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Internal Tech Emails
@techemails.bsky.social
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Internal tech industry emails that surface in public records. 🔍 https://techemails.com
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Sam Altman texts Shivon Zilis

February 9, 2023
Sam Altman BTW, good idea for me to tweet something nice about Elon? Have been meaning to do this after he DMd about not being in the photo from the first day of OpenAI. Just about how much I and others look up to him, how critical his early contributions to OpenAI are, etc.
November 8, 2025 at 6:03 PM
techemails.bsky.social
Mark Zuckerberg messages Facebook employee

April 9, 2012
Facebook employee Wow, awesome news. I like that you’re not killing the independent product. I love instagram. Mark Zuckerberg Yeah, I remember your internal post about how Instagram was our threat and not Google+. You were basically right. One thing about startups though is you can often acquire them. I think this is a good outcome for everyone.
October 13, 2025 at 12:53 AM
techemails.bsky.social
Elizabeth Holmes's schedule

Circa 2005–2009
September 27, 2025 at 4:16 PM
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Elon Musk names OpenAI

December 3, 2015
On Thu, Dec 3, 2015 at 11:18 AM, Elon Musk wrote: Don't love the sound of Consider. What's the Cogito trademark issue? A naming approach we could try is for the real name to be long, but have actual use be a contraction, eg the full name of SpaceX is Space Exploration Technologies Corp. We could call this the Open Al Institute (Open AI-I!), but call it Open in everyday conversation. Looks like OpenAI.com is available for purchase.
August 9, 2025 at 7:11 PM
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Mark Zuckerberg on buying Instagram

April 5, 2012
Mark Zuckerberg Just want to gut check that this is reasonable. Do you think it's way too much? Sheryl Sandberg yes of course it is way too much Sheryl Sandberg but we knew that
July 29, 2025 at 9:44 PM
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Cofounders on naming OpenAI

November 24, 2015
Greg Brockman What do you think Cogito as a name? Ilya Sutskever Not a huge fan Greg Brockman noooooo! (elon + sam both liked it)
July 19, 2025 at 10:03 PM
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Mark Zuckerberg on rebranding Facebook

May 3, 2018
When you get an Amazon Echo and start using it after you already use Amazon for commerce, you feel like Amazon is getting more relevant in your life. However, when you get Instagram and start using that in addition to Facebook, you feel like Facebook as a company is getting less relevant in your life. This is because we haven't effectively linked Instagram and WhatsApp to our corporate Facebook brand. The majority of people don't even know we own those services, and many of those who do know that still see them as sufficiently independent acquisitions that they do not reflect on the person's relationship with Facebook. I believe this contributes significantly to our brand issues. We have data that many people see Facebook as getting less relevant and believe our best days are behind us. Many think our services are getting worse -- which makes sense since our service is really about the network and we're actively fragmenting our network. This all means people will be less likely to try our new products or any other features we build. Long term this is likely a bigger brand issue for our products than our recent privacy issues because it gets to the heart of whether we are a company that can even build useful things and remain relevant in people's lives. Tech companies can withstand crises, but once you're Yahoo -- large but irrelevant -- it's tough to get people to even consider your products and it's difficult to succeed. Unfortunately, this brand dynamic is accelerating for us. I do not believe our current corporate brand strategy is sustainable. From a relevance perspective, we need to find a way to make it so that when a person uses more of our apps, they feel like we're serving them better and becoming more relevant in their life, not less. I only see two solutions to this: we either need to aggressively brand all of our services with Facebook as our corporate brand, or we need to create a new corporate brand and aggressively brand all of our services with that. We are not a holding company, so Alphabet is not the right analogy for us. People have a relationship with us, and they do not with Alphabet. Most people don't know what Alphabet is, and Alphabet isn't relevant in their lives. In that case, Google remains the corporate brand people have a relationship with. If we want to consider rebranding, a better model is Apple, Microsoft, or Samsung -- companies with strong consumer-facing corporate brands that are distinct from any specific product, but aggressively attached to all of their products. That said, an impulse to consider rebranding feels largely motivated by fear that the Facebook brand is irreparably tarnished. I disagree with this and believe it would be difficult to execute such a rebrand without it coming off like an Altria moment. The only way I could see this working is if we find a name so symbolic of our mission that it feels like we're running towards our core rather than away, and so inspiring that we'd proudly stamp it on every service we provide. That seems difficult, so it's likely the strongest move is doubling down on the Facebook brand -- like Amazon has with their lead product -- and aggressively branding Instagram and WhatsApp with it. When you open those apps, it would say "Instagram by Facebook" and "WhatsApp by Facebook". We may even need to put Facebook branding in the chrome of those apps where the app names and logos are today to cement this relationship in people's minds. We don't have to execute a change this month while the Facebook brand is at a global minimum, but this is such a big shift, it seems critical to have a coherent corporate brand moving forward, and it will take time to execute, so we should start now.
July 12, 2025 at 6:54 PM
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Steve Jobs emails Eric Schmidt

