The Information · Tech & AI
TIER 4 Tue, 21 Oct 2025 11:07:14 +0000
Benchmark Names Everett Randle as New General Partner -- NASA Open to SpaceX Alternatives for ‘Behind Schedule’ Moon Mission -- AWS Taps 15-Year Veteran to Lead Startups and VC Sales Unit -- Japan’s Sakana AI in Talks to Raise Capital at $2.5 Billion Valuation ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ | | | The Information’s TITV: Tech news and analysis. Every weekday at 10 am PT / 1 pm ET. Now streaming → → | ---|--- | | Oct 21, 2025 ---|--- | # The Information AM --- | | Save 25% on an annual subscription to read the most important news about technology and business first. For even more, Save $250 on The Information Pro for unlimited access to our proprietary org charts, databases and surveys. --- | | Happy Tuesday! Nvidia discusses guaranteeing some loans for OpenAI. NASA is seeking alternatives to SpaceX for the moon mission. Benchmark names a new general partner. | | Read more briefings --- | | | 1\. | | Nvidia Discusses Loan Guarantee for OpenAI --- By Juro Osawa | Source: The Wall Street Journal Nvidia is discussing guaranteeing some of the loans that OpenAI is planning to take out in order to build its own data centers, The Wall Street Journal reported, citing people familiar with the matter. Such a move would involve risks for Nvidia, as the chip giant could face hefty debt obligations if OpenAI fails to repay the loans, according to the Journal. The loan guarantee discussion is part of Nvidia’s broader data center partnership with OpenAI, in which OpenAI will lease Nvidia’s chips rather than buying them. The chip leasing partnership shows how Nvidia is seeking new ways to do business with key AI developers that, unlike deep-pocketed cloud providers, would struggle to finance chip purchases on their own. Last month, the two companies announced that Nvidia will provide up to $100 billion in funding to help OpenAI build its own data centers, starting with a $10 billion cash infusion next year. OpenAI has also explored ways to reduce its dependence on Nvidia. In June, The Information reported OpenAI had started renting Google’s AI chips to power ChatGPT and other products. After that article came out, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang called OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, asking if it was true, and expressed his willingness to get their partnership discussions back on track, according to the Journal. | | | 2\. | | Benchmark Names Everett Randle as New General Partner --- By Natasha Mascarenhas | Source: The Information Everett Randle, a former partner at Kleiner Perkins investing out of its growth-stage funds, has joined Benchmark as the firm’s newest general partner, the early-stage firm announced Monday. At Kleiner, Randle worked on investments including enterprise search startup Glean and legal AI startup Harvey, earning him a top spot on The Information’s Next General Partners list in 2024. The hiring follows a slew of personnel departures at Benchmark, the blue-chip firm behind companies like Uber. This year, consumer-focused general partner Sarah Tavel stepped back into a venture partner role, and Victor Lazarte, who led investments for the firm in AI startups Mercor and HeyGen, left the firm to raise his own fund, The Information previously reported. Last year, general partner Miles Grimshaw left to rejoin his prior firm, Thrive Capital. With the addition of Randle, the general partners at the firm—which usually total five—number four, including Peter Fenton, Eric Vishria and Chetan Puttagunta. Benchmark declined to comment beyond its announcement. Kleiner Perkins spokesperson said in a statement to The Information that “we’re grateful for Ev’s contributions and wish him the very best.” | | | 3\. | | NASA Open to SpaceX Alternatives for ‘Behind Schedule’ Moon Mission --- By Theo Wayt | Source: Fox News Elon Musk’s SpaceX is “behind schedule” preparing its Starship launch vehicle for a U.S. mission to the Moon, so NASA is seeking alternative bids from other companies including Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin, the space agency’s head said Monday. NASA acting administrator Sean Duffy made the comments in reference to the space agency’s Artemis III mission to the moon, which aims to be the first human landing on the moon since 1972. NASA selected SpaceX in 2021 for the mission, which is due to launch in 2027. “They are behind schedule, and so the President wants to make sure we beat the Chinese,” Duffy said on Fox News in reference to SpaceX. “I’m in the process of opening that contract up. I think we’ll see companies like Blue [Origin] get involved, and maybe others. We’re going to have a space race in regard to American companies competing to see who can actually get us back to the moon first.” Musk and President Donald Trump, once close allies, had a falling-out over the summer before publicly reuniting in September. Bezos and Blue Origin CEO Dave Limp have both met with Trump. | | | 4\. | | AWS Taps 15-Year Veteran to Lead Startups and VC Sales Unit --- By Kevin McLaughlin | Source: The Information Amazon Web Services has named Jason Bennett, a 15-year veteran of the cloud provider’s sales ranks, as its new vice president of global startups and venture capital, according to two people with direct knowledge of the appointment. Bennett, who has spent the past year as vice president of enterprise customers in the U.S., takes over a role previously held by former AWS executive Jon Jones, who departed last month. Jones recently joined AI cloud provider CoreWeave as its first chief revenue officer, as The Information was first to report last week. Startups have long been a key business driver for AWS, the world’s largest cloud provider, but the sales unit that focuses on them has arguably never been more strategically important than it is now. That’s because Google has used its AI products, such as Gemini models, to make inroads with startups that are running on AWS. | | | 5\. | | Japan’s Sakana AI in Talks to Raise Capital at $2.5 Billion Valuation --- By Juro Osawa | Source: The Information Sakana AI, a Tokyo-based developer of artificial intelligence, is in talks with U.S. and Japanese investors to raise $100 million at a valuation of $2.5 billion, up 66% from a financing a year ago, The Information reported. The startup, founded in 2023 by former Google researchers, plans to use the new capital to expand its workforce for engineering as well as sales and distribution. The fundraising talks come months after CEO David Ha said that the company would operate profitably within a year. This year Sakana has announced deals to develop AI for some of Japan’s largest financial institutions. Sakana’s investors include many of Japan’s biggest corporations, as well as U.S. venture capital firms New Enterprise Associates, Khosla Ventures and Lux Capital. Nvidia is also an existing investor. | | | 6\. | | Global AWS Cloud Outage Takes Down Major Websites, Internet Services --- By Kevin McLaughlin | Source: The Information Amazon Web Services says it is continuing to work on restoring access to cloud servers and other products after an outage that began overnight in its data centers in northern Virginia, which handle a majority of its web traffic in North America. The outage, which affects the AWS US-East-1 data center region, began around midnight Pacific time. AWS initially flagged issues with the Domain Name System (DNS) configuration on its servers, which translates website names into numerical IP addresses, and said they were “mitigated” around 3:30 a.m. Pacific time. But while AWS said around 10 a.m. Pacific time that it had restored networking connectivity for most services, it acknowledged that some customers were having problems launching new cloud servers. The AWS outage has affected a number of major internet websites and services, including Snapchat, the gaming service Roblox and Amazon’s own Ring doorbell cameras, to name just a few. | | ## Popular articles | --- #### Salesforce CEO Shifts AI Strategy as OpenAI Threat Looms By Kevin McLaughlin and Erin Woo --- #### Anthropic Gets Ready to Go Startup Shopping By Valida Pau and Sri Muppidi --- #### The Race to Rent Out Nvidia Chips in the Cloud Intensifies By Stephanie Palazzolo, Wayne Ma, Miles Kruppa and Katie Roof --- #### Why Microsoft Let OpenAI Play the Field By Aaron Holmes | | --- | | ## Opportunities #### Group subscriptions Empower your teams to stay ahead of market trends with the most trusted tech journalism. Learn more | --- #### Brand partnerships Reach The Information's influential audience with your message. 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