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☆ The DOJ wants Google to sell its Chrome browser. Here are the winners and losers if that happens.
▼ + stars: | 2024-11-21 | by ( Hugh Langley | Lara O'Reilly | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +8 min

The Justice Department on Wednesday asked the judge in its antitrust case against Google to force the company to sell its Chrome browser. "Advertisers would find competitors for their business, rather than needing to pay a dominant search engine." When you open Chrome and type something into the search bar at the top, these words are automatically transformed into a Google Search. And when there's an option for users, Google pays partners billions of dollars to set its search engine as the default. For instance, if most people click on the third result, Google's Search engine will likely adjust and rank that result higher in the future.

Persons: Mehta's, John Kwoka, Judge Mehta, Bing, There's, Bill Gurley, Sridhar Ramaswamy, Neeva, Ramaswamy, Teiffyon Parry, Equativ, Parry, Ben Thompson, John Gruber, Lee, Anne Mulholland Organizations: DOJ, Google, Department, Wednesday, Northeastern University, Chrome, Lens, Google's, Gmail, YouTube, Bloomberg

☆ Snowflake shares sink 14% on decelerating product revenue growth
▼ + stars: | 2024-08-22 | by ( Ashley Capoot | In | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +2 min

Shares of Snowflake closed down more than 14% on Thursday after the data cloud analytics company released fiscal second-quarter 2025 earnings that beat Wall Street's estimates but showed decelerating product revenue growth compared to past quarters. The company reported $829.3 million in product revenue, which accounts for most of Snowflake's sales, up 30% year over year. They said the company's smaller product revenue beat and deceleration in growth will not inspire weary investors. "A 2% product revenue beat in Q2, down from 5% in Q1, with product revenue growth dipping further to 29.5% YoY," likely sows "enough doubt in the investor conversation to keep shares under pressure in the near-term," the analysts wrote in a note Thursday. "True, 30% y/y product growth is slower than the 33-34% level we saw the past 2 quarters.

Persons: Sridhar Ramaswamy, Morgan Stanley, Snowflake's, — CNBC's Michael Bloom Organizations: LSEG, Barclays Locations: Toronto

☆ AT&T's massive data breach deepens crisis for Snowflake seven weeks after hack was disclosed
▼ + stars: | 2024-07-12 | by ( Jordan Novet | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +2 min

Sridhar Ramaswamy, CEO of Snowflake and formerly co-founder and CEO of startup Neeva, speaks at the Collision conference in Toronto on June 21, 2022. Snowflake has spent the past seven weeks dealing with the fallout of a major cyberattack that compromised sensitive customer data at several of its clients. The data includes phone numbers, aggregate call duration and some cell site details, AT&T said in the filing. It is the most severe incident since Snowflake disclosed the breach on May 30, writing in a blog post at the time, "We became aware of potentially unauthorized access to certain customer accounts on May 23, 2024." Mandiant blamed the hack on a financially motivated group it calls UNC5537, with members in North America and Turkey.

Persons: Sridhar Ramaswamy, Snowflake, Mandiant, UNC5537 Organizations: Telecommunications, AT, CNBC, Nasdaq, LendingTree, Ticketmaster, Santander Bank Locations: Toronto, Snowflake, North America, Turkey, Santander

☆ Snowflake shares drop 20% on CEO's retirement, weak guidance
▼ + stars: | 2024-02-29 | by ( Alex Koller | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +2 min

Snowflake said its first-quarter product revenue will total between $745 million and $750 million, compared to analysts' estimates of $759 million, per StreetAccount. The company said adjusted operation margin in the first quarter will be 3%, below the 7.2% analysts expected. mitigate C-suite uncertainty," the analysts wrote to investors in a Thursday memo. The company shut down its product and was acquired by Snowflake for $185 million last year. Before Slootman's tenure, Snowflake was helmed by former Microsoft executive Bob Muglia until his sudden ousting in April 2019.

