Welcome, Weekenders! In this newsletter:âą The Big Read: Pickleball is the pastâthe tech elite is obsessed with padel. ⹠Plus, an Americana-themed batch of Recommendationsâour weekly pop culture picks: âThe Americans,â âEast of Eden,â âHigh Desert Daydream,â âLonesome Dove,â USA vs. Belgium, and âThe Twilight Zone.â The yearâs midpoint is an apt moment for some studied reflection, and Iâve been thinking about how much has changed in the last six... Read more âș
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For Google employees, the news was a devastating turn in an already disorienting year. In May, a 31-year-old senior engineer at the company, later identified by police as Kevin Rawlings, died at Googleâs New York office late at night in an apparent suicide. Rawlingsâ death followed that of another Google employee in New York, a 33-year-old advertising partnerships lead named Jacob Pratt, who also died by apparent suicide in February... Read more âș
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Welcome back!Since we last wrote about The Informationâs Generative AI Database, we added eight companies. We now track 55 companies building generative artificial intelligence technology or services. At least 10 of these companies have at least one founder who previously worked at Alphabet, including at its AI labs, Google Brain and DeepMind. At least five companies were founded by a former Meta Platforms employee, and at least three were founded... Read more âș
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After more than a year of stalled merger and acquisition activity, the deals market is showing signs of life. Bankers, lawyers and private equity dealmakers say theyâve had more discussions about potential acquisitions in the past several weeks than in the past year. And âitâs not just kicking tires,â said Brian McPeake, co-chair of law firm Goodwin Procterâs private equity practice. Formal, banker-led corporate auctions are back after a period... Read more âș
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Good news for institutional crypto investors: The courts have your back. But as for individual traders: Youâre on your own. That was the spirit of a New York district judgeâs ruling on an SEC lawsuit against Ripple Labs, which alleged that the crypto firm illegally sold securities. In a split-the-crypto decision, the judge ruled that Ripple Labs' sales of its XRP cryptocurrency to institutional investors were a violation of securities... Read more âș
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OpenAI is on the prowl for a seasoned venture capitalist or two to run its startup investment fund.The San Francisco developer of ChatGPT is gearing up to soon start raising its second fund, which will be far larger than its $175 million debut, representatives of OpenAI have told several venture capital investors. They want an established investor to lead more AI startup deals. Poaching a successful venture capitalist from a... Read more âș
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A startup that rode the pandemic-era frenzy around OnlyFans is selling to a rival. Fanhouse, which operates a website where creators charge fans for exclusive content, has agreed to sell itself to Passes, a Miami-based membership service for creators and their superfans, Fanhouse CEO Khoi Le and Passes CEO Lucy Guo said in an interview with The Information. Itâs not clear how much Passes, which Wednesday announced $9 million in... Read more âș
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The crypto world is celebrating after a federal judge issued a long-awaited ruling in the Securities and Exchange Commissionâs case against Ripple Labs, saying some sales of Rippleâs xrp token did not constitute illegal securities sales. Shares in top U.S. crypto exchange Coinbase soared 25% after the ruling dropped, and xrp tokens are up 78% over the past 24 hours. But the ruling on Tuesday wasnât a complete victory for... Read more âș
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The California Supreme Court recently agreed to hear a challenge from labor unions to Proposition 22, which classified gig workers as independent contractors rather than as employees. Many gig workers want to be independent contractors, but Prop 22 doesnât honor the spirit of what this means. I run a company that works frequently with gig workers, specifically food-delivery and ride-share drivers. Many of them prefer the flexibility of being independent... Read more âș
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In some ways, Source Code Capital is Chinaâs version of Andreessen Horowitzâitâs a relative newbie to venture investing that has surged to the top echelons of the Chinese venture capital industry and raised billions of dollarsâin large part thanks to founder Cao Yiâs early bet on ByteDance. In fact, some of the shares he got from an initial investment of less than $4 million in the companyâthe powerhouse behind the... Read more âș
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Three years ago, Tesla CEO Elon Musk pledged to halve the cost of batteries and produce a $25,000 electric vehicle for the mass market. Much of the savings was to come from changing how the batteriesâ electrodes were produced, using a dry process that would eliminate thousands of gallons of chemicals, solvent and water.Now, in a new paper, Jeff Dahn, a principal battery engineer at Tesla and physics professor emeritus... Read more âș
