The company reported blockbuster results, including a 37% jump in revenue from Amazon Web Services. Those gains came from the cloud giant running many different AI models from leading providers such as Anthropic and OpenAI. Amazon's earnings on Thursday highlighted a surprising idea gaining traction across Silicon Valley: You don't need the best models to win in AI. Amazon has never prioritized its own models. It did develop in-house offerings via the Nova range of models, but they struggled to come close t ...

Anthropic has seen its valuation skyrocket as the popularity of its Claude family of models pushes the overall generative AI race. In June, Anthropic announced that it confidentially filed for an initial public offering, taking the first step toward a highly anticipated IPO. In late May, Anthropic said that it had completed a Series H funding round that valued the company at $965 billion. Amazon isn't the only Big Tech name sharing in Anthropic's success. On Wednesday, Microsoft reported its investment in A ...

Patreon's implementation of RTO, which it refers to internally as "Time Together," had been relatively lenient, one former staffer said. Patreon requires employees to be present on 75% of in-office days, meaning they could skip out once every four days. Some employees have also been classified as remote employees even if they live within commuting distance, and are exempt from RTO. Patreon slashed its workforce by 20% last week — and wants its remaining staffers to come into the office more. The company inf ...

OpenAI has laid down the latest marker in the AI pricing war. On Thursday, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman touted the company's "major price cuts," which came in the form of cheaper usage of GPT-5.6 Luna and Terra, two of the company's latest AI models. "We want to offer the best price/intelligence tradeoff at every level," Altman wrote on X. major price cuts today: EMARKETER senior analyst Jacob Bourne said the announcement was another sign that "the era of tokenmaxxing is over." "Enterprises have figured out how ea ...

Starbucks CEO Brian Niccol is ready for some fizz.The company is testing a carbonated version of its Refreshers, which are iced juice and tea drinks often mixed with fruit pieces, that have become one of Starbucks' biggest beverage businesses since launching in 2012."I'm really excited that we're getting ready to go test sparkling. We're calling it Spritzers," he told investors on the company's third quarter earnings call Wednesday. The company delivered net sales of $9.3 billion for the period, with global ...

How much does it cost to advertise with MrBeast, the world's top YouTuber?Newly filed court documents offer a glimpse into the content creator's ad rates and pitches to brands as he expanded his business and prepared to launch the first season of his Amazon Prime Video show "Beast Games."In early 2024, when MrBeast, whose real name is Jimmy Donaldson, had about half the subscribers he has today, a 30- to 45-second sponsored segment on his main channel cost around $2.5 million, according to a company rate ca ...

Meta has more than a quarter trillion dollars in future lease obligations — largely tied to AI data centers — as the tech giant races to build out its artificial intelligence infrastructure, a new regulatory filing shows.In its quarterly securities filing released a day after its earnings report, Meta said it had approximately $278.99 billion in operating and finance leases that have not yet begun and were not yet included on its balance sheet.The lease agreements cover "data centers, colocations, and certa ...

As tech giants aggressively build out compute to meet the demands of the AI boom, some face a tricky dilemma: how much should they hoard and how much should they sell? "It would be foolish to basically just sell all of the compute and take a short-term profit," he said, adding that improved intelligence would compound the value of the compute. Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg addressed the issue on the company's Q2 earnings call this week. While Meta doesn't currently have a business selling compute — the data cent ...

Meta's message to investors: The AI spending will continue until returns improve. The difference between the two is clear: AI spending is fine … as long as there is a direct and measurable return. CEO Mark Zuckerberg made the case for why Meta's AI bets might need more time. A lot of the most immediate use cases for AI are for developers. Just look at the boom in vibe coding. "Building for consumers is a little bit different," Zuckerberg said during Wednesday's earnings call, but it's also a "massive market ...

公司融资与估值动态 - 直播购物初创公司Whatnot正洽谈融资，估值可能达到约200亿美元[1] - 该估值较公司2023年末融资时的115亿美元估值有显著跃升[1] - 融资轮次仍在进行中，细节可能发生变化[2] 公司业务与运营数据 - 公司业务为直播购物，覆盖时尚、运动鞋、体育卡和黑胶唱片等多个品类[2] - 平台在北美和欧洲运营，从每笔交易中抽取佣金[2] - 公司2023年直播销售额达到80亿美元[3] - 公司总部位于洛杉矶，主要投资者包括Andreessen Horowitz、Capital G、Sequoia Capital和Lightspeed Venture Partners[5] 行业背景与市场趋势 - 公司商业模式灵感来源于中国庞大的直播购物产业（如淘宝）[3] - 直播购物在亚洲已是巨大产业，年销售额达数千亿美元[5] - 该模式在西方市场普及较慢，但TikTok Shop等平台正推动通过社交媒体和直播视频购物的常态化[5] - 公司已建立起一个热衷于收藏品的用户社群，用户通过平台互动和购买产品[3] 市场环境与投资信号 - 在人工智能热潮中，消费互联网初创公司难以吸引风险投资，行业资本多追逐基础模型、芯片和基础设施[4] - Whatnot潜在的估值跃升可能表明，投资者对具有快速收入和用户增长潜力的消费类初创公司仍有兴趣[4] - 这证明在人工智能时代，消费类初创公司仍有发展空间[1]