Business

Google’s parent company, Alphabet, just released its Q3 2025 earnings report (pdf), reporting revenue is up by 16 percent from the same period last year, at $102 billion for three months, compared to $88.2 billion in 2024 and $76.6 billion in 2023.

Paramount Skydance CEO David Ellison is weirdly confident he’ll get regulatory approval to purchase Warner Bros. Discovery, unlike other suitors. Why? Because big daddy Larry is good friends with Donald Trump, who’s making it known that “US antitrust concerns and personal gripes will be a major stumbling block for rival bidders.”

We’re very excited to announce that Decoder is now officially on YouTube. So if you prefer to watch and not just listen to your podcasts, you can head over to youtube.com/@decoderpod and subscribe to our new channel, where we’ll post new full-length interviews every Monday.

Remember how Salesforce billionaire Marc Benioff suddenly looooved Donald Trump? It turns out Salesforce is trying to sell an AI product to ICE. Two things: 1. This is how the gangster tech era works. 2. If I were a betting woman, I’d put money down that Agentforce is floundering. Certainly it’s been expensive marketing it.

Hey folks, we want to say thank you to everyone who has listened to and supported Decoder, which won a gold award for best business podcast at the annual Signal Awards. And now, Verge subscribers can listen to Decoder totally ad free! Check out this guide on how to set that up. And remember, we really do read every email.

The Internet darling valued at $100 billion in 2001 when it merged with Time Warner is for sale by Apollo Global Management for about 1 percent of that. Italy’s Bending Spoons is said to be interested, owner of WeTransfer, Evernote, Komoot, and Vimeo.

That’s according to a report from Semafor, which says the discussions are still at an “early stage.” Intel doesn’t have the technology to support AMD’s most advanced processors, which are mostly produced by the Taiwan-based TSMC, Semafor reports.

Current AI spending means the industry needs $2 trillion in annual revenue by 2030, according to estimates from Bain & Co. That’s “more than five times the size of the entire global subscription software market,” write Eliot Brown and Robbie Whelan. But there’s a plan: 1. Build data centers. 2. ???? 3. Profit. Anyway, I’ve been wondering about this for a while now.

Engadget and The Register note that Fiverr CEO Micha Kaufman has announced layoffs affecting 30 percent of its workforce, after telling employees in May that “...AI is coming for your jobs. Heck, it’s coming for my job too.”

Yesterday it was reported that the just-merged Paramount Skydance corporation wants to merge a little more, exploring acquiring Warner Bros. Discovery. Or, as one commenter pointed out, it’s all getting a bit medieval.