Behind the online battle between notable tech figures including a16z partners and Balaji Srinivasan, and the journalists who report, and tweet, on the industry
Late last fall, the New York Times was preparing a bombshell article about Coinbase, a financial exchange that had become … Tweets: @gaberivera , @damiencave , @jayhinman , @joab_jackson , @yudhanjaya , @newley , @heidilegg , @kitson , @nymag , @harrymccracken , @beschizza , @mgsiegler , @gettingsome , @lisakayhawes , @dskok , @intelligencer , @riceid , @nymag , and @nymag See also Mediagazer Tweets: Gabe Rivera / @gaberivera : NYMag's title in this piece refers to the tech people as “Silicon Valley”, which IMO is synecdoche abuse and basically a falsehood. Fortunately, the actual story notes it might just be “20 people”, who are largely out of step with industry people. (But nonetheless have sway!) https://twitter.com/... Damien Cave / @damiencave : As a tech 1.0 reporter who has moved on but is is still watching and occasionally wondering about the new dynamic, this piece is damn good; with insightful quotes from many including @jslez @MikeIsaac and others https://nymag.com/... Jay Hinman / @jayhinman : This hits on a great many interesting topics, including the persistent overplaying of Silicon Valley archetypes in the media, as well as the role of Twitter in all of this. And thankfully, Juicero is mentioned not once but twice. https://nymag.com/... Joab Jackson / @joab_jackson : “... as reporters began interacting less with founders and VCs and more with tech-company underlings, whom they'd see at the same bars and kids' soccer matches — the leaks began.” https://nymag.com/... Yudhanjaya Wijeratne / @yudhanjaya : (The source of this snippet is this article on the feud between Valley tech and NY journalists: https://nymag.com/..., in which the journalists seem to be discovering something everyone should know: people with power want to be flattered). Newley Purnell / @newley : “Back in the '80s,” says @StevenLevy, a veteran tech journalist and the author of Facebook: The Inside Story, “there wasn't this giant distance between who you were and who they were. Even Bill Gates would show up at your office in a cab.” https://nymag.com/... Heidi Legg / @heidilegg : So here 4 this. Nasty Battle Between Tech and Journalism. “The worlds of crypto and A16Z shared a fervent disdain for incumbent authorities. As self-styled meritocrats in the biz of creating the future...little patience for heckling by humanities majors.” https://nymag.com/... Josh Weinberger / @kitson : Inside the Nasty Battle Between Tech and Journalism https://nymag.com/... “Before, they were fighting for disruption; now, it's for retaining monopoly. They're no longer fighting power. They're fighting a weakened check on the abuse of power.” @nymag : “They've retained the sense of ‘us against the world’ but not noticed they're the top four or five companies on the stock exchange and dominate nation-states,” says James Slezak, a Y Combinator-backed founder who previously led digital strategy for the Times https://twitter.com/... Harry McCracken / @harrymccracken : The fact that some people expend so much energy on hating tech journalism while simultaneously declaring it irrelevant is an interesting phenomenon. https://nymag.com/... Rob Beschizza / @beschizza : The most revelatory thing in this in-depth article about VC tech bros vs tech reporters is that many VC tech bros were deep in Theranos, furiously defended it, their positions were annihilated by the takedowns, and that's when it got nasty https://nymag.com/... M.G. Siegler / @mgsiegler : My only comment on this is how exhausting it all is. We're like 25 stories and 5 layers deep in meta over months/years at this point. The supernova exploded, contracted, and is now about to collapse in on itself. At which point we'll be left with the black hole. Which is Twitter. https://twitter.com/... @gettingsome : One consequence of the cold war between tech executives and reporters is “a distortion spiral, where journalists ignored by company leadership may overweigh the testimony of leakers and ex-employees, resulting in less balanced coverage.” https://nymag.com/... Lisa K Hawes / @lisakayhawes : Media spats are good for biz. “Media and tech are in a deep coexistence ... There are some people in tech who like to think the media doesn't matter, but the truth is they totally know it does, and they want that.” https://nymag.com/... David Skok / @dskok : As someone who has both two-decades of experience as a journalist and is a startup founder, all I can think of when I read this is the 2017 quote from @PostBaron: “We're not at war, we're at work.” https://nymag.com/... @intelligencer : Silicon Valley feels picked on by “woke” journalists “who can't code.” Reporters feel picked on by petty zillionaires with anger-management problems. @benjwallace reports on the nasty clout battle for how the world's most influential industry gets covered https://nymag.com/... Andrew Rice / @riceid : A fun story full of delicious anecdotes about the war between Silicon Valley and the press, by @benjwallace https://nymag.com/... @nymag : A war is on between tech titans and a relentless generation of largely digital-native reporters looking to speak truth to power while racking up Twitter followers in the process https://nymag.com/... https://twitter.com/... @nymag : If it seems to the Valley's self-appointed media critics that journalists come with agendas, it's in part because these VCs don't give much credence to values or perspectives that aren't their own, suggests Paul Carr, co-founder of the news site Techworker https://nymag.com/... https://twitter.com/... See also Mediagazer