A new media company called MTS launches for “monitoring the situation” across tech, business, politics, and culture, with backing from a16z and others
a16z
Context & Ripple Effects
MTS enters a media effort that spans the same technology-and-business terrain in which a16z previously built Future, a separate editorial property launched in 2021. The launch therefore extends a16z’s visible involvement with media beyond its earlier in-house publishing initiative, albeit through backing a new company rather than simply expanding Future.
Its stated remit also crosses business, politics, and culture, placing the project at the intersection of technology coverage and the broader institutional debates around the sector.
First-order effects
MTS begins competing for audience attention, reporting talent, contributors, and distribution in coverage of tech, business, politics, and culture.
a16z gains an investment relationship with a media company distinct from its earlier Future property, adding another channel in an information market relevant to its portfolio and public interests.
Second-order effects
Established tech and business publishers face another well-backed entrant for fast-moving coverage and the writers, sources, and partnerships needed to produce it.
The overlap with Future makes editorial positioning and audience differentiation more important for both properties, even if their ownership and operating models differ.
Third-order effects
If investors and technology firms continue to finance media alongside operating companies, media becomes more directly embedded in the institutions shaping technology markets rather than merely covering them.
That convergence can increase the value of clear editorial independence and disclosure, particularly for outlets covering sectors in which their backers are active.
The trend: MTS is part of a strategic-institution transition in which technology capital increasingly treats media and narrative infrastructure as adjacent to investment and operating activity.
.@MTSlive has the opportunity to do a different niche (CNN) than TBPN (SportsCenter x CNBC). Lots of pulling up tweets and tabs live. (Balaji is the perfect first guest for that.) Should feel like doomscrolling with internet friends. More Twitch stream than video podcast (but [im…
The latest a16z backed “media” company MTS (short for “monitoring the situation” of course) appears to be just a livestreamer switching back and forth between Twitter, Kalshi, and Wikipedia and googling things like “Rizzler birthday”?
Thrilled to announce our investment in MTS. Beginning today, MTS will be monitoring the situation across technology, business, politics, and culture, interviewing the main characters of the moment all day long on X. We're seeding it alongside other angel investors such as Dan
X is the purest expression of what internet pioneers imagined. it's where reality plays out in real time. the line between online and real life has disappeared i'm on the founding team of MTS, an X-native news network built to make sense of what's happening right now
We're very excited to invest in MTS, a media company launching today. MTS aims to be the best place in the world to make sense of what's happening right now. It's what you get when you take the Current Thing to its logical conclusion. Stream starts today. Tune in.
Introducing MTS: The first timeline-native news network that's always on. Monitoring tech, finance, geopolitics and culture — as it happens. We are Live Now. [video]
Have you seen the new episode? It's on TBPN. It's literally on All-In. It's on PirateWires patreon . It's literally on Uncapped. You can probably find it on Core Memory. Dude it's on Cheeky Pint. It's an a16z original. Even MTS has it — they just launched today,
Erik was born to Monitor the Situation. I did Age of Miracles because of the machinery he built at Turpentine, where he also co-hosted something like ~700 podcasts, and have been blown away by the squad he's assembled at a16z new media. IT'S TIME TO MONITOR (24/7)
fascinated by the full-court a16z press on this former new media team a16z member left to found/join too but i do think it makes sense to try something with the TPBN hole that's been created (at least in the minds of a lot of people) but... daily media is H A R D
The more serious take on this is that prediction markets are going to fuel a wave of these kind of start-ups. Total trash that will claim to be doing the work of journalism (while simultaneously relying on the “old” media for literally every insight they have) [embedded post]
Oh you get your news from the mainstream media? I get mine from a a16z funded livestream of an Australian guy scrolling Twitter to read OSINT accounts aggregating the New York Times [image]