TechCheck

Shares of Tesla are sinking today, giving back its gains for the week but still outperforming the rest of the megacaps as investors bank on its proposition around full self-driving launches and AI. Plus, Apple is gearing up for its highly-anticipated “Glowtime” event on Monday, where it’s expected to unveil the iPhone 16 with AI features. But will it be enough to help the tech giant stake its plac...

Valuations for AI startups are continuing to skyrocket. This time, OpenAI co-founder Ilya Sutskever raising a whopping $1 billion as a seed round for his AI startup Safe Superintelligence Inc, with just around 10 employees and nowhere close to having a product. It's the epitome of a growing trend of a breakneck gen AI race for top talent.  Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz....

Antitrust pressure against Google is ramping up this week, with a joint filing today from Google and the DOJ outlining their timeline for remedies from the Search case, followed quickly by the beginning of an ad tech trial. Plus, the post Labor Day-period is typically a busy one for IPOs, but not the case this year. We discuss the outlook for IPOs, market trends, and big tech’s antitrust concerns...

Megacaps including Microsoft, Google and Amazon have been getting creative with how they’re poaching talent from top AI startups. Google with Character.ai, Microsoft with Inflection and Amazon’s faux-acquisition of Adept. They hire away prominent founders and talent and cut a deal to license technology… without actually buying the startups. It’s a playbook that skirts the regulatory crackdown on b...

Salesforce earnings tonight a major test of AI's impact on the software winter, especially after the CEO of Buy Now Pay Later giant Klarna said he aims to use AI to cut his workforce in half, and that he's shutting down a lot of SaaS providers, including Salesforce and Workday. Plus, Box shares are jumping after beating on the top and bottom lines and hiking their revenue outlook. We speak to CEO...

Elon Musk has now come out in support of a California bill to regulate AI safety, in stark contrast to big names including Google, Meta, OpenaAI and Andreessen Horowitz, which are all opposed. It represents a larger divide within big tech, which is split on whether AI should be regulated and who should be the ones doing it.  Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for informa...

Telegram CEO Arrest Sparks Free Speech Debate  Description: The founder of the Dubai-based app Telegram was arrested in France this weekend as part of an investigation into criminal activity on the encrypted messaging platform. It has broader implications for U.S. social apps as they gear up for an unprecedented election, the first with easily-accessible AI-generated content, and it's sparked a de...

There were more headwinds today for China’s already-slumping consumer and e-commerce demand, after Walmart announced it was completely offloading its stake in JD.com and bargain retail giant Shein hit Temu with a lawsuit. Plus, the AI startup darling Anthropic is now facing a new class-action lawsuit, accusing it of copyright infringement and stealing the work of hundreds of thousands of books.  H...

Some of the world’s biggest banks loaned Elon Musk $13 billion to secure the social platform Twitter, now X. But according to new data from Pitchbook, the Twitter takeover now represents the worst buyout for banks since the Great Financial Crisis, as the platform struggles to retain advertisers and has been marked down by more than 70% from one of the acquisition financers, Fidelity.  Hosted by Si...

20 years ago today, Google debuted on the Nasdaq with a $23 billion market cap as a mere search engine company. Today, it’s now ballooned to a $2 trillion megcap with its hands in cloud, chips, AI and more. It also used an unconventional listing method: a Dutch auction, which let employees and retail investors participate more in the IPO. We spoke to Michael Grimes, the investment banker known as...

After losing a landmark antitrust case over its dominance in the search market, Google is now facing the real threat of a court-mandated breakup of the search giant. But on the heels of a flashy ‘Made by Google’ event showcasing new phones and AI features, Google is now more deeply integrated than ever – an ecosystem within search, cloud, streaming, hardware… and generative artificial intelligence...

Waymo’s self-driving cars are all over San Francisco roads. But at night, they park themselves and recently have been honking and keeping one neighborhood’s residents up at night. Waymo tells us they’ve fixed the issue through a software update, but the rollout over the last few years has been bumpy, with safety concerns and backlash. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com f...

