen
By Kaya Yurieff · Jun 17, 2025 1:00pm PDT
TikTok employees Khartoon Weiss, Sofia Hernandez, Kim Farrell, David Kaufman and Moritz Bartsch speak at the TikTok Cannes Lions press preview today. Photo via Getty.
Creator Economy

TikTok Wants Time on Your TV Screen

By Kaya Yurieff · Jun 17, 2025 1:00pm PDT
I’m at Cannes Lions, where I spent the morning with TikTok’s marketing leaders. As YouTube has made expanding on living room screens a top priority, I’ve been curious if TikTok will follow suit. While TikTok tried launching an app for TV screens on Android a few years ago, the ByteDance-owned company hasn’t seemed to put much promotion... I’m at Cannes Lions, where I spent the morning with TikTok’s marketing leaders. As YouTube...
Roman Wasenmüller, Spotify’s head of podcast business, speaks at The Information's Future of Influence event. Photo by Erin Beach
Creator Economy

No, It’s Not Too Late to Start a Podcast

By Kaya Yurieff · Jun 10, 2025 2:00pm PDT
Podcasting is booming, driven by the rise of video shows and podcasters’ sway during last year’s presidential election. That’s got me thinking about whether podcasting has become too saturated. It’s a question I posed to our podcasting panel at The Information’s Future of Influence event last week in Los Angeles. Spotify doesn’t think so.... Podcasting is booming, driven by the rise of video shows and podcasters’ sway during last year’s...
The Arena

How Online Gambling Forces Athletes to Battle Hecklers on Their Own

By Sara Germano · Jun 7, 2025 6:00am PDT · 2 comments
As a triple Olympic champion, Sports Illustrated and Vogue model, and Harvard alum, sprinter Gabby Thomas attracts thousands of fans wherever she competes. She also attracts some genuine weirdos. Last weekend, for example, a man attending Thomas’ race in Philadelphia began to loudly berate her—yelling that she was a “choke artist” and that... As a triple Olympic champion, Sports Illustrated and Vogue model, and Harvard alum, sprinter...
From left to right Matt Dahlia, Ammar Kandil and Thomas Brag, who are behind the Yes Theory YouTube channel. Photo courtesy of Fan of a Fan.
Creator Economy

Why a YouTuber-Founded Company Is Selling Its Warehouse Business

By Kaya Yurieff · May 6, 2025 2:00pm PDT
Creators eager to expand their online fame into offline fortune have discovered they need to learn the intricacies of logistics overnight. Now one group of YouTubers that built a shipping business is going back to its roots.Selery Fulfillment, a Dallas-based logistics company backed by Mark Cuban, is acquiring the fulfillment operations of Fan... Creators eager to expand their online fame into offline fortune have discovered they need to...
Lukas Ziegler, courtesy of the subject.
The Robotics Coder Who Became Full-Time Influencer
By Rocket Drew and Kaya Yurieff · Apr 16, 2025 3:03pm PDT
Lukas Ziegler, courtesy of the subject.
Creator Economy

The Robotics Coder Who Became Full-Time Influencer

By Rocket Drew and Kaya Yurieff · Apr 16, 2025 3:03pm PDT
Four years ago, Lukas Ziegler was programming robots at a Polish distributor for Universal Robots, which makes industrial robots that work alongside humans. At night, he started to post about the robotics industry on LinkedIn, eventually traveling around the world to visit robotics companies and give speeches at robotics trade shows.Ziegler’s... Four years ago, Lukas Ziegler was programming robots at a Polish distributor for Universal Robots...
Art by Mike Sullivan via Midjourney
AI Agenda

Revenue Lags at AI Evaluation Startups

By Sri Muppidi · Apr 14, 2025 7:00am PDT · 1 comment
Startups whose products evaluate artificial intelligence to make sure it isn’t making things up or delivering unsafe results, like Patronus and Braintrust, have caught the attention of investors. But previously undisclosed sales data from these and other startups selling evaluation software show corporate customers have been relatively slow to... Startups whose products evaluate artificial intelligence to make sure it isn’t making things up...
Chart by Shane Burke
Creator Economy

