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

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

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

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

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...

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg. Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call/Getty Images.

Meta Finds a New Way to Spend a Fortune on AI

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

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg. Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call/Getty Images.

Meta Finds a New Way to Spend a Fortune on AI

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

The AI laggards are going on the offensive! Meta Platforms on Thursday unveiled its latest AI model, Muse Spark 1.1, a day after SpaceX’s AI unit introduced a new model of its own. Like SpaceX, Meta claimed its new model delivers performance comparable to that of established models from AI labs such as OpenAI, Anthropic and Google. We’ll have to... The AI laggards are going on the offensive! Meta Platforms on Thursday unveiled its latest AI...

Elon Musk. Krisztian Bocsi/Bloomberg via Getty Images.

SpaceX Makes AI Advances, With a Little Help From Cursor

By Martin Peers · Jul 8, 2026 5:01pm PDT

How about that? SpaceX’s AI unit is rolling out some AI products of value to businesses. On Wednesday, SpaceXAI—as the unit is called—and its soon-to-be subsidiary Cursor jointly introduced Grok 4.5, a model “built for coding, agentic tasks and knowledge work.” A week ago, SpaceX introduced a “Voice Agent Builder” enabling small businesses to... How about that? SpaceX’s AI unit is rolling out some AI products of value to businesses. On...

Outside Samsung's headquarters in Suwon, South Korea. Getty Images.

Samsung’s Memory-Driven Profit Explosion

By Martin Peers · Jul 7, 2026 5:01pm PDT

Samsung, it seems, deserves a little more respect. The electronics conglomerate may be best known in the U.S. for its TV sets and smartphones, which jostle with the iPhone for attention, but it’s also one of the three biggest makers of memory chips globally (along with Micron Technology and SK Hynix). The explosion of that business, thanks to... Samsung, it seems, deserves a little more respect. The electronics conglomerate may be best known...

Asha Sharma, CEO of Xbox. David Paul Morris/Bloomberg/Getty Images.

Microsoft Begins Gaming Retreat

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

We’re guessing the July 4 weekend was not too relaxed for some folks at Microsoft. Today we got news that the company is laying off 4,800 people—around 2% of its total workforce—mostly in sales and at its troubled Xbox business. It's also selling at least four, and probably five, small gaming studios. Asha Sharma, Microsoft’s new gaming... We’re guessing the July 4 weekend was not too relaxed for some folks at Microsoft. Today we got...

SeongJoon Cho/Bloomberg via Getty Images.

SK Hynix’s US Listing Will Be a Focal Point This Week

By Martin Peers · Jul 5, 2026 3:00pm PDT

SeongJoon Cho/Bloomberg via Getty Images.

SK Hynix’s US Listing Will Be a Focal Point This Week

By Martin Peers · Jul 5, 2026 3:00pm PDT

Tech IPOs are definitely getting more interesting. On the heels of last week’s debuts by Bending Spoons and Lime, this week we’ve got South Korean memory chip giant SK Hynix, which is expected to list on the Nasdaq on Friday, adding to its existing South Korean stock exchange listing. Hynix will raise money as part of the Nasdaq listing, making... Tech IPOs are definitely getting more interesting. On the heels of last week’s debuts by Bending...

Getty Images.

Nvidia and the Neocloud Gold Rush

By Martin Peers · Jul 2, 2026 3:31pm PDT

Hands up if you’ve got a neocloud going up in your backyard! I’m joking, of course, but it almost feels like some people must be putting AI chip servers in their gardens, given the rush of people wanting to start a neocloud business. (That’s the tech world’s term for firms that rent AI servers to others.)SoftBank on Thursday announced the... Hands up if you’ve got a neocloud going up in your backyard! I’m joking, of course, but it almost...

Michael Nagle/Bloomberg via Getty Images.

