The Verge’s latest insights into the ideas shaping the future of work, finance, and innovation. Here you’ll find scoops, analysis, and reporting across some of the most influential companies in the world. Our coverage also includes interviews with innovators and policy makers at the frontiers of business and technology on Editor-in-Chief Nilay Patel’s Decoder; a behind-the-curtain look at Silicon Valley with Alex Heath’s Command Line; and exclusive reporting on Microsoft’s strategy in Tom Warren’s Notepad.
Jeremy Wacksman on affordability, AI in listings, and the future of real estate.
The $34.5 billion deal to combine two of the biggest US cable providers can now go ahead after appeasing Brendan Carr by pledging to drop DEI policies.
[Federal Communications Commission]
In an interview with Bloomberg, he explained why he backed out of the deal and said Netflix pursued Warner because it was a unique opportunity. “We definitely wanted this asset. We didn’t need it,” he said, praising its “incredible IP” and long history. But he was clear the plan was to just move on:
Is there a world in which you guys go after another studio in the next 6 to 12 months?
Unlikely. We are builders, not buyers. All that is still true.
So how are you going to use that $2.8 billion?
Just keep investing in the business.
A four-day clock for Netflix to respond just started, but here are the details of the offer that include a starting price of $31 per share and other assurances, like:
“…a $7 billion regulatory termination fee payable by PSKY in the event the transaction does not close due to regulatory matters, payment by PSKY of the $2.8 billion termination fee that WBD would be required to pay to Netflix to terminate the existing Netflix merger agreement, an obligation of Larry J. Ellison and an associated trust to contribute additional equity funding”
Tom Warren joins Decoder to discuss what Phil Spencer’s departure means for the future of Xbox.
Warner Bros. Discovery is telling shareholders it’s “continuing to engage” with Paramount after receiving its latest offer yesterday.
The new bid offers $31 per share, “a daily ticking fee equal to $0.25 per quarter beginning after September 30, 2026,” plus $7 billion from Paramount if regulators block the deal, and $2.8 billion to pay Netflix’s termination fee, among other details. If the board likes this bid better, it says Netflix will have four days to respond.
On Monday afternoon, Uber announced it’s buying the parking spot reservation app for an undisclosed amount, saying it plans to add parking benefits to Uber One and build in-app reservation into its main app, bringing car owners into Uber’s ecosystem.
The two also note the potential for fleet services (like parking robotaxis?), and vehicle charging.
The Netflix boss is apparently not too worried about Trump’s meddling in his company’s attempt to purchase Warner Bros. He told BBC Today that Netflix’s offer left Hollywood with five major studios instead of four, and Trump, “likes to do a lot of things on social media.”
However, on Monday afternoon, Bloomberg reported Paramount Skydance has submitted another competing offer, improving on its previous $30 per share bid.
“If your best idea for what AI can do in the workspace is ‘replace a hundred human beings with a server rack doing the same thing’, you’ve got no business calling yourself a techno-optimist.” Let’s gooooo!
[Back of Mind, Dan Davies]
Regulators noticed Polymarket and Kalshi rake in cash on sports bets. So now prediction markets are cosplaying as the future of news.
On Friday morning, the court ruled against the Trump administration (pdf) in the case of Learning Resources, Inc. v. Trump, about whether the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) gave the president the power to impose sweeping tariffs on imports from more than 100 countries.
The immediate impact of the ruling is not clear, as the president may try to use other justifications for the tariffs and everything that has followed. The NYT, WSJ, and CNBC have more coverage.
The AI industry is rife with defections, FOMO, and radical mission statements. It’s about to get supercharged.
Amazon reported $717 billion in sales for 2025, edging ahead of Walmart’s $713.2 billion. Walmart was previously the world’s largest company by sales for over 10 years. However, as Bloomberg notes, Amazon’s cloud computing business made up a large portion of its sales — without AWS revenue, Walmart still outpaces Amazon.
Musk used to call the Moon ‘a distraction.’ Now he says SpaceX is building a city there.
Snap announced today that its subscriber count grew 71 percent year-over-year in Q4 2025. Its subscription offerings, including Snapchat Plus, Lens Plus, Snapchat Premium, and Memories storage plans, are projected to earn $1 billion in annual revenue. Snapchat creators will also soon be able to offer creator subscriptions to other users.
In its Q4 earnings report, the audio streaming service said it’s gained 38 million monthly active users (MAU) and nine million paying subscribers since its last quarter. Spotify now has 751 million MAUs and 290 million subscribers globally.
Roland Busch on AI-powered factories, tariffs in the Trump era, trade, and the future of NATO.
The emails show the “anti-woke” crusaders are afraid of accountability.
We interviewed Docusign CEO Allan Thygesen on Decoder this week, and one standout moment was when I asked Allan about his headcount. Docusign now employs around 7,000 people, which is a staggering number of employees for a company with a core product many think of as straightforward and simple.
But as you’ll hear Allan explain, the business of Docusign is actually quite a bit more complex than it appears, and he says the company needs a lot more people than you might think.
Even after his 2008 conviction as a sex offender, Jeffrey Epstein still had friends in Silicon Valley. The New York Times details the companies that took his money — including Coinbase, wearable manufacturer Jawbone, and Peter Thiel’s Valar Ventures — along with more he considered investing in, including Palantir, SpaceX, and Spotify.
[The New York Times]
Maybe combining Musk’s companies is really about space AI data centers. But reports from Bloomberg and the Wall Street Journal indicate that SpaceX’s IPO pursuit includes a push to have major index providers find a way around the usual waiting periods before they’ll add newly listed companies.
A report from Bloomberg lays out how the prediction market reportedly directly contacted Juice Reel CEO Ricky Gold, pressuring him to say the data his firm had provided to an analyst was inaccurate.
The analysis from Jordan Bender, an equity research analyst at Citizens, found that in their first three months, users on sites like Kalshi were losing more money than on established gambling sites like FanDuel and DraftKings, at least in proportion to the amount wagered. This cuts against Kalshi’s claims that it offers a customer-friendly way to bet on real-world events.
SpaceX is profitable, while xAI is burning about $1 billion a month. Is this another case of Musk bailing out himself?
Enrique Lores will head up PayPal after spending over six years as the president and CEO of HP, according to an announcement on Tuesday. Lores is taking over for Alex Chriss, who became the CEO of PayPal in 2023 as part of the company’s push into crypto.
[PayPal Investor Relations]
The company sells its tech to ICE, among other government departments, and business is booming: its annual revenue from the US government grew 55 percent, to $1.855 billion, over the last year. That growth is speeding up, with $570 million of government revenue from the last quarter alone.
[Palantir]
The acquisition includes “substantially all” of Lumen’s consumer fiber business, according to AT&T’s announcement. The company says it will add more than 1 million fiber customers across Denver, Seattle, Salt Lake City, and other cities as a result of the acquisition.
Docusign’s Allan Thygesen says ‘not providing an AI service isn’t really an option.’
Prices could increase (or profits thinned) once Apple’s current stock of components like DRAM, NAND, and advanced chips runs out, according to The Wall Street Journal:
Artificial-intelligence companies are writing huge checks for chips, memory, specialized glass fiber and more, and they have begun to outduel Apple in the race to secure components. Suppliers accustomed to catering to Apple’s every whim are gaining the leverage to demand that the iPhone maker pay more.