Persons: Snowflake, Frank Slootman, Sridhar Ramaswamy, Slootman, Morgan Stanley, Ramaswamy, Bob Muglia, — CNBC's Michael Bloom, Jonathan Vanian Organizations: Google, Macquarie Equity Research, Microsoft, CNBC PRO Locations: Snowflake

☆ Snowflake's Slootman says he's not worried about employee exodus: 'This is not a personal cult'
▼ + stars: | 2024-02-29 | by ( Jordan Novet | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +3 min

While the announcement caused consternation on Wall Street, Slootman told CNBC that he's not worried about a wave of Snowflake employees following him out the door. Slootman, 65, is being succeeded by former Google ad chief Sridhar Ramaswamy, who joined Snowflake in June via the company's $185 million purchase of Neeva, a startup Ramaswamy co-founded in 2019. Snowflake was the third enterprise technology company that Slootman shepherded through the IPO process, following Data Domain in 2007 and ServiceNow in 2012. Before joining Snowflake, Slootman spent about six years as CEO of ServiceNow . ServiceNow's workforce stood at 23,668 by the end of 2023, compared with 603 in December 2011, months after Slootman had joined, according to regulatory filings.

Persons: Frank Slootman's, Slootman's, Slootman, he's, Sridhar Ramaswamy, Snowflake, ServiceNow, —, There's, George Floyd, Steve Jobs Organizations: Snowflake, New York Stock Exchange, Mizuho Securities, CNBC, Google Locations: ServiceNow, Snowflake, America

☆ New Snowflake CEO says generative AI will keep him 'busy for many years to come'
▼ + stars: | 2024-02-28 | by ( Julie Coleman | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +1 min

CNBC's Jim Cramer on Wednesday spoke with Snowflake 's outgoing CEO Frank Slootman and new leader Sridhar Ramaswamy, who said the company has big plans to make use of generative artificial intelligence. "So I think there's a huge opportunity in the world of data applications and AI that'll keep me busy for many years to come." Ramaswamy joined Snowflake in June of last year when it acquired his company, Neeva. Slootman took the reins at Snowflake in 2019 after he had retired as CEO of ServiceNow . "I don't want to be one of those quarterbacks who doesn't know how to get off the field, you know.

Persons: CNBC's Jim Cramer, Snowflake, Frank Slootman, Sridhar Ramaswamy, I've, Ramaswamy, Neeva, Slootman, doesn't, I'm Organizations: Google, Commerce Locations: Snowflake

☆ Snowflake says Frank Slootman is retiring as CEO; stock plunges more than 20%
▼ + stars: | 2024-02-28 | by ( Jonathan Vanian | In | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +3 min

Frank Slootman, CEO of Snowflake, on the day of the company's initial public offering on Sept. 16, 2020. Snowflake said Wednesday that billionaire CEO Frank Slootman, who joined the cloud software company in 2019 and took it public the following year, is retiring and will be replaced by former Google ad chief Sridhar Ramaswamy. Slootman, 65, previously led software vendor ServiceNow into the public markets and before that led Data Domain. Operating losses for the fourth quarter were $275.5 million, up from $239.8 million during the fourth quarter of the previous year. As of Feb. 9, Slootman owned 10.6 million Snowflake shares, according to a regulatory filing.

Persons: Frank Slootman, Snowflake, Sridhar Ramaswamy, Slootman, Ramaswamy, Sridhar, Bob Muglia, Muglia, — CNBC's Jennifer Elias, Jordan Novet Organizations: Google, Data, New York Stock Exchange, Microsoft Locations: Snowflake, Neeva, Wednesday's

A woman holds her smart phone which displays the Google home page, in this picture illustration taken February 24, 2016. Google's James Kolotouros, who negotiated search distribution agreements with Android device makers and carriers, testified the agreements gave Google search exclusivity, and Google monitored compliance with them. Advertisers are not told their LTV, and Google uses "tunings" to adjust the price of ads, he said. Google's vice president and general manager of ads, Jerry Dischler, acknowledged that Google earned more than $100 billion in 2020 from search ads. Apple's (AAPL.O) senior vice president of services Eddie Cue praised Google's search and acknowledged under questioning that the smartphone maker had meetings with Microsoft and DuckDuckGo, which uses Bing searches, but found them inadequate.

