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Where Silicon Valley meets Wall Street, TechCheck dives deep into stocks, trades, trends and opportunities focused on new technologies while highlighting news from mega-cap heavyweights, social media darlings, streaming giants, growth software and red-hot disruptors. Everyday TechCheck delivers investors what they need to know with compelling in-depth reporting and analysis from investors, analysts and leaders in the industry.
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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’t bode well for a slate of big tech earnings next week – where we’ll hear from Microsoft, Meta, Amazon and Apple.
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 highs.
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 today’s broader tech sell-off, with names like Nvidia, Broadcom and Taiwan Semi sinking.
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.
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 secure a partnership with the startup darling for free just 18 months later. That could be a warning for the broader AI space, as experts sound the alarm on the widening gap between what companies are spending on AI, and what they’re getting back from it.
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.
The latest in Silicon Valley to come out for former President Trump are Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz, two of the most influential names in the startup ecosystem. They point to overregulation of tech and take issue with Biden’s proposal on taxing unrealized capital gains, and say they believe that a Trump administration would help innovation flourish.
Former President Trump’s newly announced running mate has longtime ties to Silicon Valley as a former venture capitalist -- but any optimism that another Trump administration would be friendlier to big tech deserves another look. His past statements show him aligning more with what insiders are increasingly calling “little tech.”
A new, high-stakes sport is gaining traction here in the U.S. SailGP, co-founded by Oracle’s Larry Ellison, is the Formula 1 of sailing, featuring ten teams from around the world racing on the most iconic waterfronts in the world. Avenue Capital’s Marc Lasry also has taken an interest, leading the investing group that acquired the U.S. team for more than $35 million. We sit down exclusively with SailGP CEO and champion yachtsman Russell Coutts on the league’s growth, its high-profile investors, skyrocketing funding, and more.
CNBC’s Deirdre Bosa shares details about Tesla’s delay of its robotaxi, the market impact to ride-share companies, and more. Plus, Google has reportedly backed away from acquiring marketing software firm, HubSpot.
CNBC confirms that OpenAI was hacked in April of last year, and never told law enforcement or the public. It raises of question how much genAI companies should be sharing about security incidents, and how transparent OpenAI is as its influence grows. Plus, the Meta-owned social media app Threads is celebrating its one year anniversary today, and has now hit 175 million monthly active users, according to CEO Mark Zuckerberg. But AI startups are increasingly putting traditional social apps on the backfoot as AI-generated content becomes king.
Between last week’s debate and today’s Supreme Court ruling, Silicon Valley is thinking more than ever about what another Trump presidency would mean for the tech industry. A friendlier deal environment could benefit megacaps and the small to midcap software names. Gig economy names and American e-commerce would also get some relief from a lighter touch. On the flipside, the Trump short tech basket includes Temu-owner Pinduoduo and social media names.
The world has gone crazy for Nvidia -- or at least, Wall Street has. The stock has almost single-handedly lifted the entire market due to its monster valuation and latest, monster quarter. But the largest companies in the world are also typically the most well-known… and Nvidia is far from being a household name. And the last time a tech company without mass brand recognition became the most valuable in the world? That was Cisco in the late 90s. Is another bubble brewing? This week on TechCheck, the stock everyone owns and no one knows.
The Japanese tech investor Softbank is now backing Perplexity with a $10 million to $20 million fresh round of funding, valuing Perplexity AI at $3 billion and making it one of the most valuable startups in the space. It shouldn’t come as a surprise, since Masayoshi Son and his team have been saying for months now that they’re going on the AI offensive, but is another sign of the red hot funding environment for AI startups.
CNBC's Dierdre Bosa is at Figma's "Config" Conference in San Francisco with Figma CEO Dylan Field. Following a regulatory block of Adobe’s $20 billion acquisition of Figma last December, the San Francisco software design firm received a $1 billion breakup fee and is forging ahead with product launches and further software partnering with Google.
Another major antitrust charge is coming out of the European Union today, saying that Microsoft’s bundling of Teams with other software like Office 365 is an unfair distribution advantage. It comes a day after the EU hit Apple with the first charge under the new Digital Markets Act, accusing its App Store policies of violating competition rules. Investors don’t seem to be worried, but this new chapter in European regulation could lead to tens of billions of dollars in fines.
Apple is being hit with the first charge under the EU’s new Digital Markets Act, with regulators accusing the tech giant of preventing app store customers from being steered to customers alternative, cheaper options. It could have key implications for Apple’s AI strategy, as it reportedly holds talks with longtime rival Meta to form an unlikely alliance, potentially offering Meta’s large language model Llama to Apple Intelligence.
As Nvidia turns lower today, Softbank's Masayoshi Son expressed regret over selling his shares too soon - a stake that would have been worth $160B today. He also doubled down on the narrative that he's now going on the AI offensive, with a new strategy built around the company’s crown jewel and largest holding, Arm.
Retail investors have been crowding into a few pockets of big tech, including the Mag 7, Nvidia, and riskier, turbo-charged Nvidia plays through long-leveraged semiconductor ETFs like NVDL and SOXL, according to new data from Vanda. So far, this narrow strategy has been working, with retail outperforming the S&P, but there is risk in being so indexed to big tech and the AI story, and could add to volatility in these names.
The U.S. Surgeon General is now calling for a warning label to be applied to social media apps, similar to those on alcohol and tobacco products. He says immediate action is needed to protect young people from the potential mental health harms of social media. But the demand would require congressional action, which historically has not acted to curb social media usage in the past. Plus, political deepfakes are now circulating online as election campaigns heat up. We discuss with former North Dakota senator Heidi Heitkamp and a professional of artificial intelligence.
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