Connect with us

Published

on

SPAIN – 2021/04/15: In this photo illustration, the Airbnb app seen displayed on a smartphone screen with the Airbnb website displayed on a laptop in the background. (Photo Illustration by Thiago Prudencio/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images)

Sopa Images | Lightrocket | Getty Images

Shares of Airbnb tumbled 10% Wednesday, a day after the company released its first-quarter report that offered slightly weaker-than-expected guidance and a cautious outlook for the current quarter.

CEO Brian Chesky told CNBC’s “Squawk on the Street” Wednesday that Airbnb is being cautious about its second quarter because of affordability pressure it is experiencing in North America.

“With inflation, people are more focused than ever on affordability,” he said. “We’re really focused on trying to make sure prices are modulated in North America.”

Consumers appear more focused than ever on affordability right now, says Airbnb CEO

Chesky expressed similar concerns about price sensitivity in North America during a quarterly call with investors Tuesday, adding that, in the U.S., the lowest price offerings on the platform have the highest occupancy. He said that as Airbnb rates normalize, the company expects to see an increase in occupancy across more listings.

In its first quarter, Airbnb beat analyst estimates on top and bottom lines, and total revenue rose 20% year over year. The company swung to a net profit of $117 million, or 18 cents per share, from a net loss of $19 million, or 3 cents per share, in the year-earlier period. The figure marks the first time Airbnb has been profitable during its first quarter on a GAAP basis.

But the home-sharing platform warned that second-quarter comparisons would be tough, saying, “Nights and Experiences Booked will have unfavorable year-over-year comparisons in Q2 2023 as we overlap pent-up 2022 demand following the COVID Omicron variant.”

Airbnb forecast second-quarter revenue between $2.35 billion and $2.45 billion. Analysts polled by Refinitiv were expecting $2.42 billion.

Analysts at Bernstein said the company posted a “solid enough” quarter despite the challenges it is anticipating in its second quarter. They maintained their outperform rating on the stock and said in a Wednesday note they see Airbnb’s headwinds as a “short timing effect.”

Baird analysts also said that Airbnb’s results were “generally solid,” but that they were overshadowed by concerns about what could come in the second quarter.

“While we remain somewhat cautious near-term based on macro and discretionary spending risks, longer-term outlook remains bright given strength of brand, platform and management team,” the analysts wrote in a note Wednesday.

–CNBC’s Michael Bloom contributed to this report

Continue Reading

Technology

OpenAI’s Sora 2 must stop allowing copyright infringement, Motion Picture Association says

Published

on

By

OpenAI's Sora 2 must stop allowing copyright infringement, Motion Picture Association says

Cfoto | Future Publishing | Getty Images

The Motion Picture Association on Monday urged OpenAI to “take immediate and decisive action” against its new video creation model Sora 2, which is being used to produce content that it says is infringing on copyrighted media.

Following the Sora app’s rollout last week, users have been swarming the platform with AI-generated clips featuring characters from popular shows and brands.

“Since Sora 2’s release, videos that infringe our members’ films, shows, and characters have proliferated on OpenAI’s service and across social media,” MPA CEO Charles Rivkin said in a statement.

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman clarified in a blog post that the company will give rightsholders “more granular control” over how their characters are used.

But Rivkin said that OpenAI “must acknowledge it remains their responsibility – not rightsholders’ – to prevent infringement on the Sora 2 service,” and that “well-established copyright law safeguards the rights of creators and applies here.”

OpenAI did not respond to a request for comment.

Concerns erupted immediately after Sora videos were created last week featuring everything from James Bond playing poker with Altman to body cam footage of cartoon character Mario evading the police.

Although OpenAI previously held an opt-out system, which placed the burden on studios to request that characters not appear on Sora, Altman’s follow-up blog post said the platform was changing to an opt-in model, suggesting that Sora would not allow the usage of copyrighted characters without permission.

However, Altman noted that the company may not be able to prevent all IP from being misused.