Now Hiring: Seasoned Creator Economy Staffers

By Kaya Yurieff · Apr 2, 2025 2:28pm PDT
Keep your eyes peeled on Wednesday for an announcement from President Trump about his plan to keep TikTok alive in the U.S. As I scooped earlier today, Trump plans to announce a proposal for a new company expected to be called TikTok America, which would be roughly 50% owned by new U.S. investors and license TikTok’s algorithm from its Chinese... Keep your eyes peeled on Wednesday for an announcement from President Trump about his plan to...
Photo via Getty
Creator Economy

Why Trump Could Punt on TikTok—Again

By Kaya Yurieff · Apr 1, 2025 2:00pm PDT
Deal or no deal? President Trump’s Saturday deadline for TikTok to sell its U.S. assets is fast approaching. But Trump has given mixed messages on whether a resolution will be reached by then. On Sunday night, he told reporters on Air Force One that a deal would happen before the deadline. He’s also previously said that he’d be willing to... Deal or no deal? President Trump’s Saturday deadline for TikTok to sell its U.S. assets is fast...
Passes founder Lucy Guo. Photo via Flickr/Fortune.
Passes Goes on the Defensive
By Kaya Yurieff · Mar 4, 2025 3:18pm PST
Passes founder Lucy Guo. Photo via Flickr/Fortune.
Creator Economy

Passes Goes on the Defensive

By Kaya Yurieff · Mar 4, 2025 3:18pm PST
A lawsuit alleging creator membership site Passes hosted child porn is causing quite the stir among creators, founders and talent managers. The complaint, filed by OnlyFans creator Alice Rosenblum in the Southern District of Florida last week, claims that Passes recruited Rosenblum to create pornography before she turned 18 and distributed... A lawsuit alleging creator membership site Passes hosted child porn is causing quite the stir...
Photo via Getty
Creator Economy

Facebook Tries to Get Creators’ Attention

By Kaya Yurieff · Feb 20, 2025 2:02pm PST
Facebook wants to be cool again—and it plans to revamp itself in large part by leveraging creators, as my colleague Sylvia and I detailed in a story on Thursday. Facebook staffers have been talking to the teams of prominent YouTubers including MrBeast and former NASA engineer Mark Rober to get their feedback on how to make the app better... Facebook wants to be cool again—and it plans to revamp itself in large part by leveraging...
Image via Getty.
Creator Economy

Not Every Podcaster Is Ready for Video

By Kaya Yurieff and Catherine Perloff · Feb 19, 2025 3:05pm PST
Long gone are the days when podcasting just meant audio episodes. Spotify and others have been pushing podcasters to post video versions of their shows, which can open up new types of advertising such as product placement and give podcasters video clips that can expand their reach. But some podcasters are skeptical that the video effort will pay... Long gone are the days when podcasting just meant audio episodes. Spotify and others have been...
Podcast

China’s DeepSeek Shakes the Tech World

By Jessica E. Lessin · Jan 31, 2025 2:29pm PST
This week on More or Less: DeepSeek, memes and Dave quits social media. Apple Spotify This week on More or Less: DeepSeek, memes and Dave quits social media. Apple Spotify YouTube ...
Art by Mike Sullivan via Midjourney.
Music AI Startups Get Creative to Avoid Copyright Lawsuits
By Rocket Drew · Dec 12, 2024 2:40pm PST
Art by Mike Sullivan via Midjourney.
Creator Economy

Music AI Startups Get Creative to Avoid Copyright Lawsuits

By Rocket Drew · Dec 12, 2024 2:40pm PST
With the Grammys on the horizon, let’s talk about the growing number of startups that are using generative AI to make music. There’s been a wave of investor and founder interest in this technology. But creating music from other music faces major copyright risk. Already, companies including Universal Music Group, Sony Music Entertainment and... With the Grammys on the horizon, let’s talk about the growing number of startups that are using ...