February 13, 2006
From: Steve Jobs Sent: Monday, February 13, 2006 3:15 PM To: Eric Schmidt Subject: Recruiting Eric, I am told that Googles new cell phone software group is relentlessly recruiting in our iPod group. If this is indeed true, can you put a stop to it? Thanks, Steve
July 2, 2025 at 12:59 AM
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Mark Zuckerberg on competing with Elon Musk

April 26, 2022
A lot of people are apprehensive about the direction Elon might take Twitter, so this might be a unique moment where many public figures or aspiring creators would be more open to moving. Defensively, there’s also a chance that Elon unlocks product iteration velocity and that Twitter could grow a lot as a competitor to us. Twitter has always underperformed as a business compared to its importance, but there’s no rule saying that will always be the case. It’s possible that a product focused on public discussions could be a lot bigger than Twitter is, and it’s possible that either we or Elon could build this.
May 24, 2025 at 5:32 PM
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OpenAI's strategy for ChatGPT

December 2, 2024
Who are our competitors? We think about competition in two ways. First, there's the consumer Al chatbot space: Claude, Gemini, Copilot, Meta Al. With [ HYPERLINK \I "_l6ubp9yx5tei" \h ]we are leading here, but we can't rest. We need the best free model, best Ul, and strongest brand. Looking ahead to 2025, [REDACTED] poses the biggest threat due to their ability to embed equivalent functionality across their products (e.g. [REDACTED] without facing the business model cannibalization risks that Google does. Then there's the broader game: building a super-assistant and then [REDACTED]. Now we're up against search engines, browsers, even interactions with real people. This one isn't a head-on match. It's about solving more and more use-cases and gradually pulling users in. That's why we don't call our product a search engine, a browser, or an OS — it's just ChatGPT.
May 17, 2025 at 6:17 PM
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Sheryl Sandberg messages Mark Zuckerberg

November 8, 2012
Sheryl Sandberg I want to learn settlers of catan too so we can play Mark Zuckerberg I can definitely teach you Settlers of Catan. It's very easy to learn.
May 4, 2025 at 2:51 PM
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Mark Zuckerberg: We need to take Snapchat Stories seriously

June 22, 2014
On Jun 22, 2014, at 11:51 PM, Mark Zuckerberg wrote: I’ve talked to a few of you about this directly, but I want to make sure you’re all tracking the success of Snapchat Stories. They announced this week that more than 1 billion stories are viewed daily, and that number has doubled in the past 2-3 months. They have 50-100m daily actives, so that’s between 10-20 stories per person daily and growing quickly. They also said that now more stories are viewed daily than snaps, which means this is quickly becoming their primary product. This is worth noting for a couple of reasons: First, it’s a clear existence proof that ephemerality works in large semi-public feed products. I was skeptical at first of why someone would want to broadcast something so raw to so many people at once, but between playing with Slingshot and now seeing these stats, it’s completely clear that this is a very real mainstream sharing use case.
April 27, 2025 at 5:29 PM
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Mark Zuckerberg tries to buy Snapchat

