A deep look at the rift between some prominent Silicon Valley figures and increasingly critical media, based on the case of Slate Star Codex vs. The NYT
How a controversial rationalist blogger became a mascot and martyr in a struggle against the New York Times. Tweets: @jonbernhardt , @juliacarriew , @can , @newyorker , @karaswisher , @can , @halophoenix , @lanceulanoff , and @caseynewton See also Mediagazer Tweets: Nathan Bernhardt / @jonbernhardt : it owns that something like half of this massive article about scott alexander and SSC by someone who obviously personally loathes them (and takes shots at them in journalist-speak throughout) is dedicated to...disseminating his philosophy https://www.newyorker.com/... Julia Carrie Wong / @juliacarriew : By my count there are 34 named individuals in this article and 32 of them are men. The other two are Hillary Clinton (mentioned by way of the fact that a man voted for her) and Taylor Lorenz (mentioned in the third to last paragraph). https://www.newyorker.com/... @can : Reminds me how Reddit used to call itself the front page of the internet https://twitter.com/... @newyorker : How a controversial rationalist blogger became a mascot and martyr in a struggle against the New York Times. https://nyer.cm/fFFmhqU Kara Swisher / @karaswisher : Agreed. So well done https://twitter.com/... @can : Agree with the “scare quotes” here in that there are a lot of people in tech, like me, who don't have this inherent distrust in journalists and consider the current negativity from a select but influential few in tech towards journalists a worrying and a childish trend. https://twitter.com/... Alan Henry / @halophoenix : “sure i'm complicit in building a dystopian surveillance state run by billionares eager to consume all the everything on the planet but my girlfriend deserves a cookie and besides why won't anyone think of the *spirit* of silicon valley” https://twitter.com/... Lance Ulanoff / @lanceulanoff : Fascinating on so many levels. Many thoughts, which I think I'll keep to myself https://www.newyorker.com/... Casey Newton / @caseynewton : If you want to understand “tech vs. journalism” AS “tech vs. journalism,” this is the piece to read https://www.newyorker.com/... See also Mediagazer
Context & Ripple Effects
The New Yorker's long read lands mid-battle rather than after it: the rift between prominent Silicon Valley figures and the journalists covering them was already running hot when the piece published, with reporters including Julia Carrie Wong and Kara Swisher among those amplifying and arguing over it on Twitter. The article's framing — Scott Alexander as mascot and martyr — made Slate Star Codex the emblem of a broader grievance about how mainstream outlets portray the tech industry.
What followed shows why the piece mattered: critics soon argued the NYT had overstated both SSC's and the Rationalist community's actual influence on Silicon Valley, while Casey Newton used a Q&A weeks later to examine why people in tech hate tech press at all. The dispute stopped being about one blogger's anonymity and became a referendum on tech media itself.
First-order effects
- Prominent tech figures gain a ready-made cause and vocabulary for their media grievances, with Scott Alexander recast from pseudonymous blogger into a public symbol of press hostility toward Silicon Valley.
- Tech reporters are pulled directly into the story they cover — the New Yorker piece itself drew public pushback from journalists on Twitter, blurring the line between reporting on the rift and participating in it.
Second-order effects
- VCs and tech figures respond by building channels they control rather than courting coverage: Andreessen Horowitz launched its own opinion section for outside contributors months later, and the online battle between a16z partners, Balaji Srinivasan, and journalists escalated into open conflict.
- Newsrooms face internal pressure to justify incentives and practices, as Newton's examination of reporter incentives in the social-media age signals a profession auditing its own behavior under sustained attack.
Third-order effects
- If the pattern holds, tech's most powerful actors structurally disintermediate the press — funding their own publications and treating legacy outlets as adversaries to route around rather than gatekeepers to satisfy.
- Coverage fights increasingly get adjudicated in meta-commentary (long reads about the fight, rebuttals about whether the framing was accurate) rather than in the underlying reporting, entrenching two separate narratives of Silicon Valley that rarely converge.
The trend: Silicon Valley is moving from criticizing mainstream tech coverage to replacing it, building owned media channels as trust between the industry and the press erodes.