The Information

Hony Capital founder and CEO John Zhao. Photo by Bloomberg.

SPACs Spread to China as ByteDance Investor Hony Capital Preps Listing

By Juro Osawa · Feb 24, 2021 6:38am PST

The SPAC boom is spreading to China. Hony Capital, a major private equity firm which has investments in companies such as TikTok owner ByteDance and WeWork’s China unit, is preparing to list a special purpose acquisition company in the U.S. That will make it one of the first Chinese private equity giants to jump on the global SPAC... The SPAC boom is spreading to China. Hony Capital, a major private equity firm which has...

Craig Federighi, Apple's senior vice president of software engineering, unveils Apple's sign-in button in 2019. Photo by AP.

Apple’s App Sign-in Button Becomes Hot-Button Issue in U.S. Antitrust Probe

By Josh Sisco · Feb 23, 2021 1:25pm PST · 1 comment

More and more iPhone apps are offering people the option of signing up by using information stored with Apple, adding to the array of quick sign-in formats that let people skip typing in their email address and other details. But how Apple is implementing this option—requiring it on all apps that offer sign-in options from other firms like... More and more iPhone apps are offering people the option of signing up by using information...

An image from the upcoming Disney movie 'Soul'. Photo courtesy of Disney

Data Reveals 40% of Disney+ Subscribers Are in the U.S.

By Wayne Ma and Tom Dotan · Feb 23, 2021 6:01am PST · 1 comment

Disney’s flagship video-streaming service, Disney+, has quickly emerged as the only true competitor to Netflix, signing up nearly 100 million subscribers globally after 15 months, about half as many as Netflix has accumulated after a decade. Now, previously unreported internal data obtained by The Information shows just how reliant Disney... Disney’s flagship video-streaming service, Disney+, has quickly emerged as the only true...

Katana's Kristjan Vilosius (from left to right), Priit Kaasik and Hannes Kert. Photo provided by Katana

As Shopify Surges, So Are the Software Startups Riding Its Coattails

By Mark Di Stefano · Feb 22, 2021 3:00pm PST

Katana's Kristjan Vilosius (from left to right), Priit Kaasik and Hannes Kert. Photo provided by Katana

As Shopify Surges, So Are the Software Startups Riding Its Coattails

By Mark Di Stefano · Feb 22, 2021 3:00pm PST

Shopify’s stock has more than quadrupled since shoppers began flocking at the start of the pandemic to the online stores of the smaller merchants Shopify serves. And now investors are getting interested in business tool startups that piggyback on Shopify. In the latest example, a small Estonian startup, Katana, has raised $11 million in... Shopify’s stock has more than quadrupled since shoppers began flocking at the start of the...

Aviatrix CEO Steve Mullaney. Photo provided by Aviatrix

Cloud Startup Aviatrix Raises Round at Valuation Over $700 Million

By Kevin McLaughlin · Feb 22, 2021 6:00am PST

A startup that helps companies avoid networking foul-ups when they run applications in the cloud is grabbing attention from investors. The startup, Aviatrix, recently closed $75 million in Series D financing in a round led by a new investor, General Catalyst. The funding values Aviatrix at more than $700 million, roughly double its $346 million... A startup that helps companies avoid networking foul-ups when they run applications in the cloud...

Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella. Photo by Bloomberg

Microsoft’s New Gig: A LinkedIn Freelancer Market Rivaling Upwork, Fiverr

By Amir Efrati · Feb 19, 2021 8:01am PST · 8 comments

LinkedIn is developing a new service called Marketplaces to let its 740 million users find and book freelancers, pitting it against publicly traded firms such as Upwork and Fiverr, according to two people with direct knowledge of the matter. The career-focused networking site owned by Microsoft wants to tap into a small but growing market for... LinkedIn is developing a new service called Marketplaces to let its 740 million users find and...

David Dobrik at the 2019 E! People's Choice Awards. Photo by AP

Camera App Dispo Starts Funding Talks with Sequoia, Andreessen Horowitz, Benchmark

By Kate Clark · Feb 17, 2021 11:58am PST · 10 comments

On Friday, Nitin Pachisia, co-founder of VC firm Unshackled Ventures, received a handful of digital invite codes to access photo-sharing app Dispo. There was one condition: Employees at Dispo “were explicit about not inviting a bunch of [venture capitalists],” said Pachisia, 41, an existing investor in the Los Angeles-based startup.... On Friday, Nitin Pachisia, co-founder of VC firm Unshackled Ventures, received a handful of...

Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey. Photo: Bloomberg

As Twitter’s Stock Soars, Employee Bonuses Drop

By Alex Heath · Feb 17, 2021 7:52am PST · 2 comments

Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey. Photo: Bloomberg

As Twitter’s Stock Soars, Employee Bonuses Drop

By Alex Heath · Feb 17, 2021 7:52am PST · 2 comments

Twitter has told its employees that they will receive a sliver of their corporate bonus target for 2020 after the company missed its internal revenue and profit goals amid the pandemic, according to two people with direct knowledge of the decision. The austerity measure underscores how Twitter’s financial performance lagged its larger tech... Twitter has told its employees that they will receive a sliver of their corporate bonus target...

Photo illustration by Mike Sullivan

Inside WeChat’s Struggle to Slow Down TikTok Owner ByteDance

By Juro Osawa · Feb 16, 2021 6:00am PST

A cartoon pig raps about the misery of job hunting during the pandemic. Another clip says a shortage of office toilet paper is a sign of a failing company. Both bite-size videos were posted online by Xiao Yang as part of his job marketing a company that sells online career services in China. His videos do pretty well on Douyin, a Chinese viral... A cartoon pig raps about the misery of job hunting during the pandemic. Another clip says a...

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg. Photo: Bloomberg

Facebook Plans Smartwatch With Focus on Messaging, Health

By Alex Heath and Wayne Ma · Feb 12, 2021 1:13pm PST · 3 comments

Facebook is building a smartwatch it hopes to start selling next year, according to people with direct knowledge of the device. The watch will let wearers send messages using Facebook’s services and also offer health and fitness features, according to four of those people. Facebook’s planned foray into smartwatches would inch the... Facebook is building a smartwatch it hopes to start selling next year, according to people with...

A worker at a cell center in South Africa last July. Photo by Bloomberg

Sales of Amazon Call Center Service Increased 150% in 2020

By Kevin McLaughlin · Feb 11, 2021 6:01am PST · 4 comments

A few years ago, Amazon released a cloud service that used some of the same software smarts behind Alexa—its voice assistant—to automate customer service call centers for other companies. Amazon’s senior leaders were so bullish on the service, called Amazon Connect, that they made an internal forecast that it could reach... A few years ago, Amazon released a cloud service that used some of the same software smarts...

YouTube star Casey Neistat, who is an investor in Stir Money. Photo: AP

Andreessen Horowitz Wins Deal for Creator Economy Startup Stir at $100 Million Valuation

By Kate Clark and Amir Efrati · Feb 10, 2021 2:45pm PST · 8 comments

YouTube star Casey Neistat, who is an investor in Stir Money. Photo: AP

Andreessen Horowitz Wins Deal for Creator Economy Startup Stir at $100 Million Valuation

By Kate Clark and Amir Efrati · Feb 10, 2021 2:45pm PST · 8 comments

Andreessen Horowitz recently won a competitive deal to lead the Series A financing of Stir Money, a startup whose software helps video and audio producers, writers and performers manage the income they generate from ads on social media and via direct payments from fans. The Silicon Valley investment firm valued the young startup, which is... Andreessen Horowitz recently won a competitive deal to lead the Series A financing of Stir Money,...

NBCUniversal CEO Jeff Shell. Photo by Bloomberg

NBCUniversal’s Streaming Strategy Raises Prospect of WarnerMedia Merger

By Jessica Toonkel and Tom Dotan · Feb 10, 2021 2:05pm PST · 3 comments

As Netflix and Disney cement their leads over an array of rivals in the video-streaming market, top executives at Comcast and its NBCUniversal arm are in a quandary. Only 11.3 million households regularly watch NBCU’s Peacock service, far fewer than use competing services, according to recent internal data viewed by The Information. NBCU... As Netflix and Disney cement their leads over an array of rivals in the video-streaming market,...

Gennady Golovkin celebrates his victory over Kamil Szeremeta during a middleweight title fight in December. Photo by AP

A Netflix for Sports Rolls With the Punches

By Jessica Toonkel, Tom Dotan and Mark Di Stefano · Feb 10, 2021 6:01am PST

A few years ago, it seemed like DAZN had all the ingredients for fulfilling its vision of becoming a global Netflix for sports, including a billionaire backer who had already made a killing betting on media and a leader who was the onetime head of ESPN. It even had a goofy, vowel-challenged name (pronounced dah-zone) that hinted at its plans for... A few years ago, it seemed like DAZN had all the ingredients for fulfilling its vision of...