October 28, 2013
On 10/28/13 10:16 AM, Mark Zuckerberg wrote: I just got off the phone with Evan. He said he enjoyed getting to know us but he thinks they can build much more value on their own. For reference, our offer was $3.1b for the company plus $1b in retention packages. [REDACTED] on his board was advising him strongly not to take the offer. Evan did not offer a counter. Interestingly, [REDACTED] told him that Instagram was worth >$10b now and that Snapchat could be worth the same soon. I told him we thought Instagram was only worth ~$6b and had a clearer business model, but l'm not sure that moved him. When I pressed him on his number for a while, he told me that it would be hard to walk away at $6-7b, but that he needed to check with [REDACTED] before giving me any real number. This gives me some hope that we can still get this done at the higher end of our range between $5-6b, but with Benchmark now arguing strongly against the deal l'm less confident this will be possible. I suggested he get back to me today if he has a counter offer so we can figure out if we were going to move forward quickly. He told me he would do this, but he often takes longer than he says so I wouldn't be surprised if we didn't hear back for a couple of days. Separately, Yuri confirmed for me over the weekend that he and Tencent both have term sheets in to invest in Snapchat at a $3b+ valuation. Given that, I'm not surprised Benchmark doesn't wasn't to sell for an amount that is at or less than the valuation they can raise money at. Tactically, I wonder if we're doing the right thing by asking for a counter. It strongly signals we'd pay more, which we would so maybe it's not bad. But it might set their expectations higher than what we can actually get done. Do you have any suggestions for additional communication to them to try to get this to a good place? From: Amin Zoufonoun Date: Monday, October 28, 2013 11:03 AM i don't think so until they come back with a number. the fact that he references building greater value, instagram's valuation, and numbers from which he'd have a hard time walking today all suggest this is mainly/all about numbers versus what we face with whatsapp's founders: the desire to stay independent and build a lasting company. as such, i think they are stress testing how badly we want this and psychologically preparing us for a much higher counter (though the $5-6b is an attempt to get us to negotiate against ourselves and move up before they do). this is exactly what i would be doing following saturday... slow rolling things and playing coy to get the other side to flinch. i would recommend we wait, and anything they come back with, we react with raised eyebrows, a wow, and a we weren't expecting this and we need some time to think about whether and to what extent we can move beyond our current offer... which we know is already at the high end of price/user comps for similar acquisitions (below). and in fact it is. at $5b, below is how things would compare – on an mau basis, we'd set a new high mark ($77/user) and registered users would be at the high end of $50/user (stumbleupon):
April 18, 2025 at 3:27 AM
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Steve Jobs on Real's music store

January 5, 2004
On Jan 5, 2004, at 6:25 PM, Jeff Robbin wrote: http://news.com.com/2100-1027_3-5135382.html?tag=nefd_top Real to launch song store RealNetworks is expected to throw its hat into the digital song store ring later this week, releasing a download service based on technology similar to that used in Apple Computer's iTunes store, according to sources familiar with the plans. From: Steve Jobs Sent: Monday, January 05, 2004 6:33 PM Subject: Re: Real to launch song store This is great! Benefits to us: 1. Positions AAC as an open standard and Microsoft's WMA as proprietary. 2. Positions Real adopting AAC as adding "momentum to a standard that many see as the logical competitor to Microsoft's proprietary Windows Media technology." 3. Portrays a balkanized world of standards, and portrays this balkanization of standards as an industry problem, not an Apple problem. We are not alone - nobody's stuff is going to work with the other guy's stuff: "Along with Real, Apple, Microsoft and Sony all offer or plan to offer music wrapped in their own proprietary anticopying technologies. Most of the other song stores proliferating online, including Napster, MusicNow and Musicmatch, use Microsoft's digital audio format." In this balkanized world, the safest bet is the largest, most successful standard, and today we're it. Let's leverage this position now!!!! Steve
April 13, 2025 at 4:12 PM
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Bill Gates on the iPod

