Jason Feifer
Editor-in-Chief, Entrepreneur Magazine. On 2 shows, 2 appearances. The Shows tab opens the full record on each.
journalistauthorhostexecutive@heyfeifer ↗LinkedIn ↗jasonfeifer.com ↗
Jason Feifer is the editor-in-chief of Entrepreneur magazine and the author of the book Build for Tomorrow. He hosts podcasts including Problem Solvers and previously held editorial positions at Fast Company and Men's Health.
2shows
2appearances
49statements
7resolved
5supported
1contradicted
71%fully supported
Everything Jason Feifer said on any show that made the record, most notable first. Each card names its show and opens the statement there.
Feifer: Russia has used the same election interference playbook for 100 years
“For 100 years, Russia had run the same exact playbook on American elections, and that was to utilize the dominant mode of communication at the time, which could either be newspapers, or radio, or television, or social media, to exacerbate existing tensions in …”
Feifer: Facebook, not the digital camera, ultimately killed Kodak
“What killed Kodak wasn't the digital camera. It was Facebook.”
Feifer: Society routinely mistakes 1% problems for 100% problems
“Number four, we mistake a one percent problem for a 100% problem.”
Feifer: Cutting 'inefficient' meetings for four-day workweeks damages company culture
“How do you get to a four-day workweek? Well, what you do is that you eliminate meetings and colleague chit chat and basically anything that feels inefficient so that everyone's just focused on efficiency. But it turns out all those inefficiencies had a purpose…”
Most PR pitching is an automated blast, not tailored storytelling
“One of the great insights that you can get into the challenges of that industry is how completely automated a lot of it is, where a lot of people in PR are not thinking specifically about how to tell the right story to the right Potential media outlet. And ins…”
Founders should never pay a PR agency for a traditional press release
“If you go to a, if you hire or talk to a PR agency, and one of the things that they recommend doing that you should spend money on is a press release, like a traditional press release, run as fast as you can away from that. Like, I don't know if you know this,…”
Website media logos are often more valuable than actual story readership
“As seen in is probably more valuable than anyone actually reading that story to begin with.”
Standalone press coverage for niche B2B services is rarely worth attempting
“If you are a, like, some kind of B to B service, Especially in some kind of very niche or wonky space. It's going to be really hard for you to get, like so hard that it might actually not even be worth trying.”
Feifer: Silicon Valley routinely fails to connect revolutionary products to familiar concepts
“I mean, I think that Silicon Valley is guilty of this all the time, of introducing very revolutionary ideas without doing the groundwork of connecting this new idea to something that people are already comfortable and familiar with.”
Feifer: Consumers reject net-new innovations in favor of better existing products
“People hate that because people hate new things. What they like is better versions of old things.”
Feifer: Traditional media reports technology in an excessively alarmist manner
“I'm often deeply frustrated by the way in which I see traditional media cover technology. I, and, you know, the kind of alarmist look for the worst possible outcome and then report it as if it is as if it is you know, fact or at least certain outcome.”
Jason Feifer: AR, VR, and metaverse lack a killer use case for mass adoption
“I don't think that the killer use case for AR VR or the metaverse has been introduced yet, and so what people are hearing is a lot of hype, and then if they get the oculus, I got an oculus, you know where it is? It's in my closet. And the reason is because I d…”
Only 25% of media pitches come directly from founders
“The percentage of direct messages from founders that I'm getting is, is low. I would say probably 20, 25%. And then the 75% is PR in some capacity, either targeted PR where somebody's Intentionally reaching out to me or mass blast press releases.”
Press coverage is too unpredictable to rely on for startup growth
“This is not something that I think that you should bank on as a strategy for growth. It's a great add-on, but if you think that press by itself is going to solve your problems, you're wrong, because it might, but it's way too unpredictable.”
Journalists do not care about you; they care about their audience
“The editor, the writer, they, like, I'll just say it as plainly as possible. They don't care about you. They don't care about you. They care about their reader, or their listener, or their viewer. That's who they care about. That's who they're serving. And if …”
PR agencies cannot guarantee press coverage due to subjective editorial decisions
“If a PR person is guaranteeing you press, that's another reason to run out the door as fast as possible, because the PR people cannot control this. The writers and editors, they do what they want. It's a completely subjective industry.”
Startup stories in major publications typically reach only 5k-10k readers
“In fact, the largest possibility here is that your story will reach, like, five to 10,000 people. A small number of people. Because these publications are publishing tons of stuff.”
Good journalists actively source stories rather than waiting for inbound pitches
“A good journalist, a good media, a good writer, is not actually sitting around thinking that their job is to wait for people to pitch them so that they can just write about the best pitches. Their job, as they see it, is to go and find the most useful things f…”
Pitching freelance writers is often more effective than pitching staff editors
“Jen is getting a lot fewer pitches than me. The chances of her reading it are close to a hundred percent, and the chances of her taking it seriously, if it's relevant to any of the publications that she writes for, is much higher than me. So sometimes going to…”
Cold pitch emails to media should be three paragraphs maximum
“The email that you're writing is, don't go on forever, like three paragraphs max”
Audiences find pure success uninteresting; they want to learn about problem-solving
“Success stories are not interesting. They're not interesting to anybody, right? It's not. Useful for you to just hear that someone else succeeded. What's useful is for you to hear how someone else faced challenges that you faced and got through them so that yo…”
An expert quote is enough to claim 'As Featured In' credibility
“You might get a quote in a story, which again, is all you need To be able to say as featured in on your website.”
Combine broad news releases with a single-outlet exclusive executive interview
“Sometimes you can offer an exclusive to someone in that you're going to release the news to everybody, but only one media outlet is going to get the interview, which works really well if you have a big personality.”
Entrepreneur and Fast Company avoid negative hit pieces to protect audience trust
“Like entrepreneur, and I would say fast company are just sort of not in the business of running negative stories. And the reason is because it doesn't serve our audience. Like, you know, my audience is coming to me to learn things for their business. Tearing s…”
One line per show, most statements first. The link opens Jason's full record on that show: the calibration, argument clarity, speaking style and every statement made there.
| Show | Role there | Eps | Statements | Record | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 LENNY'S PODCASTLEDGER | Editor-in-Chief, Entrepreneur Magazine | 1 | 29 | 100% 2/2 | full record on Lenny's Podcast → |
 a16zLEDGER | Editor-in-Chief, Entrepreneur Magazine | 1 | 20 | 60% 3/5 | full record on the a16z Podcast → |