Category: Semafor

Alphabet, Amazon, Meta, and Microsoft all beat first-quarter earnings expectations on Wednesday, but investors are poised to closely scrutinize their heavy spending on AI. Big Tech has propped up the US stock market — and in many ways, the US economy writ large — in the last year, but investors ...

AI tools can identify the writing of almost anyone with a sizable online presence, rendering much online anonymity impossible. The tech writer Kelsey Piper had Claude Opus 4.7 read unpublished 150-word snippets of her writing; it successfully named her as the author each time. Semafor’s Tom Chivers replicated the finding ...

The News Last week, I got called out for a column where I said Anthropic was winning in enterprise over OpenAI, at least based purely on revenue. Jordan Wilson, who hosts the podcast, called that line “a very SV/Twitter bubble take, not yet backed by real data.” He has a ...

An Oakland jury has begun the process of deciding who’s less popular, Elon Musk or Sam Altman. (Or is there some way for both sides to lose?) While Silicon Valley’s trial of the century is billed as being about nonprofit governance, make no mistake: This is all about putting two ...

David’s view Ruben Gallego’s friends told him to, “lay low,” as he put it, “and this will pass over.” He didn’t agree. The Arizona Democratic senator was right about one thing: This month’s sexual assault allegations against Eric Swalwell, Gallego’s onetime “best friend,” didn’t just destroy the Californian’s political career. ...

The Scoop Eighteen months after losing everything, left-leaning activists and unions have a comeback in their sights. All they need is money, aggressive turnout of their 2024 voters, and a president who keeps screwing up on the cost of living. The Democratic Party could figure out its own problems later. ...

China suspended new robotaxi licenses after a major system failure in Wuhan last month. Around 100 Baidu Apollo Go vehicles suddenly stopped on city streets, and some passengers were stranded in fast-moving traffic. Authorities have called for a review and prevented firms from adding new autonomous vehicles to their fleets. ...

Thirteenth-century maps, first-century incense burners, and new commissions from Yoko Ono and Wael Shawky are coming together in Venice in an exhibition presented by the Saudi Ministry of Culture at the Abbazia di San Gregorio. Running alongside the city’s Biennale from May 6 through November, the show traces cartography from ...

The Qatari government is reminding businesses it will reimburse up to 40% of setup costs as it tries to attract more non-energy activity, such as logistics, technology, and financial services, to its now war-battered economy. The dangling carrot predates the conflict, introduced last year as a stimulus. Now it’s being ...

, a Saudi-backed movie that reportedly cost about $150 million to make, only brought in $472,000 in its opening weekend. The film, starring Anthony Mackie and Ben Kingsley, took six years to produce, and its budget more than doubled in that time, according to Enterprise News. Audiences shunning the movie ...