Persons: Eric Gaillard, Google's James Kolotouros, Adam Juda, Joshua Lowcock, Jerry Dischler, Satya Nadella, Eddie Cue, Bing, John Schmidtlein, Google's, Diane Bartz, Marguerita Choy Organizations: REUTERS, U.S, Google, Department, GOOGLE, Verizon, Samsung, LTV, UM Worldwide, Microsoft, Apple, Nokia, Bing, Thomson Locations: WASHINGTON

☆ Google engaged in a monopolistic feedback loop to maintain search dominance, DOJ alleges in first day of trial
▼ + stars: | 2023-09-12 | by ( Lauren Feiner | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +12 min

That popularity, the company says, is why browser and phone makers have chosen Google as their default search engine through revenue sharing agreements. It will also hear from Apple's Senior Vice President of Services Eddy Cue and Mozilla CEO Mitchell Baker, Google's lawyer said. Following opening statements, the DOJ lawyer questioned its first witness, as it begins what's known as its "case-in-chief." But it's important browsers pick the right search default, Schmidtlein said, as Mozilla learned when it switched its default from Google to Yahoo in 2014. WATCH: DOJ takes on Google in antitrust lawsuit over Google Search

Persons: Jonathan Kanter, Kevin Dietsch, Sundar Pichai, Services Eddy, Mitchell Baker, Google's, Sridhar Ramaswamy, Neeva, Hal Varian, Ting Shen, Varian, Kenneth Dintzer, Dintzer, Ditzner, Patterson Belknap Webb, William Cavanaugh, Joan Braddi, Braddi, Siri, Cavanaugh, Kent Walker, Williams, Connolly's John Schmidtlein, Schmidtlein, Denelle Dixon, Apple Organizations: Antitrust, Department of Justice, Getty, Google, Colorado, Washington , D.C, Apple's, Services, Mozilla, DOJ, AGs, Google Inc, Bloomberg, Microsoft, Federal Trade Commission, Apple, Samsung, Branch, Global Affairs, Inc, Yahoo, TechCrunch, CNBC, YouTube Locations: Washington , DC, Washington ,, Snowflake, Colorado, Siri

Silicon Valley is bracing for what it fears will be an "extinction event" threatening the survival of hundreds of startups. Tom Loverro, a investor at 40-year-old Bay Area venture capital firm IVP, has been loudly warning for months on Twitter and in media interviews about a coming "mass extinction event" for startups. The total volume of venture capital investment into US startups has slumped for six consecutive quarters, according to data firm Pitchbook. Even a last-ditch slashing of the startup's prospective valuation — a "down-round," in Silicon Valley parlance — didn't whet investors' appetites. Over the past year, many startups that rely on Silicon Valley funding have been steeling themselves for the slowdown to avoid similar fates.

Persons: —, they're, Jennifer Neundorfer, That's, Tom Loverro, Loverro, Consuelo Vanderbilt, Vanderbilt, Cameron Lester, I've, Lester, Linda Ahrens, Ahrens, Unown, " Ahrens, Anna Dittrich, Plastiq, Vincent Harrison, Elad Gil, Steve Brotman, Brotman, Will Hawthorne, VC's, Mike Ryan, Pitchbook's Harrison, Sell, Hawthorne Organizations: Ventures, Sequoia Capital, —, Venture, Twitter, United States Federal Reserve, Jefferies, January Ventures, Alpha Partners, Avid Capital, Sugar, Menlo, BulletPoint Network Locations: Silicon, Sequoia, IVP, Valley, Instacart, Navan, Boston, Snowflake, America

☆ Snowflake CEO Frank Slootman says acquiring Neeva will help overcome A.I. 'hallucination bias'
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-28 | by ( ) www.cnbc.com time to read: 1 min

In this videoShare Share Article via Facebook Share Article via Twitter Share Article via LinkedIn Share Article via EmailSnowflake CEO Frank Slootman says acquiring Neeva will help overcome A.I. 'hallucination bias'Frank Slootman, Snowflake CEO, joins 'Closing Bell Overtime' to discuss A.I. expansion, the company's Neeva acquisition, and more.