Images by Shutterstock; illustration by Mike Sullivan

Inside Apple’s Mad Dash to Avoid Shipping Delays Amid Pandemic

By Wayne Ma · Feb 8, 2021 6:02am PST · 5 comments

The Covid-19 pandemic has caused havoc for manufacturers shipping goods around the world. Just ask executives at Apple why they shipped empty cardboard boxes from the U.S. to Asia, the reverse of the usual route. Last February, Apple’s Singapore distribution center ran out of the brown mailing boxes needed to fulfill a spike in iPad orders... The Covid-19 pandemic has caused havoc for manufacturers shipping goods around the world. Just...

A truck and trailers outside an Amazon fulfillment center in Poland. Photo by Bloomberg

In Need of Truckers, Amazon Plans Incubator to Create More Shipping Companies

By Paris Martineau · Feb 5, 2021 6:01am PST · 2 comments

A truck and trailers outside an Amazon fulfillment center in Poland. Photo by Bloomberg

In Need of Truckers, Amazon Plans Incubator to Create More Shipping Companies

By Paris Martineau · Feb 5, 2021 6:01am PST · 2 comments

Amazon is finding it can’t hire enough trucking companies to haul all its freight. So it decided to help would-be trucking entrepreneurs start their own firms. The retail behemoth is working on an incubator program that aims to train hundreds of people to launch their own trucking businesses exclusively transporting freight for... Amazon is finding it can’t hire enough trucking companies to haul all its freight. So it...

Apple CEO Tim Cook announces new products last October. Screenshot of Apple event via YouTube

New Apple Mixed-Reality Headset Details: Swappable Headbands, Eye-Tracking

By Alex Heath and Wayne Ma · Feb 4, 2021 6:02am PST · 22 comments

A mixed-reality headset Apple is developing will be equipped with more than a dozen cameras for tracking hand movements and showing video of the real world to people wearing it, along with ultra-high-resolution 8K displays and advanced technology for eye tracking, according to a person with direct knowledge of the device. Those are among a bevy... A mixed-reality headset Apple is developing will be equipped with more than a dozen cameras for...

A still image from an Amazon instructional video about its new deliver van cameras. Credit: Amazon via Vimeo

Amazon Plans AI-Powered Cameras to Monitor Delivery Van Drivers

By Mark Di Stefano · Feb 3, 2021 12:01pm PST

Big Brother could be coming to Amazon’s delivery vans soon. The company plans to install high-tech video cameras in Amazon delivery vans in a move that it says is aimed at improving safety but that will surely ignite questions about privacy. The company recently disclosed the plans by sharing an instructional video explaining the cameras... Big Brother could be coming to Amazon’s delivery vans soon. The company plans to install...

Didi's app on a phone in China. Photo by Didi.

After $1 Billion Profit From Rides, Didi Chuxing Considers Second-Half IPO

By Yunan Zhang · Feb 3, 2021 6:00am PST

Despite a nationwide lockdown in the beginning of last year that put China at a standstill, Chinese ride-hailing leader Didi Chuxing managed to finish the year with a 10% increase in rides compared to 2019. That translated to a net profit from its core ride-hailing business of roughly $1 billion in 2020, according to two people with knowledge of... Despite a nationwide lockdown in the beginning of last year that put China at a standstill,...

Photos by Bloomberg; Shutterstock. Illustration by Mike Sullivan

How Google Learned to Embrace Its Inner Oracle

By Kevin McLaughlin and Amir Efrati · Feb 1, 2021 6:00am PST · 1 comment

Photos by Bloomberg; Shutterstock. Illustration by Mike Sullivan

How Google Learned to Embrace Its Inner Oracle

By Kevin McLaughlin and Amir Efrati · Feb 1, 2021 6:00am PST · 1 comment

Thomas Kurian wasn’t pleased. In mid-2019, a few months after Kurian had joined Google, the internet giant’s cloud computing service suffered a series of outages, including one that took down several of Google’s own services, along with those of major customers like Snap and Spotify. Kurian—CEO of Google Cloud—and... Thomas Kurian wasn’t pleased. In mid-2019, a few months after Kurian had joined Google, the...