Good morning. On this day in 1943, the Swiss chemist Albert Hofmann discovered the psychedelic properties of LSD, which he had first synthesized in 1938.
Working for the chemical company Sandoz, Hofmann was in hot pursuit of a respiratory and circulatory drug. Then he “accidentally underwent the first acid trip in human history,” as the Smithsonian magazine put it. (Far out, man.)
At the dawn of the decade, Fortune sent writer Jeff O’Brien on a, uh, trip to better understand the role that psychedelics are playing in Silicon Valley’s endless quest for personal optimization.
Given Elon Musk’s comments last year on his ketamine use—“it helps me, and that helps Tesla”—it appears some things haven’t changed. —Andrew Nusca
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Meta considered spinning out Instagram in 2018
Seven years ago Mark Zuckerberg wrote to senior leaders at the company formerly known as Facebook that he believed it would be broken up in the next five to 10 years.
Why not get ahead of the regulatory scrutiny?
“I’m beginning to wonder whether spinning Instagram out is the only structure that will accomplish a number of important goals,” the Meta CEO wrote. (One of them: “Stop artificially growing Instagram in a way that undermines the Facebook network.”)
The note emerged during the second day of a federal antitrust trial.
The Federal Trade Commission alleges Meta’s acquisition of Instagram in 2012 and WhatsApp in 2014 gave it a social media monopoly that should be broken up; Meta contends it’s no monopoly in light of the success of TikTok, Alphabet’s YouTube, and even Apple’s iMessage.
The FTC began its investigation of the company in 2019 and sued in 2020. Zuckerberg reportedly tried to head off the trial last month with a proposal for a $450 million settlement; the FTC had demanded $30 billion.
So far, the trial has focused on how Zuckerberg defined and reacted to the competitive landscape—from Path to Foursquare to Instagram—in the first half of the previous decade.
In court this week, Zuckerberg said his communications back then attempted to “take into account the direction that the politics seemed to be going at the time.” The CEO testified that he was focused on increasing revenue at Instagram, which at the time was a small fraction of Meta’s overall revenue.
Zuckerberg is expected to return to the stand Wednesday to be questioned by Meta’s lawyers; former COO Sheryl Sandberg should follow later in the week. —AN
Nvidia records a $5.5 billion charge related to trade war
Nvidia said Tuesday that it will take a quarterly charge of about $5.5 billion related to the export of its H20 AI chip to China and other countries.
Though the H20 is not Nvidia’s flagship AI chip—that title goes to the B200, based on the Blackwell architecture—it’s the most powerful GPU allowed for sale in China. It’s based on the older Hopper architecture and is similar to the H100 and H200 chips available here.
According to a company filing, the U.S. government told Nvidia a week ago that it would need a license to export the chips to China and elsewhere.
That requirement, which comes alongside myriad new export restrictions on semiconductors, threatens to weigh on Nvidia’s historic trajectory amid the current AI investment boom.
CNBC notes that the H20 is estimated to have generated $12 billion to $15 billion in revenue in 2024.
During a February call with investors, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang warned that competition in China was proliferating (cough, Huawei, cough) as its revenue declined. China is Nvidia’s fourth largest market by sales. —AN
OpenAI is reportedly building a social network
Social networks, so hot right now!
OpenAI, the world’s most valuable artificial intelligence company, is developing its own text-based social network, according to a report by The Verge.
Though the project “is still in early stages” and there’s “an internal prototype,” CEO Sam Altman has already been “asking outsiders for feedback,” according to the report.
Altman, of course, famously had a falling out with his fellow OpenAI co-founder Elon Musk, who bought X, the social network formerly known as Twitter, in 2022.
I wouldn’t go so far as to say that he took that personally, but there’s something to be said for creating a more natural distribution mechanism for ChatGPT (which, please note, was the most downloaded app in the world last month, per Appfigures).
The alleged move also pits OpenAI more directly against consumer Big Tech companies like Google and Meta who are keen to integrate homegrown AI to their existing user bases and product ecosystems. —AN
More tech
—Figma files for IPO. The software company was valued last year at $12.5 billion.
—Chip execs reportedly told U.S. government that new tariffs could cost more than $1 billion annually.
—So long, Google.co.uk. Country-level domains are “no longer necessary,” Google says.
—R.I.P., U.S. Defense Digital Service. Nearly all staff of the Pentagon tech development unit resign in the face of DOGE intervention.
—U.S. startup fundraising up 116% over Q1 2024. But the number of deals fell by 25%.
—Chinese police accuse U.S. NSA of cyberattacks during the Asian Winter Games in February 2025.
—4chan hacked. The site's source code has apparently been leaked, revealing security holes.
—FCC chair to Europe: It’s SpaceX’s Starlink or China, your pick!
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