Airbnb is on the hunt for growth
Good morning. Jay-Z has 99 problems, but Block ain’t one…for now, anyway.
Executives at the fintech company founded by Jack Dorsey—or is it Rick Rubin? I can barely tell their beards apart these days—have ordered staff not to mention the board member and Beyoncé spouse on internal channels, according to Fortune colleague Kali Hays.
No one’s quite sure why, but successive layoffs at music streaming service Tidal—which Block quixotically bought from Jay-Z—haven’t helped. Perhaps Dorsey should channel zenmaster-megaproducer Rubin after all: “Do what you can with what you have. Nothing more is needed.” —Andrew Nusca
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Airbnb is on the hunt for growth
Airbnb said Thursday it wants to accelerate its growth and prepare for the company’s next chapter “beyond accommodations.”
In a letter to shareholders, the lodging marketplace said it made headway making it easier for people to host, making its namesake app more helpful (including clearing out low-quality listings), and expanding beyond its core markets.
The last point is most interesting. Airbnb operates in a number of countries and regions it considers “under-penetrated.” In Q3, the company said it was able to boost the average growth rate of nights booked in those markets to more than double its core set.
Airbnb reported $2.73 billion in third-quarter revenue, barely beating Wall Street’s estimates. It also reported earnings per share of $2.13, just missing expectations.
As for its future beyond lodging? We’ll see “next year,” the company says. Speculation runs rampant for what that means, but rest assured the company will leverage its strength in building a “moat,” as CEO Brian Chesky put it last year, around its existing customer base. —AN
Baidu preps smart glasses to rival Meta Ray-Bans
Baidu is reportedly preparing to unveil a pair of smart glasses with a built-in AI assistant.
A new Bloomberg report says the company, which is to China what Google is to the U.S., plans to showcase the product at its annual company event in Shanghai next week.
The specs will have all the usual trappings: built-in cameras for photos and videos, a built-in microphone for voice interactions, and Baidu’s Ernie large language model underpinning it all.
Hopefully the product will look as good as Meta’s Ray-Bans, which were released more than a year ago in partnership with global eyewear juggernaut EssilorLuxottica. The combination of tech and style has proven unbeatable—who doesn’t look good in a pair of Blues Brothers-esque Wayfarers?—even if the underlying tech is getting long in the tooth.
Baidu will reportedly charge less than Meta’s $300 for its eyewear, which is expected early next year. But like Meta’s specs, the real question is how well it accelerates use of its various Internet-connected, ad-based services where the revenue is really made. —AN
Yes, AI-powered wars are already being waged
Remember the days when people were having conversations about armies theoretically using AI?
Now AI has been used in the wars in Ukraine and Gaza (for drone piloting and target identification respectively) and AI companies are jostling for space at the Defense Department’s table.
Days after Meta announced a bouquet of partnerships with military contractors, Anthropic, Palantir and Amazon Web Services have revealed a three-headed competitor.
Anthropic’s Claude LLM will be integrated into Palantir’s intelligence-analysis system, with the whole thing running on AWS. Amazon is Anthropic’s biggest investor, and the pair already offer their joint services to the U.S. government.
OpenAI, which quietly changed its terms earlier in the year to allow this, is also now looking for DOD business.
It’s now the military-AI-industrial complex. —David Meyer
Pinterest stock plunges 15% on weak ad outlook
Shares of Pinterest took a double-digit-percentage dive, to about $29, in after-hours trading on Thursday after the company offered fourth-quarter guidance below Wall Street’s expectations.
The social media company said it expects Q4 revenue to be between $1.125 billion and $1.145 billion. The midpoint of that range trails analyst estimates of $1.143 billion.
Pinterest’s CFO, Julia Donnelly, said on a conference call that the company saw softer demand from food and beverage advertisers in Q3, dragging down its $898 million in quarterly revenue (which was otherwise up 18% from the same period last year).
That will continue in Q4, she said—which aligns with the outlook of other ad-based businesses during the recent spate of corporate earnings reports.
Another thing to note? Pinterest’s expenses. They were up 17% year over year, to $904 million, from R&D investment and spending on employees with AI expertise. —AN
Big Tech CEOs learned a lesson after the 2016 U.S. election
Tech’s biggest executives pretty much ignored Donald Trump after he won the White House in the shocking presidential election in 2016. This time around? Not so much.
According to various reports over the last few months, Apple CEO Tim Cook, Google CEO Sundar Pichai, and Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg privately reached out to Trump before voting began for the recent election. “They flattered him,” a New York Times summary reads. “They shared their troubles. They criticized his opposition. They emphasized common enemies.” And they hoped for better business.
Trump went out of his way during his first term to criticize—or outright punish—the tech companies who opposed him. After Amazon founder Jeff Bezos said in 2016 that Trump’s stated refusal to concede the election if he lost (he didn’t) “erodes our democracy around the edges,” among other things, Trump allegedly pushed the Pentagon to deny Amazon’s cloud computing unit a $10 billion defense contract. (A lawsuit was later dismissed.)
Fast forward to today. The Washington Post owner published on X just two days ago: “Big congratulations to our 45th and now 47th President on an extraordinary political comeback and decisive victory.” Cook, Pichai, Zuckerberg, and Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella all had similar things to say.
And the remaining Magnificent Seven tech CEOs, you ask? Tesla’s Elon Musk has hardly slowed in posting support for Trump on X, which he owns; meanwhile Nvidia’s Jensen Huang manages to escape with a nearly nonexistent social media presence. —AN
More data
—Binance billionaire “CZ” speaks after four months in prison.
—Cloudflare expects softer sales in the wake of stiffer cybersecurity competition.
—Toast has a blowout quarter. Shares of the restaurant app were up 15%. (Yes, chef.)
—CFPB told workers not to use phones because of hack. Living life in a Salt Typhoon.
—France regulator sniffing around Polymarket gambler. Made $85m on Trump’s win.
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