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

The Superconductor of the Summer
The Weekend

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
The Weekend

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
The Weekend

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
Tech's Proudest Workforce No Longer
The Weekend

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
The Weekend

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...
The Weekend Newsletter
What happens when Silicon Valley logs off—the trends, people and companies shaping tech culture.
By providing your email, you agree to The Information’s Privacy Policy
A Mogul Smackdown We Could Get Behind
The Weekend

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
The Weekend

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
Inside the CEO Switch at Twitch
The Weekend

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
The Weekend

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
The Weekend

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 Weekend Newsletter
What happens when Silicon Valley logs off—the trends, people and companies shaping tech culture.
By providing your email, you agree to The Information’s Privacy Policy
The Short Seller Who Told Us So
The Weekend

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
The Great Pickleball Gold Rush
The Weekend

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 Weekend

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
The Weekend

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
The Weekend

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...
The Weekend Newsletter
What happens when Silicon Valley logs off—the trends, people and companies shaping tech culture.
By providing your email, you agree to The Information’s Privacy Policy
A Steady Hand in Choppy Seas
A Steady Hand in Choppy Seas
By Jon Steinberg · Apr 22, 2023 7:00am PDT
A Steady Hand in Choppy Seas
The Weekend

A Steady Hand in Choppy Seas

By Jon Steinberg · Apr 22, 2023 7:00am PDT
Hi, welcome to your Weekend.There are a lot of moments I love in Margaux’s latest cover story—an intimate portrait of TikTok chief operating officer V Pappas. Among them is a small detail about the signage found outside TikTok’s Los Angeles office. As visitors approach the building, they’re told to go left if they want to access the company... Hi, welcome to your Weekend.There are a lot of moments I love in Margaux’s latest cover...
Why Parker Conrad Won’t Read This
The Weekend

Why Parker Conrad Won’t Read This

By Jon Steinberg · Apr 15, 2023 7:00am PDT
Hi, welcome to your Weekend.While I hope everyone carves out some time this weekend to read Abe’s fascinating cover story about the tech hero-turned-villain-turned-hero-again Parker Conrad, there’s one person I know will not be reading it: Conrad himself.As the Rippling CEO admitted to Abe during a lengthy interview in Vermont earlier this... Hi, welcome to your Weekend.While I hope everyone carves out some time this weekend to read Abe’s...
Crime Data vs. Lived Reality
The Weekend

Crime Data vs. Lived Reality

By Jon Steinberg · Apr 8, 2023 7:00am PDT · 2 comments
Hi, welcome to your Weekend. This week, Annie brings us the story of a family-run startup arming young women with a new kind of safety device: The Birdie. Invented by two sisters whose children had been sexually assaulted, the emergency alarm attaches easily to bags or belt loops and screeches like a smoke detector when it’s activated.... Hi, welcome to your Weekend. This week, Annie brings us the story of a family-run startup...
Fear and Longing in the AI Wars
The Weekend

Fear and Longing in the AI Wars

By Jon Steinberg · Apr 1, 2023 7:00am PDT
Hi, welcome to your Weekend! This is Abe filling in for Jon, who returns as Weekender-in-Chief next Saturday.If the cars, brain implants and spaceships don’t pan out, Elon Musk has a promising future as a fear-monger. His was the leading name attached to a widely discussed open letter published this week that urged a halt in artificial... Hi, welcome to your Weekend! This is Abe filling in for Jon, who returns as...
How (and Where) VCs Take Their Coffee
How (and Where) VCs Take Their Coffee
By Jon Steinberg · Mar 25, 2023 7:00am PDT
How (and Where) VCs Take Their Coffee
The Weekend

How (and Where) VCs Take Their Coffee

By Jon Steinberg · Mar 25, 2023 7:00am PDT
Hi, welcome to your Weekend!We all have our spot: The one cafe within a 5-minute walk (or a 10-minute drive, if you work in L.A.), where you can grab a quick meeting, sidle up to an acquaintance or eavesdrop on a stranger. It’s the kind of place where you feel like you’re being productive, even when you’re really procrastinating. My... Hi, welcome to your Weekend!We all have our spot: The one cafe within a 5-minute walk (or a...