George Hammond / Financial Times:
A profile of Thrive Capital, whose biggest portfolio companies include OpenAI and Stripe, as rivals say the VC firm’s approach is closer to asset management  —  As OpenAI raced to raise almost $7bn last month, one investor was always on hand.  Thrive Capital stayed close to the AI start-up’s co-founder …

Anna Gross / Financial Times:
Several media and tech executives say UK VC Matt Clifford, who has advised successive Tory and Labour governments, has an outsized influence over AI policy  —  British venture capitalist has advised successive Tory and Labour governments  —  Last year, as thousands of customers withdrew …

Sam Gutelle / Tubefilter:
Streamlabs: Twitch accounted for 82.3% of total Q3 streaming hours, with YouTube Gaming in second place at 5.6%; Kick grew 204% from Q2 2023 to Q3 2024  —  For years, the Logitech-owned creator dashboard Streamlabs and its data partner Stream Hatchet have compiled quarterly progress reports for the streaming industry.

Bloomberg:
Alibaba appoints Jiang Fan its new e-commerce chief in an overhaul of the struggling business; Jiang was demoted in 2020 after allegations of improper conduct  —  – International chief Jiang will oversee entire commerce unit  — Jiang will become one of the company’s most powerful execs

Ronan Farrow / New Yorker:
The Trump administration’s promises of mass deportations may lead to increased use of spyware like Graphite; ICE has a $2M contract with Graphite maker Paragon  —  Other Western democracies have been roiled by the use of spyware to target political opponents, activists, journalists, and other vulnerable groups.

Paige Smith / Bloomberg:
CFPB will supervise tech companies offering digital wallets, like Apple Pay, Google Pay and Venmo, by treating companies with 50M+ annual transactions as banks  —  The US Consumer Financial Protection Bureau will now treat those companies more like banks as long as they handle …

Evelyn Cheng / CNBC:
Baidu reports Q3 revenue down 3% YoY to $4.78B, net income up 14% YoY to $1.09B, and online marketing revenue up 12% YoY to $1.1B, driven by AI cloud business  —  BEIJING — Chinese tech giant Baidu on Thursday posted a 3% annual drop in third-quarter revenue, nevertheless beating market expectations amid AI cloud growth.

Fanny Potkin / Reuters:
Sources: Huawei plans to start mass-producing its most advanced AI chip, the Ascend 910C, in Q1 2025, even as it struggles to make enough chips due to US curbs  —  China’s Huawei plans to start mass-producing its most advanced artificial intelligence chip in the first quarter of 2025 …

Reed Albergotti / Semafor:
Q&A with Palo Alto Networks CEO Nikesh Arora about the role of the tech industry in Trump’s administration, AI, the future of cybersecurity, and more  —  The Scene  —  While Palo Alto Networks CEO Nikesh Arora and his firm are more under the radar than Silicon Valley’s consumer companies …

Paresh Dave / Wired:
Four former Google executives say innovation by rivals is key to breaking Google Search’s dominance, and ChatGPT-like tools will one day supplant Google Search  —  Despite shared concerns about Google’s power, critics of the company and former executives express little agreement on what …