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Greetings! Here's news we didn't expect: Apple is endorsing Amazon's cloud service. That's what happened on Tuesday at Amazon Web Service's annual conference, re:Invent, when an Apple artificial intelligence executive, Benoit Dupin, took the stage to talk up AWS—and to mention that Apple is using AWS' custom-made chips for search and testing its AI chips. That's quite the marketing coup for AWS. Whether it amounts to anything more than good publicity is hard to say. Apple hasn't yet committed to using Amazon's AI chips for Apple Intelligence and other AI products, which is what matters. (For now, therefore, Nvidia's dominance of AI chips looks safe.) What Apple's appearance at the Amazon event perhaps demonstrates more is the continuing prevalence of you-scratch-my-back-I'll-scratch-yours dealings between big tech companies. It's no secret Apple is a big customer of AWS, as it is of Google Cloud (we've got details in our cloud database). Presumably Apple extracted some valuable concessions from AWS in return for Dupin's appearance. At the very least, the iPhone maker likely got a big discount on AWS services. But the concessions could have been broader. It's perhaps not a coincidence that just two months ago, Amazon announced that Apple's video-streaming service, Apple TV+, would now be available via Amazon Prime Video. That move surely expanded the potential audience for Apple TV+, putting it in front of Prime Video's subscribers and making it easy for them to sign up. And while Amazon typically takes a big cut from the subscription revenues earned by outside services on Prime Video, it may have given Apple a break on that fee. To be sure, Apple and Amazon have been doing business together in mutually beneficial ways for years. Regulators scrutinized the deal a few years back that allowed Apple to set up its own storefront on Amazon. Business Insider subsequently reported how Apple gets special treatment from Amazon: Its storefront doesn't get deluged with the junky ads that show up elsewhere on Amazon. These dealings doesn't mean each company gets exactly what it wants. To avoid Apple's App Store fees, Amazon blocks users of its Kindle devices from buying new Kindle titles directly on the Kindle iPhone app, which makes for an awful consumer experience. Still, Dupin's appearance at re:Invent today showed how Amazon and Apple remain the best of frenemies. Salesforce reported a slow-and-steady-as-she-goes October quarter result on Tuesday, with revenue rising 8%, the same growth rate as in the July quarter. Salesforce projected growth of between 7% and 9%, suggesting nothing much will change next quarter. Overall, the software sales behemoth is headed for a blah year, with revenue projected to rise between 8% and 9% compared with 11% last fiscal year and 18% the year before that. On Tuesday's call, CEO Marc Benioff pivoted quickly to a long and winding discussion of the potential of AI to transform Salesforce. That's all well and good, but we're more interested in the latest quarter. And drilling down into the numbers shows that Salesforce is seeing a severe slowdown in its integration and analytics segment—which includes its MuleSoft and Tableau services, and which generates nearly 15% of Salesforce's revenue. Growth in that segment slowed to 5% from 14% in the second quarter, a far weaker performance than for any other segment. Drilling down more, Salesforce's disclosures showed that MuleSoft's growth slowed from 13% in the second quarter to 1% in the latest quarter, while Tableau's growth slowed from 11% to 5%. Maybe the slowdown is only a short term blip. Salesforce said last quarter that the segment's growth would be hurt by a shift toward subscription-based services and away from traditional software licenses. MuleSoft, in particular, was dependent on the old-fashioned style of software licenses, which Salesforce is apparently trying to shift away from. If that's true, then Salesforce should see a pickup in these businesses soon. But another notable data point was that Slack's revenue growth dropped by more than half in the quarter, to 8% from 17%. Could it be that Slack has worn out its welcome? • OpenAI has hired its first chief marketing officer: Kate Rouch, most recently CMO at cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase, the company announced on Tuesday. • Meta Platforms President of Global Affairs Nick Clegg said in a blog post Tuesday that the company was committed to "enabling free expression," as Meta leaders seek to endear themselves to the incoming Trump administration. In the post, Clegg acknowledged that Meta had gone overboard on content moderation in the past. • Brian Singerman, a general partner at Founders Fund who has backed Affirm and Oscar Health, is stepping back from his role at the firm, he announced on Tuesday. More than 100,000 readers rely on The Information's Creator Economy newsletter for coverage of the creator startups making waves, big tech companies' social media playbooks, and scoops on the sector's biggest hires. Start receiving the free newsletter here. | 
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