Persons: Frank Slootman, Neeva Locations: Snowflake

☆ Despite near-term growth concerns, Wall Street analysts view this cloud stock as a long-term A.I. winner
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-01 | by ( Samantha Subin | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +4 min

Snowflake should emerge as a long-term artificial intelligence winner despite a host of near-term snowstorms, Wall Street analysts think. The cloud stock dropped more than 16% last Thursday after the company shared product revenue guidance that fell short of consensus expectations and results that indicated slowing growth. Even with these headwinds, many analysts remain positive on Snowflake's long-term trajectory, viewing an acquisition and the transition to the cloud as two catalysts for the stock. Deutsche Bank's Brad Zelnick said in a recent note that AI, among other developments, should drive customer stickiness and improved use cases. A murky future Not everyone seems optimistic about Snowflake's AI potential, however.

Persons: Snowflake, Brent Thill, Piper Sandler's Brent Bracelin, Raymond James, Simon Leopold, Frank Slootman, Goldman Sachs, Kash Rangan, Rangan, Brad Zelnick, Redburn, Alex Haissl, Haissl, — CNBC's Michael Bloom Organizations: Wall Street, Wolfe Research, Snowflake's Summit, Deutsche, Palo Alto Networks Locations: Snowflake, Las Vegas

☆ Snowflake shares plunge 12% on guidance miss, acquisition of search startup Neeva
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-24 | by ( Annie Palmer | In Annierpalmer | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +2 min

The bulk of Snowflake sales come from product revenue, which expanded 50% year over year. Product revenue accounts for use of Snowflake's software for storing and running queries on data stored in its system. Snowflake said it anticipates product revenue will be between $620 million and $625 million in the fiscal second quarter. For the 2024 fiscal year, Snowflake called for product revenue of $2.6 billion. Snowflake also announced it plans to acquire Neeva, the privacy-focused search company co-founded by former Google executive Sridhar Ramaswamy.

Persons: Snowflake, Sridhar Ramaswamy, Benoit Dageville, Snowflake's, Dageville, CNBC's Ashley Capoot Organizations: New York Stock Exchange, Refinitiv Revenue Locations: Tues, Snowflake

☆ Despite poor guidance, Snowflake CEO says he is optimistic about the future
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-24 | by ( Julie Coleman | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +1 min

After an earnings report that saw a beat on revenue but poor guidance, CEO of data cloud company Snowflake Frank Slootman was firm in his optimism about the company's future. "If you were to zoom out a little bit and say, 'let me take a five-year view of the growth here,' it is tremendous," Slootman told CNBC's Jim Cramer. Snowflake reported $624 million in fiscal first-quarter revenue on Wednesday, showing 48% growth year over year, and comfortably topped the consensus Refinitiv estimate of $608 million. The company CEO went so far as to say Snowflake is rapidly becoming an AI company as well as a data company. Snowflake also announced Wednesday that it was acquiring search startup Neeva, saying in a blog post that it will "infuse and leverage" the company's AI-equipped search products.

Persons: Frank Slootman, Slootman, CNBC's Jim Cramer, Snowflake

☆ Neeva, co-founded by a former Google exec, to shut down its consumer search product and focus on A.I.
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-20 | by ( Ashley Capoot | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +1 min

Neeva, the privacy-focused search company co-founded by former Google executive Sridhar Ramaswamy, announced Saturday that it is shutting down its consumer search engine and will focus on exploring use cases for artificial intelligence. In a blog post on the company's website, Ramaswamy and Vivek Raghunathan, another Neeva co-founder, wrote that "acquiring users has been really hard." They said this challenge, in addition to the "different economic environment," have made it clear that a business in consumer search is not sustainable. Neeva will explore use cases for generative AI and large language models in search going forward, according to the post. Neeva.com and its consumer search product will shut down over the next few weeks.