Bending Spoons’ Big Pop a Good Sign for IPO Candidates

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

Could it be that Wall Street has a soft spot for refurbished internet brands? Bending Spoons, the Italian company whose stated mission is buying and overhauling left-for-dead digital businesses—such as AOL, Evernote and Vimeo—got a 40% pop on its first day as a public company on Wednesday. It was a much more impressive debut than the 4% pop... Could it be that Wall Street has a soft spot for refurbished internet brands? Bending Spoons, the...

Getty Images

Stripe and Co. Take On Circle and Tether in Stablecoins

By Yueqi Yang · Jun 30, 2026 5:01pm PDT

A year after the passage of the Genius Act legalized stablecoins, a bunch of big financial players have teamed up to launch a new, impressive-sounding stablecoin. Stripe, Visa, Mastercard, Coinbase, BlackRock and BNY are forming a consortium with over 140 firms to launch Open USD, which will debut later this year. This is a big deal. Open... A year after the passage of the Genius Act legalized stablecoins, a bunch of big financial...

Michael Saylor. Romain Maurice/Getty Images.

Saylor’s Strategy to Sell Some Bitcoin; Comcast Is Splitting in Two, Again

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

Michael Saylor. Romain Maurice/Getty Images.

Saylor’s Strategy to Sell Some Bitcoin; Comcast Is Splitting in Two, Again

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

Do the folks at crypto holding firm Strategy know the old adage that one should buy low and sell high? Strategy revealed today a plan to sell some of its vast stock of bitcoin, even as the cryptocurrency is hovering around its lowest point in two years. The current price of around $60,000 is 20% below the average price Strategy has paid for... Do the folks at crypto holding firm Strategy know the old adage that one should buy low and sell...

Bending Spoons headquarters in Milan. Francesca Volpi/Getty Images.

Bending Spoons IPO Spotlights Scavenger Hunt

By Martin Peers · Jun 28, 2026 3:01pm PDT · 1 comment

The July 4 long weekend is just days away, which means this week should be quiet on the news front. But we can expect more drama coming out of the Washington-AI industry wrangling—with the increasing competitiveness of Chinese AI models raising the stakes. Meanwhile, the trajectory of SpaceX shares will be worth watching. A Friday report on... The July 4 long weekend is just days away, which means this week should be quiet on the news...

Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images.

Trump’s Burdensome AI Regulation; Apple’s Price Hike

By Martin Peers · Jun 25, 2026 5:01pm PDT

Remember back to last December, when President Donald Trump issued an executive order designed to “remove barriers to United States AI leadership”? Trump said he was revoking former President Joe Biden’s “attempt to paralyze this industry” and planned a “minimally burdensome national standard” for regulation. It’s a different story now.Today, ... Remember back to last December, when President Donald Trump issued an executive order designed to...

Residents of Saline, Mich. protest the nearby Stargate data center facility in December. Jim West/Getty Images.

The AI and Data Center Image Problem

By Nick Wingfield · Jun 24, 2026 5:01pm PDT · 3 comments

A couple days ago, John Carmack, a videogame pioneer and former virtual reality executive at Meta Platforms, wrote on X that he had begun seeing anti–data center yard signs popping up in his neighborhood. “I am entertaining the idea of paying for a billboard with something like ‘Data centers are awesome, Texas should lead!’” wrote Carmack, who... A couple days ago, John Carmack, a videogame pioneer and former virtual reality executive at Meta...

Mark Zuckerberg wearing Meta's Ray Bans. Getty Images

Meta Looks Good With Glasses On

By Martin Peers · Jun 23, 2026 5:01pm PDT · 2 comments

Mark Zuckerberg wearing Meta's Ray Bans. Getty Images

Meta Looks Good With Glasses On

By Martin Peers · Jun 23, 2026 5:01pm PDT · 2 comments

Here’s a suggestion for Mark Zuckerberg: Maybe you should ditch AI model development and spend even more on smart glasses! Meta Platforms on Tuesday unveiled its latest selection of smart glasses, devised with eyewear giant EssilorLuxottica, and it’s hard not to be impressed with the way they look. Meta would seem to have more chance of... Here’s a suggestion for Mark Zuckerberg: Maybe you should ditch AI model development and spend...