 | Nov 08, 2024 | | | | Supported by  | | | | | TGIF! Amazon is discussing another multi billion-dollar investment in Anthropic. Airbnb's growth slowed further. Warner Bros. Discovery's CEO said Trump may help speed up the entertainment industry's consolidation.
| | | | Amazon, the largest cloud computing provider, is discussing making another multi billion-dollar investment in Anthropic, The Information reported on Thursday. During negotiations, Amazon has asked the OpenAI rival to use a large number of servers powered by AI chips the cloud provider developed in-house. Anthropic prefers to use Amazon servers powered by Nvidia-designed AI chips. The size of Amazon's total investment in Anthropic could depend on the outcome of this discussion, specifically on the number of Amazon chips Anthropic agrees to use. The deal talks show how even though both companies rely on each other, cloud providers and leading AI developers sometimes have competing priorities. Amazon a year ago agreed to invest up to $4 billion into Anthropic in a similar deal that was completed earlier this year. | | | | Airbnb's growth slowed further in the third quarter, with revenue expanding 10%, down one percentage point from the second quarter by eight points from the first quarter. The accommodation-booking service continues to churn out huge amounts of cash however, reporting $1.1 billion in free cash flow for the quarter. For the fiscal year so far, Airbnb has generated $4 billion in free cash flow. Airbnb forecast that fourth quarter growth could slow further, projecting growth of between 7.8% and 10%. Despite the slowdown, Airbnb stock was trading up 7.6% in after hours trading. | | | | Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav said the incoming Trump administration may help speed up much-needed consolidation in the entertainment industry, noting that "if the best content is going to win, there needs to be some consolidation…in order to have these businesses be stronger and to have a better consumer experience." Zaslav was the second media executive to signal hope for a more relaxed regulatory environment towards mergers, following Sinclair CEO Christopher Ripley, who said on Wednesday night that "it does feel like the clouyd over the industry is lifting here and we do think some much needed modernization of the regulations will be forthcoming." Zaslav told analysts that "there probably should have been more meaningful consolidation" in entertainment. He said big companies were beginning to discuss combinations of some kind, including through bundling of streaming services where companies take equity stakes in others. | | | | Baidu, which operates China's largest search engine, plans to announce a pair of AI-powered smart glasses amid the rising popularity of the products globally, Bloomberg reported. The move could accelerate demand for AI-powered smart glasses in China, a market that is currently served by local startups rather than big name players. Baidu's product will have cameras and microphones for capturing images and audio and will work with its main large-language model, known as Ernie, Bloomberg said. The Chinese company plans to unveil the glasses at an annual event in Shanghai next week and could launch it as soon as early next year, it added. Smart glasses don't have displays in their lenses but can contain prescription or polarized lenses. Over the past year, Meta has added AI features to its smart glasses in the U.S., allowing them to describe and provide information about a wearer's surroundings. However, U.S. companies like Meta currently don't offer AI services in China due to the country's tight regulations governing the industry. | | | | Pinterest's revenue growth slowed to 18% in the third quarter, even as its net income soared to $30.55 million and users grew steadily. Pinterest stock fell nearly 15% after the company projected even slower growth in the fourth quarter. The online scrapbooking company's growth had accelerated to above 20% in the first half, following a relatively weak 2023, after the company added features to make it easier for users to buy items they see on the site. For the fourth quarter, Pinterest projected growth of between 15% and 17%. At the same time, Pinterest showed relatively steady user growth of 11% globally. | | | | Snowflake CEO Sridhar Ramaswamy, who joined last year in its acquisition of AI search startup Neeva, is continuing to bolster his senior leadership ranks. Dwarak Rajagopal, a senior engineering director at Google who worked in a unit that builds large language models for products like YouTube and search, is joining Snowflake next week as vice president of engineering for AI and machine learning, according to a person with direct knowledge of the hire. Rajagopal's hiring, which hasn't been reported, could help Snowflake better navigate a shift to generative AI, which it has struggled with. It comes less than two months after Ramaswamy promoted another former Googler—his Neeva co-founder, Vivek Raghunathan—to oversee Snowflake's engineering team. A Snowflake spokesperson declined to comment. Prior to joining Google, Rajagopal held senior engineering roles at Meta, where he worked on its PyTorch set of machine learning tools, as well as at Uber, where he led development of self-driving car software projects. Before that, he spent eight years in engineering roles at Apple and five years at chipmaker AMD. | | | | Trendy athleisure maker Vuori will allow some employees and investors to sell shares in a deal that values the company at around $5.5 billion, Bloomberg reported Thursday. The tender offer is around $825 million, the report said, and is being led by growth equity firms General Atlantic and Stripes. The offer hasn't closed, and the terms could change. The valuation would mark a sharp increase from the company's last valuation of $4 billion, when SoftBank invested $400 million in the company in late 2021. Norwest Venture Partners is another of the company's large backers. The secondary sale could signal Vuori has no ambitions to try to go public any time soon—the company at one point had been preparing for an IPO this year. | | | | Electric vehicle maker Rivian reported lower deliveries and a 35% decline in third-quarter revenue in part because of a shortage of a key part. The company's quarterly loss declined from a year earlier because of lower expenses, and Rivian said it expects to post its first gross profit, meaning revenue will exceed the cost of making its vehicles, in the current quarter. Shares, which have lost more than half their value this year, rose slightly in after-hours trading. Rivian has cut production because of a shortage of a part for its motors. The shortage has affected Rivian's production of delivery vans for Amazon, among other customers. The company said it had reached an agreement with LG Energy Solution to supply battery cells for its forthcoming R2 sport utility vehicle. In June, Volkswagen agreed to invest up to $5 billion in Rivian to help the company fund its continued losses. | | | | Warner Bros. Discovery reported a 4% drop in revenues and lower profits, as weakness at its studio and its cable channels was partly offset by growth at its streaming services. WBD's studios segment experienced a sharp decline in profits at its studios, where recent movie releases generated far lower returns than "Barbie" a year earlier. The TV networks business was hurt by cord-cutting, as revenue from distribution fees fell 8% ad ad revenue fell 13%. But WBD reported 8% higher revenues at its streaming operation, while profits more than doubled to $289 million. The number of subscribers to the company's various services rose 7.2 million to 110.5 million, although the growth was entirely overseas. U.S. subscribers were flat. WBD stock, which has been in the doldrums for months, rose 15.6% to $9.69. | | | | Anysphere, which has created a code generation assistant called Cursor, and Mercor, a staffing provider for OpenAI and other AI developer companies, are both speaking to investors about raising at valuations of over $2 billion, The Information reported Wednesday. Both companies have landed term sheets. Anysphere, whose Cursor helps developers autocomplete and rewrite code, has seen subscription revenue rise to a pace of nearly $50 million a year, up from more than $20 million in revenue per year as of October. Mercor's revenue is said to reach a pace of $50 million annually. Both companies work with OpenAI in different ways. Anysphere uses some of OpenAI's models and raised money from the ChatGPT-maker. Early stage investor Neo as well as Thrive Capital and Andreessen Horowitz have also backed the company. Mercor helps companies like OpenAI that need subject matter expertise in subjects like law and medicine to help train models. Another major AI developer, Meta Platforms, also uses Mercor. | | | | | Popular articles
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