Good morning. Sam Altman wanted to scan my eyeball on Wednesday night, but I wasn’t really in the mood.
I’m joking, sort of. His World project, which is led by CEO Alex Blania and backed by a who’s who of Silicon Valley, is building infrastructure to authenticate humans in a world swimming with disruptive AI agents. It’s conceptually compelling and dizzyingly complex—like WhatsApp crossed with Coinbase and the TSA.
The startup held a grand fête in San Francisco this week—throbbing bass, flowing drinks, scanned eyeballs—to announce new products (the more accessible Orb mini verification device), new markets (the less regulated U.S.), and new partnerships (Razer for gaming, Match Group for dating, Visa for a payments card, etc.). The goal? Build a global, blockchain-based network of users, then monetize.
As a disc-jockeying Anderson .Paak launched into “Leave the Door Open,” I rubbed my bloodshot eyes. Long day. For me, the best way to “verify my humanity,” as the company puts it, might just be to call it a night. —Andrew Nusca
P.S. I’m off to London for our first Fortune Brainstorm AI gathering of the year. Much gratitude to Fortune’s heroic tech editors, Alexei Oreskovic and Verne Kopytoff, who will take the wheel next week, starting Monday.
Want to send thoughts or suggestions to Fortune Tech? Drop a line here.
Apple CEO reveals how much Trump tariffs will cost the company
Apple CEO Tim Cook said Thursday that President Donald Trump’s new tax on imported supplies would cost Apple an extra $900 million in the June quarter, assuming no further changes in tariffs, after only a “limited impact” in the March quarter.
Asked by analysts to predict the longer term cost of the tariffs, Cook said the situation was fluid but hinted that the price tag could rise.
“We will manage the company as we already have—with thoughtful, deliberate decisions,” he said.
That didn’t entirely satisfy Wall Street, which was anxious for a big-picture assessment of Apple’s exposure to the tariffs. Apple’s shares fell 4% in after-hours trading to $204.94.
On Thursday’s earnings call, Cook laid out some of the maneuvering Apple has undertaken to minimize the impact of the China tariffs as much as possible. The strategy has included shifting the countries from which Apple imports its all-important iPhone into the U.S. along with other devices.
Most of those iPhones in the current quarter will come from India, where Apple has scrambled in recent years to increase its manufacturing and where tariffs are lower than in China. “Nearly all” other products imported into the U.S., he said, such as Mac computers and iPads, will be sourced from Vietnam, where tariffs are also lower.
Cook added that Apple would continue with diversifying its manufacturing and supply chain outside of China. “What we learned some time ago was that having everything in one location had too much risk with it,” he said.
Apple’s results for the quarter ending March 29 were largely in line with what Wall Street had expected. Revenue rose 5% to $95.4 billion from the same period a year earlier while profits grew 5% to $24.8 billion. —Verne Kopytoff
Amazon is ‘pretty maniacally focused’ on keeping prices down amid tariff pressure
Even the CEO of the world’s second-largest retailer doesn’t know precisely what’s in store when it comes to the U.S.-led global trade war.
“You know, it’s hard to tell what’s going to happen with tariffs right now,” Amazon CEO Andy Jassy said on the company’s quarterly earnings call Thursday. “It’s hard to tell where they’re going to settle and when they’re going to settle.”
As President Trump’s trade restrictions have ripped through the stock market, bringing economic uncertainty and concerns about higher prices for consumers, Jassy says Amazon is focused on keeping its footing.
“How do we actually have the broadest possible selection for customers at the lowest possible prices?” Jassy said. “And there’s maybe never been a more important time in recent memory than trying to keep prices low, which we are heads down and pretty maniacally focused on.”
Amazon’s first quarter earnings beat expectations, causing a pre-earning rally of more than 3%, its highest level since April 9. The Seattle-based company earned $1.59 per share on revenues of $155.6 billion, beating consensus analyst estimates of $1.37 per share on revenues of $155.1 billion.
But soft Q2 guidance sparked an after-hours selloff as much as 4.84%. For the quarter, Amazon expects sales between $159 billion and $164 billion and operating income between $13 billion and $17.5 billion. —Stuart Dyos
Microsoft is raising video game prices to $80
Microsoft has announced a series of price increases that will see the recommended retail price of its first-party games increase to $79.99.
The systems used to play those games are seeing a stiff increase in price as well. The Xbox Series S (512GB) is seeing prices increase by $80 from $299.99 to $379.99. The 1 TB Xbox Series X will cost $100 more, jumping to $599.99.
And if you want the high-end 2 TB special edition Xbox Series X, that will now run you $729.99. Controllers will now cost $65.
The hardware price increases are effective immediately, the company said. Game prices will increase this holiday season.
Microsoft isn’t the first to embrace the $80 price point for games. Nintendo broke that ground earlier this year, announcing that Mario Kart World, an exclusive title for its new Switch 2 console, would carry a price tag of $79.99. Sony, which makes the PlayStation, has not announced any changes to its first party games yet, but the industry typically prices titles equally.
Microsoft did not cite tariffs as a reason in announcing the price increases.
The changes “were made with careful consideration given market conditions and the rising cost of development,” Microsoft said in a statement.
Microsoft did not increase prices on its Game Pass program, which gives players access to a Netflix-like catalog of titles that can be played on demand. —Chris Morris
More tech
—Airbnb offers stormy outlook. Q1 revenue ($2.27bn) in line with analyst estimates, but Q2 ($3.02bn) fails to meet them.
—Atlassian shares drop. Stock down 18% after the company posted its slowest revenue growth in years.
—Block misses the mark. Q1 revenue, profit, guidance all miss estimates; shares of the company f/k/a Square drop 18%.
—Instacart ascends. Instacart records its strongest Q1 order growth since 2022 and offers a sunny outlook for current-period revenue.
—Reddit accelerates. $392 million in Q1 revenue handily beats estimates; Q2 guidance is better than Wall Street expected.
—Roku cuts loss in half. Loses $27.4m in Q1, half as much as a year ago; acquires Frndly TV streaming service.
—Nvidia: ‘Tall tales’ from Anthropic. The AI startup describes Chinese trade tactics including “hiding processors in prosthetic baby bumps and packing GPUs alongside live lobsters.”
—Polygon lays off most of staff. Twenty staffers of the video game publication are let go as part of a sale to Valnet.
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