The Information

Apple CEO Tim Cook in 2018. Photo by Bloomberg

Apple Working on Cheaper Mixed-Reality Headset to Reach More Consumers

By Wayne Ma · Jan 17, 2023 6:10pm PST · 2 comments

Apple’s first mixed-reality headset, which it has discussed pricing at around $3,000, could test the limits of how much Apple fans are willing to spend on one of its devices. But the company’s engineers are already at work on a more affordable version of the headset to reach more consumers, according to three people familiar with the... Apple’s first mixed-reality headset, which it has discussed pricing at around $3,000, could...

A ByteDance employee at the entrance to a ByteDance office in Beijing. Photo by Getty Images.

TikTok’s E-Commerce Management Structure Undercuts Claims of Autonomy From China

By Juro Osawa · Jan 17, 2023 6:00am PST · 2 comments

The new head of TikTok’s important push into e-commerce in the U.S. answers directly to a boss at the app’s Chinese owner, ByteDance, bypassing TikTok’s own CEO. The previously unreported structure could undercut TikTok’s efforts to convince Washington lawmakers that it can operate independently from ByteDance. Sandie... The new head of TikTok’s important push into e-commerce in the U.S. answers directly to a...

Clearco's departing CEO, Michele Romanow, in 2019. Photo by Bloomberg

CEO of SoftBank-Backed Clearco Resigns as Onetime Fintech Darling Cuts Staff

By Jon Victor · Jan 15, 2023 4:49pm PST · 6 comments

The CEO of Clearco, which provides capital to e-commerce businesses in exchange for a cut of future revenue, has resigned the post, according to a person with direct knowledge of the situation. The departing leader, Michele Romanow, co-founded Toronto-based Clearco in 2015 and is one of Canada’s most prominent entrepreneurs. She is being... The CEO of Clearco, which provides capital to e-commerce businesses in exchange for a cut of...

Elon Musk.

Musk’s Twitter Intentionally Suspended Tweetbot, Third-Party Apps, Messages Show

By Erin Woo · Jan 14, 2023 3:03pm PST · 5 comments

Elon Musk.

Musk’s Twitter Intentionally Suspended Tweetbot, Third-Party Apps, Messages Show

By Erin Woo · Jan 14, 2023 3:03pm PST · 5 comments

The mysterious outage of Tweetbot and other third-party Twitter clients that began Thursday night was an intentional suspension, according to internal messages viewed by The Information. The suspension cut off the ability of people to use Twitter on outside apps, forcing them to go to Twitter’s own app. The reason for the suspension... The mysterious outage of Tweetbot and other third-party Twitter clients that began Thursday night...

Art by Mike Sullivan via Shutterstock

General Catalyst, Spark in Talks to Back OpenAI Rival

By Kate Clark, Erin Woo and Amir Efrati · Jan 12, 2023 12:00pm PST

OpenAI is bringing back an element of the tech boom that had briefly gone dormant: steep valuations. As the artificial intelligence developer talks to Microsoft and others about a deal valuing it at more than $20 billion, at least 100 times its projected revenue this year, rival startups are trying to score similarly high prices from venture... OpenAI is bringing back an element of the tech boom that had briefly gone dormant: steep...

Photo by Bloomberg.

Google Cloud’s Top U.S. Sales Execs Depart in Shakeup as Profits Remain Elusive

By Jon Victor, Kevin McLaughlin and Amir Efrati · Jan 12, 2023 8:46am PST

Google’s cloud computing unit on Thursday made sweeping changes to its leadership, including replacing its top U.S. sales executive and one of her lieutenants, according to people with knowledge of the situation. The changes, announced to employees, include the departure of Kirsten Kliphouse, the top U.S. sales executive. She is being... Google’s cloud computing unit on Thursday made sweeping changes to its leadership,...

Stripe's Bay Area office. Photo by Bloomberg.

Stripe Cuts Internal Valuation by 11%, Implying $63 Billion Valuation

By Maria Heeter · Jan 11, 2023 5:04pm PST · 13 comments

Stripe has cut the internal value of its shares by about 11%, implying a valuation of $63 billion, according to a person familiar with the matter. It’s at least the third time since June that the payments startup has cut its internal valuation, following a smaller cut in October, and brings the total reduction to about 40% in the past six... Stripe has cut the internal value of its shares by about 11%, implying a valuation of $63...

