🎯🔍 Samsung's Google Breakup Is Finally Happening

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Private markets are having a moment, thanks to companies like StartEngine.

The leading alternative investing platform is helping everyday investors like you access deals once reserved for VCs and insiders, including exposure to private market titans like OpenAI, Databricks, and Perplexity.¹

How’s it going? In Q1 2025, StartEngine pulled off $30M in revenue, its biggest quarter ever (based on unaudited financials).²

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How can you tap into this diversification play? By investing in StartEngine.

StartEngine has crowdfunded $85M+ to date, and you can join 45K+ shareholders before the company’s current round closes on June 26.

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_{Reg A+ via StartEngine Crowdfunding, Inc. No BD/intermediary involved. Investment is speculative, illiquid & high risk. See OC and Risks on page.}

Samsung is nearing a deal to invest in AI search engine Perplexity and integrate the startup's technology across its device ecosystem, according to sources familiar with the negotiations. The partnership would see Perplexity's app and assistant preloaded on upcoming Samsung devices, with search features woven into Samsung's web browser and potentially its Bixby virtual assistant.

The tech giant plans to announce these Perplexity integrations as early as this year, marking a significant shift in Samsung's approach to search and AI services. Samsung is also expected to be one of the biggest investors in Perplexity's new funding round, where the startup is in advanced discussions to raise $500 million at a $14 billion valuation.

The Distribution Game

The numbers reveal the scale of opportunity at stake. Google currently processes around 411 billion searches per month, while OpenAI handles 30 billion monthly queries. Perplexity, despite growing roughly 20% month-over-month, manages 780 million searches monthly—meaning OpenAI receives 38 times more search queries than Perplexity, and Google receives 526 times more.

This partnership could instantly solve Perplexity's distribution challenge by making it the default search engine on roughly 500 million Samsung devices. As the primary interface through which hundreds of millions of people access the internet via their phones, becoming the default search option on Samsung devices represents a massive opportunity for user acquisition.

The arrangement bears striking resemblance to the distribution deals Google struck early in its history to become the default browser for many early internet users like Yahoo, a strategy that proved foundational to Google's eventual dominance.

Strategic Implications

For Samsung, the broad tie-up offers a path to reduce its reliance on Google while opening up new revenue streams. This mirrors Apple's strategy for diversifying its devices and services partnerships.

I’ve talked numerous times about the value of the browser in 2025. To recap:

The browser's strategic value stems from three key factors:

1) it controls the user relationship by sitting between users and everything else online;

2) it benefits from the ongoing shift of software to the cloud, including email, productivity tools like Notion, and design platforms like Figma; and

3) it's increasingly functioning as the new operating system for how people interact with digital services.

Samsung isn't the only major tech company exploring alternatives to Google's search dominance. Apple has also shown interest in working with Perplexity, with discussions centered on using the AI search engine as an alternative to Google search and as a potential substitute for ChatGPT integration in the Siri voice assistant.

"We've been pretty impressed with what Perplexity has done, so we've started some discussions with them about what they're doing," said Eddy Cue, Apple's senior vice president of services.

Building Momentum

For Perplexity, the Samsung arrangement would mark its biggest mobile partnership to date, building on a recent integration deal with Motorola.

The partnership signals a broader shift in how device manufacturers are approaching AI integration, with companies increasingly willing to experiment with alternatives to the Google-dominated ecosystem that has defined mobile search for over a decade. Whether this marks the beginning of a more fragmented search landscape or simply adds competitive pressure to existing players remains to be seen.

Side Note

A reader very helpfully pointed out I had miscalculated the number of trips and market share of Waymo vs Uber by converting them wrong. I strive to be transparent so the overall US market share was off and Waymo’s share is around 0.5% vs 2%.

Another little update, Waymo has grown Austin market share from 20% to 27% in recent months, rapidly overtaking Lyft with Uber market share declining.