November 2, 2003
From: Bill Gates Sent: Sunday, November 02, 2003 9:54 PM Subject: Scenario leadership This whole Apple music experience is one that is interesting to me and makes me wonder where the scenario thinking is in Windows. What is the best scenario paper I have seen? None. Even on Photos which has a lot of people I really haven't seen anything. Because we are going to be so late with a music service we are going to be behind others almost forever it seems like. All of the hardware people have will be tied to other services. People won't want to give up their hardware. Therefore out player and our leadership and even getting people to connect to Winfs will lose out. I don't see enough that we are doing that will help us be viewed as a leader. Part of the scenario involves devices and the installed base of devices. What is our strategy their? Software updates to the installed base? Musicmatch and Napster have the lead (with Apple). People I know (a rich group I admit) are getting ipods with thousands of songs on them. Herb Allen has given dozens of his friends Ipods with thousands of songs (he bought them). Warren Buffett just loves the thing. I don't see good scenario thinking for photos. For home connections. For home security. For phone connection. What cameras are blessed by us? What stops this from being another Ipod situation? We have seen this a bit already with Kodak and their printing and their photo processing – they connect the pieces and we don't. Media center is an exception – they will do good thinking for the high end integrated scenario. I just don't see any solution oriented stuff. What MSFT website or book tells you how to do cool stuff with your PC in the home? Maybe there is a bunch of scenario thinking I just haven't seen.
March 8, 2025 at 7:13 PM
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Mark Zuckerberg messages Facebook engineer

April 5, 2012
Mark Zuckerberg Around? Facebook engineer Yeah Mark Zuckerberg If you could buy one of either Instagram, Foursquare or Pinterest, which would you buy?
February 8, 2025 at 8:24 PM
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Jeff Bezos on acquiring Ring

December 15, 2017
9:52 AM I'd buy it right now. 10:18 AM Maybe we should do the whole [REDACTED] of the first series E (the one that closes tomorrow) so we don't make the acquisition too expensive for ourselves. 10:35 AM We could immediately offer improved terms on tomorrow's hundred million. For example, only a [REDACTED] times preference instead of the [REDACTED]. 1:36 PM To be clear, my view here is that we're buying market position – not technology. And that market position and momentum is very valuable.
February 2, 2025 at 6:46 PM
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WhatsApp cofounder emails Sequoia Capital

November 5, 2012
From: Jan Koum To: [REDACTED] CC: Brian Acton; Neeraj Arora; [REDACTED] Sent: 11/5/2012 7:31:21 PM yeah talked about WeChat with Zuck on sunday at length... he was actually very concerned tencent was trying to buy us to compete with FB outside of china (he actually heard rumor from "bankers" that the transaction between us and tencent is in process)... i told him i'll let him know we ever do get an offer we would ever consider - that made him feel better. should we be worried about WeChat? hard to say... their android google play slot is between 5,000,000 and 10,000,000 downloads: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.tencent.mm&hl=en yes, i know there is no google play in china, so what this means probably is that they have at most around 10m android downloads outside of china. we have 100m. i think if we fail, we only have ourself to blame due to things like two consecutive days of server outages and not wechat...
January 5, 2025 at 6:06 PM
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Elon Musk texts Larry Ellison

April 20, 2022
Elon Musk Any interest in participating in the Twitter deal? Larry Ellison Yes...of course 👍 Elon Musk Cool Elon Musk Roughly what dollar size? Not holding you to anything, but the deal is oversubscribed, so I have to reduce or kick out some participants. Larry Ellison A billion...or whatever you recommend Elon Musk Whatever works for you. I'd recommend maybe $2B or more. This has very high potential and I'd rather have you than anyone else. Larry Ellison I agree that it has huge potential... and it would be lots of fun
December 22, 2024 at 11:03 PM
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Palm's CEO emails Steve Jobs