“There may be some edge cases of generations that get through that shouldn’t, and getting our stack to work well will take some iteration,” Altman wrote.

Copyright concerns have emerged as a major issue during the generative AI boom.

Disney and Universal sued AI image creator Midjourney in June, alleging that the company used and distributed AI-generated characters from their films and disregarded requests to stop. Disney also sent a cease-and-desist letter to AI startup Character.AI in September, warning the company to stop using its copyrighted characters without authorization.

WATCH: OpenAI’s Sora 2 sparks AI ‘slop’ backlash

OpenAI's Sora 2 sparks AI 'slop' backlash

Continue Reading

Technology

Billionaire tech investor Orlando Bravo says ‘valuations in AI are at a bubble’

Published

on

By

Billionaire tech investor Orlando Bravo says 'valuations in AI are at a bubble'

Orlando Bravo: AI valuations are in a bubble

Thoma Bravo co-founder Orlando Bravo said that valuations for artificial intelligence companies are “at a bubble,” comparing it to the dotcom era.

But one key difference in the market now, he said, is that large companies with “healthy balance sheets” are financing AI businesses.

Bravo’s private equity firm boasts more than $181 billion in assets under management as of June, and focuses on buying and selling enterprise tech companies, with a significant chunk of its portfolio invested in cybersecurity.

Bravo told CNBC’s “Squawk on the Street” on Tuesday that investors can’t value a $50 million annual recurring revenue company at $10 billion.

“That company is going to have to produce a billion dollars in free cash flow to double an investor’s money, ultimately,” he said. “Even if the product is right, even if the market’s right, that’s a tall order, managerially.”

Read more CNBC tech news

OpenAI recently finalized a secondary share sale that would value the ChatGPT-maker at $500 billion. The company is projected to make $13 billion in revenue for 2025.

Nvidia recently said it would invest up to $100 billion in OpenAI, in part, to help the ChatGPT maker lease its chips and build out supercomputing facilities in the coming years.

Other public companies have soared on AI promises, with Palantir’s market cap climbing to $437 billion, putting it among the 20 most valuable publicly traded companies in the U.S., and AppLovin now worth $213 billion.

Even early-stage valuations are massive in AI, with Thinking Machines Lab notching a $12 billion valuation on a $2 billion seed round.

Despite the inflated numbers, Bravo emphasized that there’s a “big difference” between the dotcom collapse and the current landscape of AI.

“Now you have some really big companies and some big balance sheets and healthy balance sheets financing this activity, which is different than what happened roughly 25 years ago,” he said.

Oracle shares fall on report the company is struggling to make money renting out Nvidia chips

Continue Reading

Technology

Oracle stock slips 5% on report company is seeing thin cloud margins from Nvidia chips

Published

on

By

Oracle stock slips 5% on report company is seeing thin cloud margins from Nvidia chips

Oracle shares fall on report the company is struggling to make money renting out Nvidia chips

Oracle stock slipped 5% on Tuesday after a report from The Information that raised questions about the company’s plans to buy billions of Nvidia chips to rent as a cloud provider to clients like OpenAI.

Oracle had 14% gross margins on $900 million in sales in its Nvidia cloud business in the three months ending in August, according to the report, which cited internal documents. That’s significantly lower than Oracle’s overall gross margin of around 70%.

The report said that Oracle’s recent transformation into one of the most important cloud and artificial intelligence companies may run into profitability challenges because of how expensive Nvidia chips are and aggressive pricing on its AI chip rentals.

Read more CNBC tech news

In September, Oracle said that its backlog of cloud contracts, which it called remaining performance obligations, had jumped 359% in a year. It forecasted $144 billion in cloud infrastructure revenue in 2030, up from just over $10 billion in 2025.

Much of that forecasted revenue is from Oracle’s role in the Stargate project, in which the enterprise vendor is working with OpenAI to open five massive data centers filled with AI chips from Nvidia.

Stock Chart IconStock chart icon

hide content

Year-to-date stock chart for Oracle.

Continue Reading

Trending