☆ Microsoft should throw billions at Apple to make Bing the default iPhone search engine, says a former Google exec
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-22 | by ( Hugh Langley | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +2 min

A former Google exec thinks Microsoft should outbid Google to land the default iPhone search spot. Landing the default search spot on the iPhone could disrupt Google's search dominance. If Microsoft wants to really throw Google's business into turmoil, it should offer Apple billions of dollars to become the iPhone's default search engine. Google currently pays an estimated $15 billion a year to be the default search engine on the more than 1 billion Apple devices globally, including the iPhone. While Google has launched its competitor to ChatGPT, known as Bard, it is not currently integrated into Google Search.

☆ Ex-Google exec says Microsoft has 'thrown down the gauntlet' on web search with AI-boosted Bing
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-11 | by ( Beatrice Nolan | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +2 min

An ex-Google exec said Microsoft had "thrown down the gauntlet" with its new Bing search engine. On Tuesday, Microsoft launched an upgraded version of Bing powered by new artificial intelligence. Microsoft launched its AI-boosted version of Bing on Tuesday, the day after Google announced plans to incorporate AI technology into its own search engine. Ramaswamy told Insider that both Google and Microsoft were "ahead of the pack with respect to foundational technology and investment in AI." He added: "All of this can take away from the narrative of Google being the premier search engine."

☆ Neeva founder: AI will have a lot of impact on daily human life
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-06 | by ( ) www.cnbc.com time to read: 1 min

Share Share Article via Facebook Share Article via Twitter Share Article via LinkedIn Share Article via EmailNeeva founder: AI will have a lot of impact on daily human lifeSridhar Ramaswamy, a former Google executive and co-founder of search start-up Neeva, joins 'Squawk Box' to discuss the ethics behind artificial intelligence and its application.

☆ Google search is dealing with a flood of AI-generated content and can't figure out how best to handle it
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-14 | by ( Tom Dotan | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +5 min

Experts predict the web will be flooded with AI-generated content as the technology improves. Patel, who blogged about the experiment, reached the conclusion that Google had finally come for the robots and their AI-generated content. If Google did nothing, the majority of pages that people visit through Google search could one day feature content written only by AIs. Even if Google wants to down rank AI-generated content, the growing sophistication of the technology could make that hard to do. Of course, if Google does view AI as a major threat to search quality, it only has itself to blame.

☆ Thousands of workers were laid off this week as tech companies and startups brace for an economic crash. Investors, founders, and recruiters explain why this is just the beginning.
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-05 | by ( Rob Price | Samantha Stokes | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +10 min

Amid growing economic uncertainty, layoffs in the technology industry, both for public companies and for startups, have been escalating this Fall. While plenty of tech companies were still flying high in early 2022, Russia's invasion of Ukraine in February accelerated global economic turmoil. More than 17,000 tech workers lost their jobs in both May and June, while July and August saw another 29,000 cuts, according to layoff tracker Layoffs.fyi. Davis, the VC at Interplay, explained that cost-cutting and layoffs are happening across the board, not just in the tech industry. But public tech companies as well as early- and growth-stage startups will face additional challenges, he said.

☆ Former Google ads boss launches ‘Web3’ search startup with backing from Coinbase, top VCs
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-12 | by ( Ryan Browne | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +5 min

The round was led by Paradigm, a prolific crypto and "Web3" dealmaker, while Coinbase, Sequoia and Greylock — where Ramaswamy is a partner — also invested. Nxyz was conceived earlier this year by a team of engineers at Neeva, a search engine that doesn't include any ads and blocks online tracking tools. In a March blogpost on Neeva's website, nxyz is described as "an experiment bringing the same user-first ethos of Neeva search to web3." Unlike Neeva and Google — the "Web2" behemoth Neeva wants to disrupt — nxyz's Web3 search software isn't targeted at consumers. "I think it'll be a very different trajectory" to Web3 and crypto companies that have run into financial troubles, he said.

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