Alphabet Chief Financial Officer Ruth Porat. Photo by Bloomberg

Alphabet Job Cuts Widen to Robotics Subsidiary

By Jon Victor · Jan 11, 2023 3:29pm PST

Alphabet Chief Financial Officer Ruth Porat. Photo by Bloomberg

Alphabet Job Cuts Widen to Robotics Subsidiary

By Jon Victor · Jan 11, 2023 3:29pm PST

Less than a month ago, Alphabet’s industrial robotics subsidiary Intrinsic said it acquired a team of people from a software development firm called Open Robotics. On Wednesday, Intrinsic went in the other direction by laying off 40 employees, a spokesperson confirmed to The Information. A person close to the company said the layoffs... Less than a month ago, Alphabet’s industrial robotics subsidiary Intrinsic said it acquired...

Twitter's San Francisco headquarters. Photo via Getty Images

Twitter’s Efforts to Court Advertisers Turns Them Off

By Sahil Patel and Erin Woo · Jan 11, 2023 11:54am PST

Twitter’s ad business is not recovering. Clients of WPP-owned GroupM, the world’s largest ad-buying firm, have cut their spending on Twitter by between 40% and 50% since Elon Musk took control of the company in late October, according to people familiar with the matter. Standard Media Index, an ad industry firm that tracks... Twitter’s ad business is not recovering. Clients of WPP-owned GroupM, the world’s...

From left: Peter Thiel, Vinod Khosla, Tim Cook, Satya Nadella, Sam Altman, Mark Zuckerberg, Sundar Pichai and Marc Benioff. Photos by Bloomberg, Getty. Art by Mike Sullivan.

Microsoft + OpenAI: Inside Tech’s Hottest Romance

By Erin Woo, Aaron Holmes and Jessica E. Lessin · Jan 11, 2023 8:17am PST · 8 comments

Three years ago, as Microsoft sought to overtake Amazon and Google in cloud computing and artificial intelligence, the company made a major move. It invested $1 billion into a project originally co-founded by Elon Musk, former Y Combinator president Sam Altman and other tech leaders to create artificial general intelligence—software that... Three years ago, as Microsoft sought to overtake Amazon and Google in cloud computing and...

A scene from the 2017 day when Okta went public. Photo by AP.

Okta Chief Revenue Officer Departs Amid Sales Shakeup

By Kevin McLaughlin · Jan 10, 2023 12:38pm PST · 2 comments

Okta’s chief revenue officer, Steve Rowland, is leaving the identity and access management software provider at the end of the month, according to a current Okta employee. Rowland’s departure, less than two years after the enterprise software veteran joined Okta, comes as Okta is grappling with an industrywide slowdown in the... Okta’s chief revenue officer, Steve Rowland, is leaving the identity and access management...

Redfin, with a market capitalization of less than $600 million, had $1.3 billion of convertible debt on its books as of September. Photo by Bloomberg.

The Looming Debt Crunch Facing Tech Companies Like The RealReal

By Cory Weinberg · Jan 10, 2023 8:08am PST · 5 comments

Redfin, with a market capitalization of less than $600 million, had $1.3 billion of convertible debt on its books as of September. Photo by Bloomberg.

The Looming Debt Crunch Facing Tech Companies Like The RealReal

By Cory Weinberg · Jan 10, 2023 8:08am PST · 5 comments

In 2020, a wave of public tech companies—including The RealReal, Vroom and Redfin—began selling record amounts of ultra-low-interest bonds that would convert into shares if the companies’ stocks kept soaring. Instead, stocks have been crushed, and a wall of potentially crippling or course-altering debt now looms over some... In 2020, a wave of public tech companies—including The RealReal, Vroom and...

ByteDance's Beijing headquarters. Photo by Getty.

TikTok Parent ByteDance’s E-Commerce Volume Surged in 2022, Internal Data Show

By Juro Osawa · Jan 9, 2023 2:13pm PST

TikTok’s Chinese parent company, ByteDance, is making inroads in e-commerce. Consumers in China last year spent 1.41 trillion yuan, or $208 billion, buying things on ByteDance’s Douyin video app, the Chinese equivalent of TikTok, an increase of 76% from 2021, according to two people with knowledge of the internal data. Meanwhile,... TikTok’s Chinese parent company, ByteDance, is making inroads in e-commerce. Consumers in...

