Reporters

“If you're going to make a large announcement, unless you are Microsoft or Apple or Meta or something, you're not going to get same day or next day coverage. You're going to need to reach out to reporters two to three weeks in advance to give them a heads up, t…”

“AI can write better than a lot of reporters. AI can synthesize information better than a lot of reporters. So if you're not bringing real genuine expertise or original information to the ecosystem, to the conversation, what are you contributing?”

“Reporters targeted specific fellows, people like Dale Stevens.”

“A CEO cannot get a reporter fired, but a reporter can very much get a CEO fired.”

“You need to pay reporters and sources of truth and like you can't possibly get that. From AI, because AI's biggest problem is there's no idea what's actually going on in the real world.”

“Don't you think, though, that as a reporter, there's something like, there's a kind of news, my only real superstition, that there's a kind of news luck, and some people have it. That was that I had it. Like, sometimes you just wind up in a room. Somebody invi…”

“I had always, up until recently, been of the opinion that AI is not replacing reporters. Can't do what I do. Can't be there asking the questions. Certainly can't have an engaging conversation like in a podcast. And now I've fully rethought that.”

“And I think the ecosystem was so negative that social media became like the assignment editors for a lot of these reporters over time. And I think that that's largely broken down.”

“When a reporter writes up an article, that's, like, the last five percent of the work that they've been doing. Like, 95% of the work is, like, collecting new facts that don't exist on the internet. And don't exist anywhere. Because they talked to someone, they…”

“I recommend to people build out a email list of reporters that cover your space and don't sell your product. Don't sell you. Just give them high quality content, make them feel like they're always in the know with their space, because when they do want to writ…”

“The only thing that a relationship will get you is, you know, an open and an answer. And so, you know, like any good reporters not going to be making their editorial decisions based on like who their friends are. Like, that's just not the nature. It shouldn't …”

“And usually I'd either say the amount and the investors or the company name. If you give them both, you're kind of just giving them the story and they could run with it right away.”

“Press releases came about because reporters would be checking news wires for ideas of what stories they want to write. No reporters do that anymore. Or a very small percentage. I don't know any reporters that do that anymore.”

“Every company wants to do these percentage, like, growth stats when they just launched, and I've never seen reporters include that in their stories, and so there are ways to give signals of how fast you're growing without being that, kind of, like, disingenuou…”

“The more you try to control it, The more the reporter is going to be annoyed at you, and the more, in fact, the reporter might try to, like, take a shot at you in the story as a result, because they just, they found you too controlling, because they felt like …”

“And it's an expensive business up front because you got to hire a lot of reporters. You got to hire, like, a real sales team because you're asking companies to pay, you know, tens of thousands of dollars for a subscription.”

“Reporters love getting tips from short sellers, because short sellers have a massive financial incentive to go and investigate and figure out what companies are going to fail, and that's a really good where there's smoke, there's fire for reporters.”

“So back in, like, 2000, like, 12, up until around 2016, you could make videos go viral just by coming up with something clever that would be a good headline, cold emailing, like, 300 reporters, getting them to write about it, and then it would almost guarantee…”

“The data that you're sitting on about people in capital fundraising is really interesting to reporters. Like, you know who's going where at all times. You have mapped the entire universe. That is like candy to reporters.”

“I think the best agency referrals come from reporters.”

“You just take a reporter who really gets the space already, and like, have an off-the-record conversation. You'll learn a lot in those three to five interviews that, you know, in a conference room, just, you will never come together in the same way.”

“Reporters get incredibly offended. They think you're questioning their journalistic integrity if you ask Ask to see what they're writing before they publish it.”

“Any reporter who doesn't get you, It is on you to explain yourself better.”