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Greetings! Just after Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz surprised the tech world by backing Donald Trump for the presidency a few months ago, liberals took glee in the fact that the two venture capitalists made the political equivalent of an investment no-no: They bought at the top of the market. After their endorsement, Joe Biden dropped out, paving the way for Kamala Harris, who is running slightly ahead of Trump in national polls. It is becoming clearer, however, that Trumpism is here to stay in Silicon Valley, even if Trump loses in November. I started thinking about this today while reading my colleague Josh Koehn's excellent profile on Ron Conway, a liberal venture capitalist who had wielded power through close connections to Nancy Pelosi and other Democrats. The story ends with the following quote from venture capitalist Roy Bahat: "As long as Ron is alive and rich, it's hard to see him stepping away." Conway isn't the only one to whom that adage applies. On the other side of the political spectrum are some of the most influential executives and investors in tech, who are likely to stay rich, alive and influential for decades. They're not likely to become less aggrieved, less conspiratorial, less skeptical of regulation or less resentful of liberals anytime soon. Most obvious is Elon Musk, who is 53 years old and wields perhaps the most far-reaching power in Silicon Valley, through his control of Tesla, X, X.AI and SpaceX. He is an important spiritual figure in the tech world, with a stature based on engineers' ardent admiration for what he has built. His increasingly outspoken, right-wing and sometimes erratic posts appear to have emboldened a younger generation of Silicon Valley leaders, including Sequoia Capital's Shaun Maguire (responsible for the firm's relationship to Musk), who today rose to the defense of a much-debunked right-wing meme that Haitians were eating cats and dogs in Springfield, Ohio. There's also a growing tech media ecosystem sympathetic to Trump, such as the popular "All-In" podcast or tech analysis newsletter "Pirate Wires," which I think has staying power. This isn't a phase. While Silicon Valley has long been aligned largely with liberal social causes, its innovations have long been driven by money and free markets. There will continue to be a big market for Trumpism. - Nvidia challenger startups are inking deals to sell their chips to customers in the Middle East, Natasha Mascarenhas reported.
- Meanwhile, ByteDance is ramping up efforts to build its own AI chip and is aiming for production by 2026, Wayne Ma and Qianer Liu reported.
- Speaking of ByteDance, be sure to read Kate Clark's interview with one venture capitalist who is buying up shares of the company, despite the threat of a U.S. TikTok ban.
- Elsewhere in the land of AI, Erin Woo reported that developers are finding Google's AI tool Gemini tool more challenging to use compared with competitors' tools.
- Nvidia is circling another AI startup, recently proposing an acquisition of OctoAI for $165 million, we scooped.
- The government's second big trial against Google over antitrust matters could have an especially big impact on YouTube, Sahil Patel reported.
- For Pro subscribers, Jon Victor published Notion's Org Chart.
- Kalley Huang reported that WhatsApp is where most people use Meta's AI tools.
- Start your weekend reading off with Ann Gehan's in-depth story about a Reid Hoffman–backed retail company that people can use to design jewelry with AI—and then have it made and shipped to them.
- Microsoft is reopening a Pennsylvania nuclear power plant to help power the company's AI data centers (more here).
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