Art by Mike Sullivan via Shutterstock

Six OpenAI Rivals Google and Microsoft Are Watching

By Jon Victor · Jan 9, 2023 6:00am PST · 5 comments

Microsoft’s big bet on OpenAI, whose ChatGPT software can understand and generate conversational text, is starting to look like a stroke of genius. Microsoft plans to use OpenAI’s tech to improve results in Bing searches and help Word and Outlook customers automatically generate documents and emails using simple prompts, as The... Microsoft’s big bet on OpenAI, whose ChatGPT software can understand and generate...

Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella. Art by Mike Sullivan

Ghost Writer: Microsoft Looks to Add OpenAI’s Chatbot Technology to Word, Email

By Aaron Holmes and Kevin McLaughlin · Jan 7, 2023 6:00am PST · 3 comments

In a move that could change how more than a billion people write documents, presentations and emails, Microsoft has discussed incorporating OpenAI’s artificial intelligence in Word, PowerPoint, Outlook and other apps so customers can automatically generate text using simple prompts, according to a person with direct knowledge of the... In a move that could change how more than a billion people write documents, presentations and...

Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss. Photo by Bloomberg.

Why Gemini Kept Pushing Risky Accounts as Crypto Market Tumbled

By Aidan Ryan · Jan 6, 2023 6:00am PST · 1 comment

Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss. Photo by Bloomberg.

Why Gemini Kept Pushing Risky Accounts as Crypto Market Tumbled

By Aidan Ryan · Jan 6, 2023 6:00am PST · 1 comment

Gemini co-founders Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss started last year off with plans to go big with a risky type of crypto lending account. And they pushed ahead even as warning signs kept cropping up. In the early months of 2022, the twins told the crypto startup’s growth team to come up with a more aggressive plan to market the crypto... Gemini co-founders Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss started last year off with plans to go big with a...

Chronosphere CEO Martin Mao. Screenshot via YouTube.

Alphabet’s GV Backs Startup That Helps Cut Cloud Bills, Boosting Valuation to $1.6 Billion

By Amir Efrati and Kevin McLaughlin · Jan 5, 2023 4:50pm PST · 3 comments

Chronosphere, a startup that helps companies monitor their cloud-based applications and competes with publicly traded Datadog, has raised $100 million in funding from Alphabet's startup-investment arm, GV, and other investors, according to a person familiar with the deal, which hasn’t been previously reported. (Update, Jan. 13:... Chronosphere, a startup that helps companies monitor their cloud-based applications and competes...

DCG's CEO, Barry Silbert. Photo by Bloomberg.

Genesis Parent Company DCG Shutters Its Wealth Management Division

By Kate Clark · Jan 5, 2023 2:58pm PST · 1 comment

Digital Currency Group, the parent company of crypto broker Genesis and the publication CoinDesk, has shut down its wealth management subsidiary HQ Digital, according to a memo shared with one of its customers. HQ—yet another piece of collateral damage in the FTX implosion—ceased operations Jan. 2, according to the memo. Digital Currency Group, the parent company of crypto broker Genesis and the publication CoinDesk,...

Photo by Bloomberg.

Everlane Slashes 17% of Corporate Employees, Cuts Store Staff

By Ann Gehan · Jan 5, 2023 2:17pm PST · 1 comment

Sustainable clothing brand Everlane is the latest direct-to-consumer company to slash jobs as the sector grapples with declining e-commerce sales volumes and rising digital marketing costs. The company announced the cuts internally on Wednesday via an email message and a companywide Zoom meeting, saying they would affect around 17% of... Sustainable clothing brand Everlane is the latest direct-to-consumer company to slash jobs as the...

Tiger Global founder Chase Coleman III. Photo: Bloomberg

Why Tiger Global Reneged on Commitments to Fund Other VC Firms

By Kate Clark · Jan 5, 2023 12:48pm PST · 6 comments

Tiger Global founder Chase Coleman III. Photo: Bloomberg

Why Tiger Global Reneged on Commitments to Fund Other VC Firms

By Kate Clark · Jan 5, 2023 12:48pm PST · 6 comments

A year ago, leaders at Tiger Global Management committed $1 billion of their personal capital to back dozens of venture capital funds that invest in the youngest startups. It was an aggressive new effort meant to increase the hedge fund’s access to promising companies after the market for more mature tech startups—where most of its... A year ago, leaders at Tiger Global Management committed $1 billion of their personal capital to...