Google’s hardware event, Made by Google, kicked off today where the megacap unveiled new AI-focused features including Gemini Live, a conversational voice chatbot that will be integrated into all its devices. As investors try to balance the growing concern of surging AI spending and little actual revenue and profits, the event is a key moment for Google to try to justify its AI investments.  Hoste...

As election campaigning heats up, tech has been playing an outsized role in the elections. For Vice President Harris, who has deep roots to San Francisco, tech donors are front and center, especially after she made a campaign stop in the Bay Area this weekend and raised more than $12 million. Meanwhile, the Trump campaign is dealing with a different sort of tech issue – disclosing that it was the...

GenAI startup darlings are dropping like flies. Some of the most promising are increasingly being swallowed up by megacaps as they struggle to find viable business models and big tech firms look to skirt the regulatory scrutiny of outright acquisitions.  Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

The extent of the tech sell-off today has been staggering, with billions of dollars wiped out from the Magnificent 7 alone in just the first two hours of trading, and trillions over the last week. Part of the reason is a fundamental story investors have been worried about – just when will the high costs of AI begin to pay off? Valuations have also re-rated since the Nasdaq hit all-time highs just...

Shares of Intel are on pace for their worst day in 50 years after a tough second-quarter result. The chipmaker also announced a massive, $10 billion cost-savings program that will include thousands of layoffs and a half on dividend payments. CNBC’s Jon Fortt spoke to Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger on the turnaround plan, modest CPU demand and areas to be impacted by the layoffs.  Hosted by Simplecast, an...

Some key themes to watch ahead of Apple earnings include signs the iPhone sales slump is coming to an end, whether new AI features will drive an upgrade cycle, how the AI rollout in China will play out, and, of course, capex concerns that are looming over all of big tech. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for...

In Palo Alto, the epicenter of tech and VC money, JD Vance is headlining a fundraiser tonight hosted by a cryptocurrency executive where tickets are going for as much as $50,000. It's another sign of Silicon Valley elites, which have traditionally backed the left, now opening their pocketbooks for the Trump-Vance ticket.  Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for informatio...

OpenAI just announced the prototype of a search engine called SearchGPT that now puts the pressure on Google, with what the startup says are more natural and intuitive results that include sources, similar to a product from Perplexity AI. The announcement alone yesterday was enough to send shares of Google down 3% after it had already been bruised by disappointing earnings results. That also doesn...

The NBA is announcing a $76 billion TV rights deal with ESPN, Amazon and NBC Sports, essentially a snub to NBA’s longtime partner Warner Bros Discovery. We break down how this deal will transform the future of sports streaming. Plus, chip stocks have been riding the AI wave this year. But with the recent sell-off, AI beneficiaries like Nvidia, Qualcomm and Micron are well off their respective high...

One lesson from Alphabet earnings that we can expect from all megacaps this season: it's not cheap to be a hyperscaler in the age of AI. CEO Sundar Pichai told investors he'd rather spend too much than too little to meet Google's AI moment – but that still leaves uncertainty around how long it’ll take until these massive investments show a return. Plus, semiconductors stocks are contributing to to...

The cloud security startup Wiz is now walking away from a monster $23B deal to be bought by Google, telling employees it'll opt instead to pursue an IPO. Anti-trust and investor concerns also reportedly played a factor, which could signal a win for Jonathan Kanter, Lina Khan and even JD Vance. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and us...

There’s a time bomb ticking in the AI space: spending is too high, and returns are too low. Megacaps like Meta, Google and Amazon have seen capex spending surge as they throw cash at building out the infrastructure to stay ahead of the AI game. Microsoft in particular has spent billions at a premium valuation, and shelled out $13 billion investing in OpenAI while Apple was reportedly able to secur...

Something that AI apparently can't do yet: inspect your home. OpenAI founder and CEO Sam Altman might've found that out the hard way, now suing the developer of a mansion that he paid $27 million for claiming shoddy workmanship, mold, raw sewage on the property and more.  Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for...