BlackBerry: Back in the black?

The once-iconic phonemaker expects to be profitable again

6/28/24 6:22AM

We’ll be fine

Shares of BlackBerry rose 11% yesterday after the company posted a smaller than expected loss, edging the once world-beating company back towards profitability, with the CEO expecting BlackBerry to be “generating positive cash flow in the fourth quarter”.

The results had nothing to do with shipping phones, however. Since its dramatic fall from grace, the company has pivoted towards selling the software and security features that helped make its phones so popular with security-conscious white-collar workers in the first place.

BlackBerry, along with other 2000s classics like Nokia, TomTom, and pretty much the entire MP3 market, was decimated by the release of the iPhone in 2007. The company’s revenue peaked just shy of $20 billion in 2011, but as the iPhone and other smartphones went mainstream, its sales plummeted. Just five years later, BlackBerry's revenue had dropped to around $2 billion, a period that included a staggering $4.4 billion loss in a single quarter due to a massive inventory writedown.

Realizing that its co-CEO’s famous words — "we'll be fine" — after the iPhone launch were, shall we say, a bit optimistic, the company eventually abandoned selling hardware in 2016. That shift has hardly restored BlackBerry into the global leader that it once was, its most recent annual sales amounted to just 4% of its record, but some version of the company remains alive and kicking. In fact, there’s a good chance you’ve recently used a BlackBerry product indirectly: the company reports that its software is in more than 235 million vehicles around the world.

Millie Giles

BATTLE OF THE BRANDS

17h

Which companies have the best and worst reputations, according to Americans?

The 2026 Axios Harris Poll 100 reputation ranking suggests the US prefers Big Tech to Big Media.

Max Knoblauch

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Spotify expands its anti-AI verified badges to podcasts

Spotify introduced verified badges for musician profiles in late April.

Spotify Hosts a "Now Playing" Creator Day at its Los Angeles Campus

Tom Jones5/19/26

Demis Hassabis, Google DeepMind’s CEO and founder, was also an early Anthropic investor

A chess prodigy and an actual a knight of the realm in the UK, it’s perhaps no surprise that Demis Hassabis has made some strategic moves about his exposure to AI upside. According to people familiar with the matter, the influential AI architect became an angel investor in Anthropic, currently behind many of the leading AI models, per Arena AI leaderboards.

The Nobel Prize winner’s position in the Claude creator was previously undisclosed and, per the Financial Times, highlights Hassabis’ “growing influence across the AI industry.”

Google, which bought DeepMind, the company that Hassabis cofounded and heads to this day, for a reported ~$400 million in 2014, is also a key Anthropic investor. The tech giant reportedly plans to invest up to $40 billion in the AI company as part of the mutually beneficial relationship the pair have forged, with reports that Anthropic has committed to spending $200 billion in the other direction on Google’s cloud services over the next five years.

I’m playing all sides, so I always come out on top

In addition to his financial support for Anthropic, Hassabis has also invested in a range of AI startups launched by colleagues, such as Inflection AI, a company set up by DeepMind cofounder Mustafa Suleyman (who is now CEO of Microsoft AI), as well as efforts from other collaborators, like David Silver’s Ineffable Intelligence.

Hassabis also emerged as a recurring figure on the fringes of the recent Elon Musk v. Sam Altman trial, cropping up repeatedly in testimonies and court documents and appearing to live, as The Verge put it, “rent-free” in Musk’s head.

Founded in 2021, Anthropic has recently raised funding at a reported $900 billion valuation, sending it soaring ahead of competitor OpenAI.

Google DeepMind’s Demis Hassabis emerges as early Anthropic investor

The Nobel Prize winner’s position in the Claude creator was previously undisclosed and, per the Financial Times, highlights Hassabis’ “growing influence across the AI industry.”

I’m playing all sides, so I always come out on top

Founded in 2021, Anthropic has recently raised funding at a reported $900 billion valuation, sending it soaring ahead of competitor OpenAI.

Max Knoblauch5/18/26

Jury rules against Musk in lawsuit against OpenAI and Altman

Jurors in Tesla CEO Elon Musk’s lawsuit against Sam Altman, Greg Brockman, and OpenAI found the defendants not liable on all claims on Monday.

In a unanimous verdict reached after less than two hours of deliberation, the Oakland jury found that Musk had waited too long to bring his case forward, exceeding the statute of limitations.

Musk had alleged that OpenAI abandoned its founding mission as a nonprofit dedicated to developing AI for humanity and instead became a profit-driven company closely tied to Microsoft.

The verdict caps off a three-week blockbuster tech trial that could have seen Altman and Brockman removed from OpenAI leadership.

Jury tosses Elon Musk’s lawsuit against OpenAI and Sam Altman

Musk had alleged that OpenAI abandoned its founding mission as a nonprofit dedicated to developing AI for humanity and instead became a profit-driven company closely tied to Microsoft.

The verdict caps off a three-week blockbuster tech trial that could have seen Altman and Brockman removed from OpenAI leadership.

Millie Giles

WRIST BUMP

5/18/26

Swatch’s collaboration with Audemars Piguet could help bring hype back to its bottom line

The rival watchmakers have teamed up on a buzzy new collection that’s sparking a global consumer frenzy.