August 24, 2007
From: Ed Colligan Sent: Friday, August 24, 2007 6:30 PM To: Steve Jobs Subject: Your proposal Steve: I have thought long and hard about our conversation on Wednesday, and I thought it important to let you know my position on the issues we discussed. I hope we can resolve our differences, but it has to be on terms that are right not only for our respective companies, but for the individuals potentially affected. Your proposal that we agree that neither company will hire the other's employees, regardless of the individual's desires, is not only wrong, it is likely illegal. I even thought about coming back with a proposal about limiting recruitment efforts, but frankly, I did not think it was something you would agree to do. Like you, one of my most important tasks as CEO is to build and retain a first class team. I know it's difficult when a respected employee decides to leave the company for a new challenge, but, as you said in our call, "this is America." We can't dictate where someone will work, nor should we try. I can't deny people who elect to pursue their livelihood at Palm the right to do so simply because they now work for Apple, and I wouldn't want you to do that to current Palm employees. We can both try to persuade them to stay but, at the end of the day, it is their choice, and a choice we should respect. In our search for the best talent, one thing is always certain - experienced people come from somewhere else. Palm doesn't target other companies - we look for the best people we can find. I'd hope the same could be said about Apple's practices. However, during the last year or so, as Apple geared up to compete with Palm in the phone space, Apple hired at least 2% of Palm's workforce. To put it in perspective, had Palm done the same, we'd have hired 300 folks from Apple. Instead, to my knowledge, we've hired just three. Steve, we don't want to hurt Apple. As I said on the phone, Palm is focused on building the best team in the industry, and we know there is a lot of quality talent outside of Apple. On the other hand, this is a small space, and it's inevitable that we will bump into each other. Threatening Palm with a patent lawsuit in response to a decision by one employee to leave Apple is just out of line. A lawsuit would not serve either of our interests, and will not stop employees from migrating between our companies. This is a very exciting time for both of our companies, and the market is certainly big enough for both of us. We should focus on our respective businesses and not create unnecessary distractions. That said, I want to be clear that we are not intimidated by your threat. Palm has a very robust portfolio of patents, having been in the handheld and smartphone businesses since the early 90's. In addition, Palm now owns the former Siemens mobile patent portfolio, most recently held by BenQ Corporation. This mobile computing and communications portfolio includes over 1500 patent assets, the majority filed in Europe. If you choose the litigation route, we can respond with our own claims based on these patent assets, but I don't think litigation is the answer. We will both just end up paying a lot of lawyers a lot of money. Finally, while you didn't raise the concern in our call, I want to reassure you that Palm is not interested in getting or using confidential Apple information. We inform new employees of their responsibilities to their former employers and will continue to do so. Of course, we expect Apple to do the same. I remain willing to discuss a reasonable resolution that is responsible to our respective employees and that is fair to both companies. Sincerely, Ed
December 15, 2024 at 6:59 PM
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Mark Zuckerberg messages Facebook exec

February 8, 2011
Instagram seems like it's growing quickly. In 4 months they're up to 2m users and 300k daily photo uploads. That's a lot. We need to track this closely.
November 26, 2024 at 9:37 PM
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Elon Musk emails OpenAI cofounders

September 20, 2017
From: Elon Musk Subject: Re: Honest Thoughts Date: Wednesday, September 20, 2017 2:17 PM Guys, I've had enough. This is the final straw. Either go do something on your own or continue with OpenAI as a nonprofit. I will no longer fund OpenAI until you have made a firm commitment to stay or I'm just being a fool who is essentially providing free funding for you to create a startup. Discussions are over.
November 15, 2024 at 4:40 PM
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Sam Altman emails Elon Musk

May 25, 2015
On May 25, 2015, at 9:10 PM, Sam Altman wrote: Been thinking a lot about whether it's possible to stop humanity from developing AI. I think the answer is almost definitely not. If it's going to happen anyway, it seems like it would be good for someone other than Google to do it first. Any thoughts on whether it would be good for YC to start a Manhattan Project for AI? My sense is we could get many of the top ~50 to work on it, and we could structure it so that the tech belongs to the world via some sort of nonprofit but the people working on it get startup-like compensation if it works. Obviously we'd comply with/aggressively support all regulation. Sam
November 15, 2024 at 5:03 AM
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Jack Dorsey texts Elon Musk

March 26, 2022
November 11, 2024 at 6:43 PM
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Mark Zuckerberg emails WhatsApp cofounder

April 6, 2013
November 11, 2024 at 5:40 AM