There was a moment in this week's episode that made me realize (yet again) that we are in interesting and important times. It was when Sam said, "It's not typical that you see VCs write down an investment in the same quarter they made it." He was talking about struggling AI startups, a big topic this week, along with the Hollywood strike and Threads. I hope you enjoy. Spotify Apple... Read more ›
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When Chris Messina joined Google back in 2010 as a user experience designer, he was placed within a team devoted to making Google+, the company’s big bet in social media, a success. The network, launched in 2011, was designed to bring Google’s might to the world of social media and supplant some of the big beasts of the time, including Facebook and Twitter. Rather than change the world, Google+ became... Read more ›
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Visitors to the Abbey Leix estate in County Laois, Ireland, must drive on an unkempt gravel road that leads through a thick forest and past a derelict corn mill to get to the giant old house in the country’s midlands. Stephen Kinsella, an Irish economist, made the journey last May at the invitation of a friend who had recently purchased the 1,120-acre estate for more than $15 million, with plans... Read more ›
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Welcome back!On Thursday, we published results from our monthly subscriber survey, revealing a sunnier outlook for the technology industry among readers of The Information.Nearly half of respondents—47%—said conditions for technology companies would improve over the next six months, while about a fifth—19%—said they would worsen. In June, pessimists slightly outnumbered optimists, with 31% saying conditions would improve and 36% saying they would worsen. Read more ›
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The Securities and Exchange Commission subpoenaed e-commerce software startup Bolt and sent a notice to co-founder and former CEO Ryan Breslow last year over their past statements to current and potential investors, according to an April 2023 letter from a lawyer representing two of Bolt’s major investors. Brian Reinken of WestCap Management and Arjun Sethi of Tribe Capital Management claim Breslow misled investors when he was raising Bolt’s $355 million... Read more ›
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Last week, things finally seemed to be stabilizing for employees of Cameo—an online marketplace where people can pay supporting cast members of “Seinfeld” and other celebrities to record personalized video messages. After two rounds of layoffs in 2022 that had gutted the size of its staff, Cameo had flown dozens of employees to its Chicago office from around the U.S. and the world, from Mexico to Malta, for an annual... Read more ›
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With another set of headlines about tech companies threatening to pull their products from the U.K. or the EU rather than comply with new regulations, I have to wonder: Will it actually happen? Because that would be an interesting shift.Today, Apple said it would remove FaceTime and iMessage from its products in the U.K. if the government goes ahead with a new act that would allow it to vet and... Read more ›
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As the chart above shows, most social networks have dabbled with a feature, often dubbed disappearing stories, that lets users post photos or videos that are set to disappear off the app after a set amount of time, typically 24 hours. Twitch earlier this month announced it was jumping into the fray. The offering from Amazon-owned Twitch comes more than a decade after Snapchat made automatic deletion of its users’... Read more ›
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Five partners have exited Sequoia Capital, I reported yesterday, one of the biggest personnel shake-ups at the legendary venture capital firm in recent history. It’s a sign of what’s coming for the broader industry. The departures included three junior dealmakers, or partners with less experience. Two of them, Kais Khimji and Daniel Chen, have already started artificial intelligence companies with Sequoia funding. In addition, two senior investors, including the firm’s... Read more ›
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We are pleased to announce three new hires that will deepen our coverage of venture capital and startups, The Weekend’s feature stories, and artificial intelligence. Natasha Mascarenhas joined our venture capital and startups team in San Francisco, where she breaks news and delivers features on the most influential Silicon Valley investors and funding trends. Natasha took on the beat at a time when venture capital is in flux: After three... Read more ›
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Apple is facing challenges assembling its two upcoming new iPhone models, the iPhone 15 Pro and Pro Max, which could lead to a shortage of units at launch in September, according to two people with direct knowledge of the issue. Apple’s suppliers are using a new manufacturing process for the two models, the most expensive of the upcoming series of iPhones, that will allow it to dramatically narrow the width... Read more ›
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Threads, Meta Platforms’ competitor to Twitter, attracted 100 million sign-ups within five days of its launch earlier this month—including many readers of The Information. A narrow majority of respondents to The Information’s most recent survey said they had used Threads. Most seemed pleased. Roughly 80% of Threads users rated it at 3 or higher on a scale of 1 to 5, with 5 the best. Read more ›
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Sequoia Capital’s Chinese affiliate, which is preparing to split from the Silicon Valley venture firm, is in talks to raise around 20 billion yuan ($2.8 billion) for a new Chinese currency fund from domestic backers including the government of the city of Hangzhou, according to a person with direct knowledge of the matter. Hangzhou’s local government revealed the registration of the latest Sequoia China yuan fund last year, but its... Read more ›
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A former executive of battery cell maker Enovix has launched a startup to develop low-cost sodium-ion batteries, a new segment of the industry that does not use increasingly scarce lithium. The startup is among the first using the chemistry outside China, the world’s biggest producer of lithium-ion batteries, which has quickly taken a large lead in sodium-ion development.Spencer Gore, who until earlier this month was Enovix’s head of electric vehicle... Read more ›
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The bulls are back in Netflix stock, even if the growth isn’t. Netflix on Wednesday reported just 2.7% higher revenue in the second quarter, below what it had projected, confirming that it’s now firmly in the class of slow-growing TV companies. Even excluding the impact of foreign exchange fluctuations, revenue grew just 6%—nothing to write home about. It’s a little hard to square that performance with a rally in Netflix... Read more ›
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Even after funding for creator economy startups collapsed, some companies have been able to raise new capital, we reported last month. The latest is Karat. The startup, which offers business credit cards and financial services for creators, on Wednesday announced $70 million in Series B funding, including $30 million in debt financing from TriplePoint Capital and a $40 million equity round led by SignalFire. Other investors included popular creators such... Read more ›
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Around 1.5 million people in the U.S. have signed up to pay for Netflix’s tier of service that carries ads, the streaming service has told advertisers in the past two weeks, according to industry executives. That’s a tiny fraction of both Netflix’s total U.S. subscribers and the roughly 30 million subscribers who pay for Hulu’s ad-supported tier, demonstrating that Netflix isn’t yet a force in advertising. Hulu’s ad-supported tier is... Read more ›
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Happy Wednesday!Coinbase investors might be getting ahead of themselves. Coinbase shares, which have been on a tear lately, are now trading at a valuation not seen since fall 2021. Coinbase is currently trading at 8.3 times its next 12 months expected revenue (all data courtesy of Koyfin). The last time it consistently traded at that rich a multiple was November 2021—the same month bitcoin hit its all-time peak. But that... Read more ›
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Sequoia Capital has shaken up its senior ranks, the latest indication of how its leader, Roelof Botha, is reshaping the storied venture capital firm during a period of tumult. The firm on Wednesday told its limited partners that longtime partner Michael Moritz would leave the firm and focus on the firm’s independent wealth management business, Sequoia Heritage, a spokesperson confirmed. Meanwhile Mike Vernal, a partner who focuses on early-stage startups... Read more ›
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Earlier this month, OpenAI announced a new “superalignment team” with a goal to “solve the core technical challenges of superintelligence alignment in four years.” Ilya Sutskever, OpenAI’s co-founder and chief scientist, will make this research his core focus, and the company said it would dedicate 20% of its compute resources to its superalignment team. What exactly does “superalignment” or “superintelligence alignment” mean? It means preventing superintelligent computers that can match... Read more ›
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06.04.2026 05:01
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