Biden's Business Donors Are Caught in a Bind
Another day, another barrage of stories about fretful Democratic donors, worried Democratic insiders and a defiant reelection campaign from President Joe Biden. If you’re a liberal Silicon Valley or Hollywood type with strong Biden allegiances and political proclivities, you may find yourself stuck between two playbooks used in business.
One would dictate ignoring Biden’s critics, battening down the hatches and riding out the news cycle. Plenty of business success stories are built on a mentality that you can prove the haters wrong. And that seems to be what Reid Hoffman is doing: He is reportedly standing by Biden amid the onslaught of criticism.
Another business route would suggest ignoring the sunk costs, pulling support from Biden and considering a new bet on a more likely winner.
That’s what Reed Hastings, a big Democratic donor and a Netflix (NFLX) co-founder, has done with his public statement calling for Biden to step aside. That was in line with his quick action when confronted with one of Netflix’s few missteps—its plan to hive off its DVD rental business into a business separate from streaming, under the Qwikster name. After an outcry, Hastings quickly reversed course.
Other big donors appear to be clinging to another Silicon Valley trope: keeping their options open. In this case, that means not saying anything unkind about the president (and Democratic nominee) until they absolutely have to. They still have some time. The dam of this news cycle hasn’t broken just yet.
The Information’s Stories of the Week
A split between former Google (GOOG) CEO Eric Schmidt and a longtime adviser sheds some light on Schmidt’s complicated personal life, in this scoop by Michael Roddan and Cory Weinberg.
The artificial intelligence startup world continues to evolve. Character AI, which specializes in fun chatbots aimed at children, is facing more competition and has explored partnerships with others including Google and xAI, as Kalley Huang revealed in this story. Meanwhile, Runway, which develops AI software for Hollywood, is in talks to raise $450 million at about a $4 billion valuation, Stephanie Palazzolo revealed.
SoftBank is talking with banks about borrowing money for energy-related investments and buying Nvidia AI chips, Juro Osawa and Kate Clark reported. These discussions help explain SoftBank CEO Masayoshi Son’s AI strategy.
Meanwhile, we analyze which venture capital firms stand to do best from their AI investments and which will do worst.
On another AI angle, Anita Ramaswamy argues that Microsoft’s (MSFT) premium valuation means it’s not the best stock for investors looking to gain AI exposure.
Ahead of a judge’s ruling on the Google antitrust lawsuit, Jon Victor examined Google’s efforts to get more iPhone users to search the Web on Google or Chrome apps rather than Apple’s Safari. Hint: It hasn’t gone that well.
For The Weekend reading, check out Nick Wingfield’s look at what’s likely to dominate discussions at the annual Allen & Co. Sun Valley media and tech retreat.
In Other News
The EU on Friday asked Amazon (AMZN) to share more information about its recommendation algorithms and ads business, a request the bloc said was required for the company to comply with a law called the Digital Services Act.
European Union competition chief Margrethe Vestager said the antitrust watchdog was looking into potential ways that Nvidia (NVDA) could be abusing its market dominance in selling artificial intelligence chips, Bloomberg reported.
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