The Biden admin says it wants a divestment of TikTok, not a ban. But here's why separating TikTok from ByteDance may be all but impossible.

Plus: What TikTok leadership has been telling employees over the last few days.

New in Forbes with Emily Baker-White: forbes.com/sites/alexandr…

Rubrik's IPO today is a rare recent public win for Silicon Valley.

But it's just the latest for the 'IIT Mafia,' a small group of Indian immigrant engineers who've since started software standouts like Nutanix, Rubrik and Glean.

My story in @forbes: forbes.com/sites/alexkonr…

The WONDER BOY paperback is here!

We're excited to share the story of Zappos leader Tony Hsieh, whose rise and fall told the quintessential Silicon Valley tragedy.

'Mandatory reading for anyone who is interested in big tech' - New Yorker

On sale here: amazon.com/Wonder-Boy-Zap…

Years ago, FB, IG, YT, and TW, announced they would label posts by state media, so people would know if they were reading government propaganda. TikTok then followed.

Today, YouTube is the only one doing it in the Middle East, where there is a war.

forbes.com/sites/emilybak…

NEW - AI is now writing up police reports, via multi-billion dollar cop contractor and Taser maker Axon.

What could go wrong?

w/ Richard Nieva

forbes.com/sites/thomasbr…

Axon, the company that makes Tasers, is releasing an AI tool built on GPT-4 that generates police reports from body cam audio. One critic we spoke to: “It’s kind of a nightmare…What could go wrong?”

With Thomas Brewster

forbes.com/sites/thomasbr…

NEW: They pump iron, chew nicotine and build weapons. Beloved by a16z investors and inspired by Palmer Luckey, they call themselves the Gundo bros, 'unapologetic' Americans building defense tech companies in LA.

w/ sarah emerson

forbes.com/sites/davidjea…

🚨 SCOOP 🚨 Google takes down over 120 YouTube videos and nearly 30 ads that were promoting AI deepfake porn tools, after @forbes alerted the tech giant.

One YouTube channel w/ 900k views was hosted by an AI deepfake, promoting 'nudifier' Telegram bots.

forbes.com/sites/thomasbr…

NEW: For years, competitive business information from top U.S. advertisers was widely available to TikTok and ByteDance staff most anywhere, including in China.

Inside TikTok's chaotic ads division and employees' concerns over how it's handled client data:forbes.com/sites/alexandr…

Today we launched The Prompt, a Forbes newsletter covering all things AI. The first edition of the weekly roundup covers scathing reviews of Humane's AI pin, a $400 'AI toothbrush' and a new AI billionaire. Sign up here: forbes.com/newsletter/the…

AI-powered search engine Perplexity is backed by tech VIPs like Jeff Bezos and counts billionaires like Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang among its 15 million users. I spoke to CEO Aravind Srinivas about how the company
became a Silicon Valley darling.
forbes.com/sites/rashishr…

Notion is, even by Silicon Valley standards, idiosyncratic. CEO Ivan Zhao picks out all the furniture at HQ and for years had a no-shoes policy.

My latest magazine profile looks at Ivan Zhao's big AI bet, which earned Notion a spot on #ForbesAI50 :

forbes.com/sites/kenrickc…

New: I spoke to Docusign CEO Allan Thygesen, a longtime Google vet, about what he calls a “reinvention” for his company — going beyond e-signatures and into managing all contracts across a client's business
forbes.com/sites/richardn…

Read my latest investigation for Forbes: The inside story of how Les Wexner, the Jeffrey Epstein-tarnished billionaire, quietly engineered one of the biggest semiconductor projects in history.

forbes.com/sites/jemimamc…

News: CEO Sam Altman has said he holds no shares in OpenAI. Startup bets like Helion, Stripe and Reddit have now made him a billionaire.

Phoebe Liu (she/her) and I poured through filings and spoke to a dozen-plus people for the closest accounting yet, in Forbes:

forbes.com/sites/alexkonr…

NEW: BlackBerry's CEO is sued by a former exec for what she alleges was a pattern of sexual harassment, gender discrimination and retaliation.

Before promoting him to CEO, BlackBerry hired lawyers to quietly investigate several women's claims against him.
forbes.com/sites/saraheme…

ByteDance is fighting overtime in DC to try to keep the US government from forcing it to sell TikTok — or banning the app entirely.

In the meantime, another of its apps is surging in the US: a homework help aid for school-aged kids.

forbes.com/sites/emilybak…

NEW:

Unpaid bills, bungled contracts, a disastrous meeting with Jensen Huang.

From interviews with 32 sources, Iain Martin and I have the story on how poor business judgment and wild overspending unraveled Emad Mostaque's reign as Stability AI's CEO:

forbes.com/sites/kenrickc…

Via the Reliable Sources newsletter: This is the stop-in-your-tracks front page of Friday's Wall Street Journal, marking the one-year anniversary of Evan Gershkovich's detention (cnn.it/3TBLHme)

An AI company claimed its model could detect STIs in men, based on photos it encouraged women to submit of their partners' genitalia.

But after public outcry, its founders have been quietly changing its data practices and removing alleged affiliations.

forbes.com/sites/saraheme…