The Information's TITV

Cory talks to Scott Wiener, a member of the California state senate, about how the future of the tech industry in San Francisco. We wrote this week about the CEOs of Dropbox, Brex and Splunk leaving the city permanently. Wiener isn't sure the trend will last. "There have been a lot of speculative predictions that I'm not sure will play out," he said. Related: Tech CEOs Are Saying Goodbye to San Fr...

Alex talks about the struggle inside Facebook over how to deal with misleading posts from politicians. Cory gets the inside story from Nick Bastone about struggles at Alphabet's Loon, the experimental company that's tried to bring internet connectivity to rural areas.

Paris explores Amazon's plan to own more parts of the delivery process with the building out of its trucking fleets. Wayne talks about Apple's fraying relationship with manufacturer Foxconn.

How can we start to make sense of the implications of this election for tech? Cory talks to three tech-savvy political veterans for early takeaways. Guests: Jim Messina, CEO of the Messina Group and former campaign manager to Barack Obama in 2012 Bruce Mehlman, founder of Mehlman Castagnetti Rosen & Thomas, a lobbying firm that works with tech companies Betsy Hoover, co-founder of Higher Groun...

Will Uber and Lyft drivers become full-time employees, or something more like contractors with benefits? California's Proposition 22 will help determine the fate of "gig" work, as well as the financial fortunes of Uber, Lyft, DoorDash and Instacart. Tom and Cory break down this high-stakes battle ahead of Election Day, with some help from Uber and Lyft reporter extraordinaire Amir Efrati. We also...

Nick Bastone and Chris Stern join to talk about the DOJ's antitrust suit against Google and where things go from here. And Jessica Toonkel and Tom dive in the the brief life and sudden death of the video streaming service Quibi.

Tom talks to Kate Clark about the state of funding for female-led startups, which has sunk even lower during the pandemic. We also interview Tracy Chou, founder of Blockparty and Sara Mauskopf, cofounder of Winnie, who discussed their experiences raising money for their startups.  And Cory talked to Nick Bastone and Humu's Liz Fosslien to talk about why some workers feel they've become less e...

Cory Weinberg talks to Tom Dotan about the success of Disney+ and why the app's importance has bred tensions at the entertainment giant. Then, Cory talks antitrust and tech culture with Maelle Gavet, a former executive at real estate startup Compass and online travel firm Booking. Gavet recently published a book about her experience with what she calls "tech's empathy problem."

Zoe talks about this week's Coinbase controversy and how different CEOs feel about taking activist stands as a company. Then Alex talks about Facebook's battle with Apple, this time over messaging and integrating into iMessage. 

It seems like in Silicon Valley is starting a SPAC. Reid Hoffman, Peter Thiel, Kevin Hartz, Chamath Palihapitiya, maybe even your roommate. Reporters Cory Weinberg and Ross Matican trace the origins of the SPAC surge. We explain why these special-purpose acquisition companies have become so popular, some of the regulatory history, and what some of the downsides are.  In this episode, we talke...

This week we're presenting highlights from two interviews from the WTF Summit earlier this month. Emerson Collective's president Laurene Powell Jobs discusses her group's work on voting access as well as her ownership of The Atlantic magazine. Jenna Lyons, the former creative director for J Crew, talks about starting from the ground up with her new beauty brand.

We speak to some brave souls around the world who ventured back into the movie theater. And Richard Rushfield of The Ankler joins to give his take on how well the movie industry has faired these last two weekends back and what it all means for Hollywood.

With the TikTok drama getting even messier and tech relations between the US and China at an all time low, we check in with Jessica Lessin about the latest. Then Cory talks to Kate Clark about how the payments firm Stripe has become a force in venture capital, often edging out established firms to get in on deals.

The second part of our Airbnb series looks at Domio, a startup that tried to build a business on the Airbnb platform. Paris tells us how she stumbled across the Domio story and how the company gamed loopholes in city guidelines about short term rentals. And Cory explains what the Domio saga means for Airbnb as it heads toward an IPO. Background reading: How One Rental Startup Gamed Airbnb

Cory talks about the rise of parties at Airbnb rentals and how it's poised to be a huge headache for the company as it heads down the path of going public.

Kevin talks about his profile of Marc Benioff, the Salesforce CEO and philanthropist, which looked at how he and his company are managing during the pandemic. Especially when Salesforce's marquee event, Dreamforce, appears to be off this year. Also Tom chats with Alex about Apple's changes to ad tracking and the effect it will have on Facebook—as well as the gaming companies that rely heavily on F...

Yunan joins to explain why the TikTok saga and the US government's decision to ban the app, unless it sells to an American company, has hurt the reputation of Zhang Yiming, the CEO of the app's parent company ByteDance. And Cory speaks to Kate about Headspin and the case of the company that had to give back some of its capital to investors after its revenue projections proved to be wildly off base...

It was a big week for tech and politics as the four leaders of the major US tech companies testified in front of the House Antitrust subcommittee. We spoke to Alex Heath and Chris Stern about which CEOs weathered the questions from lawmakers best and where the antitrust investigations go from here. Then Cory speaks to Anissa Gardizy about delivery startup GoPuff and the problems its skyrocketing g...

Cory Weinberg interviews Steven Galanis, the CEO of Cameo, a fast-growing startup that allows major and minor celebrities can send messages to fans. Steven discusses Cameo's growth story, why this is a "new golden age" of consumer apps, and why Apple's app-store monopoly should get government scrutiny. 

Paris Martineau discusses her reporting on problems at the secretive healthcare initiative Haven, and what the turmoil tells us about its benefactor Amazon. Four Information reporters give their takes on which companies are ripe for acquisitions.

Nick Bastone gives us an update on the digital advertising industry and compares the trajectories of Google and Facebook during the second quarter. Jessica Lessin gives her take on whether it matters that the annual Sun Valley conference was called off this year because of the pandemic. 

We talk with John Redgrave, the CEO of content moderation startup Sentropy about the challenges of curbing hate speech online. Then Cory checks in on the state of the travel industry with Jon Staff the CEO of vacation startup Getaway.

Alex joins to talk about how Facebook went from hero to heel as America careened from the coronavirus pandemic to the Black Lives Matter protests. Then Chris Stern discusses the state of the anti-trust investigations pending against big tech companies and the behind the scenes role Pierre Omidyar is playing in advancing the cases. Background Reading Facebook's Month of Whiplash The Tech Billionair...

As part of our Juneteenth episode, we're focusing on how tech companies and tech products can contribute to major policy changes. We talk to Catherine Bracy, executive director of the Tech Equity Collaborative, about why tech companies should fight for racial justice through property tax reform. Then we hear from Nykidra Robinson, who runs Black Girls Vote, which helped drive higher voter turnout...

We talk to Wayne Ma about Apple's attempts to have robots handle the manufacturing process at their factories and why it hasn't worked. Then we speak with Kate Clark about the federal paycheck protection program loan and the startups that took advantage of it.  Special guests this episode included David Bourne, a scientist at the Robotics Institute at the Carnegie Mellon University and Jonath...