Google Earnings, Jensen Targeted in Chinese Spy Plot, Ice Cube Joins | Luke Igel, David Rader & Jared Allen, Jake Stauch, Jay Madheswaran, Arthur Querou · podgraph
Google Earnings, Jensen Targeted in Chinese Spy Plot, Ice Cube Joins | Luke Igel, David Rader & Jared Allen, Jake Stauch, Jay Madheswaran, Arthur Querou
Alphabet's Google missed earnings expectations with $2.12 EPS against $3.01 expected, and the stock fell 12.5%, though Google Cloud revenue doubled to $30.7bn.
A New York Times report says American officials concluded Megaspeed executive Alice Wong was a Chinese intelligence asset who was close to Jensen Huang, and Trump was briefed about it a year ago and took no action.
Bloomberg reports more than 400 companies now sell simulated trading challenges, and only about 4% of users receive any payout, prompting Jordi Hays to call for a ban on the current model.
Alphabet Loses $500 Billion After Google Earnings Miss
Funding and deals
Serval. The AI platform for enterprise IT departments raised a $150m round as it helps customers replace ServiceNow systems.
Big3. Ice Cube's three-on-three basketball league filed an S-4 and agreed a SPAC merger with Graph Global Group to go public.
The Curling Group. Unisports Group announced an investment in the owner of the Grand Slam of Curling events and the Rock League, with terms not disclosed.
Guest interviews
Ice Cube, co-founder and CEO of Big3. Ice Cube says he started Big3 because the US had no professional three-on-three basketball. The league has eight teams and 10 games a season, and he plans to use the IPO to reach 16 to 20 teams, eyeing London, Toronto, Mexico City and Puerto Rico. He is talking with prediction market and betting companies about partnerships.
Jake Stauch, co-founder and CEO of Serval. Stauch says Serval is helping enterprises such as Fox and Live Nation replace ServiceNow, whose shares fell 26% that day. Serval also bought a cybersecurity company and made its leader head of security.
Jay Madheswaran, cofounder and CEO of Eve. More than 350,000 plaintiff cases run on Eve. Madheswaran argues AI makes each extra client cheap to represent, widening access without a surge in lawsuits, and says latency and intelligence matter most for voice AI on intake calls.
Arthur Querou, technology executive at Vibe. Querou presented Walmart Audiences, which targets streaming TV ads using Walmart's half-billion SKU catalog and shopper purchase data. He says TV advertising is enabled by commerce signals for the first time in history.
David Rader, founder of Unisports Group. Rader calls curling built for TV and social media, citing a five-year CBC deal for over 300 hours of content a year. He says the X Games, another Unisports bet, grew almost 80% year over year.
Jared Allen, founder of The Curling Group. Allen says The Curling Group bought the Grand Slam of Curling and the Rock League. Its first event drew over 100m social views, and the latest Grand Slam audience skewed more female than male.
Luke Igel, builder of Kino. Igel says Kino, a collaborative managed video editor, left closed beta that morning and lets teams apply their OpenAI and Claude Code subscriptions. He would pick an LLM over a diffusion model for controllable AI video.
News
Google Cloud doubles while earnings badly miss. Cloud revenue doubled to $30.7bn with a $561bn backlog, but earnings per share of $2.12 missed the $3.01 expected and search growth slowed to 12%. John Coogan calls Cloud a monster business.
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On this episode 9
Show 1
Officials tie Jensen Huang associate to Chinese intelligence. The New York Times reports Megaspeed executive Alice Wong, close to Jensen Huang, was a Chinese intelligence asset. Trump was briefed about a year ago and did not act.
Only 4% of fake-trading challenge users get paid. Bloomberg counts more than 400 firms selling roughly $100-a-month simulated trading challenges. Jordi Hays wants them banned in current form, and John Coogan calls for tougher FTC marketing rules.
Pentagon probes commissary freezer failures as cyber attack. At least six base commissaries were hit in August, echoing an attack on more than 350 French supermarkets.
Weil, Gotshal & Manges is winding down. John Woo argues law firms are fixed-cost businesses with no terminal value, exposed when rainmaking partners leave.
Snowflake and Databricks clash over AI token spending. Databricks says its gateway cut most customers' token spend by 30%, while critics question how much of its 80% growth comes from pass-through inference.
Intel plunges 19% after earnings. Intel fell after hours on a volatile day when the Nasdaq dropped 1.3%. Microsoft capital expenditure also came in below estimates at $38.37bn.
Xbox revenue decline narrows to 2%. Xbox revenue fell 2% year over year in Q1, improving from a 10% drop the previous quarter.