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Talk about kicking the can down the road. Disney today extended CEO Bob Igerâs contract by two more years, giving him until the end of 2026 to fix the beleaguered House of Mouse. Oh, and heâll work on a CEO succession plan, the company said, although it made the same comment when it brought Iger back to replace his short-lived successor (the other BobâChapek) last November. Yeah, weâve all heard... Read more âș
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Venture capital investors face stiff competition in artificial intelligence startup deals from Google and Nvidia, which are increasingly winning stakes in the startups by offering founders price breaks on cloud computing or chips. But VC investors face competition from another quarter: corporations that are willing to pay top dollar to buy startups outright. Two recent AI acquisitions demonstrate the issue. Venture firm Menlo Ventures in May offered to invest in... Read more âș
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The parched market for initial public offerings is likely to see a new entrant soon: a canned water company. Liquid Death, the irreverent water brand backed by venture capitalists, has hired Goldman Sachs to lead a potential IPO as soon as next spring, according to a person familiar with the matter. The decision follows one of the few IPO âbake-offsââthe process by which banks vie for IPO business by pitching... Read more âș
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Two summers ago, when a group of employees who previously worked at newsletter and media startup Morning Brew was fundraising for their newsletter startup Beehiiv, they had to contend with Meta Platformsâ newly launched Bulletin newsletter service, Twitterâs Revue, as well as startup Substack, which had recently been valued at $650 million. A lot has changed since then. Beehiiv was âplaying from behind,â said its CEO Tyler Denk in an... Read more âș
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Among the many unusual facts about OpenAI, the buzzy startup behind the hugely popular chatbot ChatGPT, the most extraordinary may be that Sam Altman, its CEO and co-founder, doesnât have any equity in it. He gave up the opportunity for a huge potential payday, he says, simply because he doesnât need the money. But Altman, 38, has a head-spinning number of investments in plenty of other companies he believes will... Read more âș
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Fierce competition between two of the hottest and most highly valued security startups has turned into a legal battle. Orca Security, which became known for spotting glaring security flaws in Microsoft software, on Wednesday sued its biggest competitor, Wiz, alleging it illegally copied patented software that monitors data stored on cloud servers. Orcaâs lawsuit, filed in federal court in Delaware, claims that Wiz âwas birthed from the very beginning as... Read more âș
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Itâs hard to talk about crypto these days without bringing up regulation in the U.S., specifically, the Securities and Exchange Commissionâs recent crackdown on top crypto exchanges Binance and Coinbase.  Where does this leave NFTs? The SEC has gone after exchanges and other crypto companies by alleging that most crypto tokens they list are securities. And in February, a federal judge ruled that NBA Top Shot creator Dapper Labs must... Read more âș
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HSINCHU, TaiwanâFor decades, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co., the worldâs largest chip manufacturer, has been notorious for its extreme culture of secrecy and security, designed to both prevent cyberattacks and to ensure that employees and outsiders donât steal information about the companyâs sophisticated manufacturing techniques. But the company has started to relax some of its cumbersome workplace security restrictions as it struggles to attract talent and retain existing workers, current employe Read more âș
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Lina Khan needs to work on her aim. A judgeâs ruling today against the Federal Trade Commissionâs request to block Microsoftâs purchase of Activision was so definitive that it has to hurt the regulatorâs credibility, at least when it comes to tech cases. Coming immediately after a similar defeat involving Meta Platforms, the ruling suggests that by going after all tech, all the time, Khan is overreaching and risks achieving... Read more âș
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TikTokâs efforts to encourage its users to buy goods directly from the app, dubbed TikTok Shop, have gotten off to a slow start, as my colleagues reported earlier this year. But some influencers who have gained a following on the short-form video app have found some early success.Arlene Resendiz, a 29-year-old tutor who teaches math tips and counts 1.5 million followers under her main TikTok handle @silentmath, generates most of... Read more âș
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07.07.2026 19:13
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