Source: a16z's Future is shutting down; Future hasn't published a new article in months, most of its editorial staffers have left, and its newsletter is defunct
Insider
Context & Ripple Effects
Andreessen Horowitz launched Future in mid-2021 as an in-house editorial property staffed with full-time writers and outside contributors — part of the wave of venture firms building owned media rather than renting attention through press coverage. Roughly eighteen months later it is functionally dead: no new articles in months, most editorial staffers departed, and the newsletter defunct.
The timing lands two weeks after Protocol's shutdown, which took out a ~60-person newsroom backed by another deep-pocketed owner. Together they mark the end of the 2020–2021 experiment in well-funded, founder-adjacent tech publications that had no standalone business model.
First-order effects
a16z loses its owned publishing channel and returns to relying on earned media and its partners' own platforms for shaping tech discourse.
Future's remaining contributors and freelance pipeline lose a paying outlet, adding to the talent displacement from Protocol's layoffs weeks earlier.
Second-order effects
Other venture firms running content operations face the same math Future failed: full-time editorial headcount with no direct revenue makes the spend easy to cut when fundraising tightens, so expect consolidation toward lighter formats like partner blogs and podcasts.
Displaced tech journalists concentrate supply in an already shrinking jobs market, pressuring rates at surviving independent outlets.
Third-order effects
If the pattern holds — big-money owners launching prestige publications at cycle peaks and abandoning them within a couple of years, echoing Secret's brief arc from hype to shutdown — corporate-backed media becomes structurally cyclical rather than durable, and credibility shifts back to outlets whose core business is journalism itself.
The trend: Corporate- and venture-backed tech media properties launched during the 2021 funding peak are being wound down as their sponsors retrench, leaving independent newsrooms to absorb both the audience and the laid-off staff.
SCOOP: Last summer, venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz launched a buzzy new publication called @Future to take on traditional tech media. A year and a half later, Future is quietly shutting down. w/ @meliarobin https://www.businessinsider.com/ ...
Was this the real way that @a16z planned to get their revenge on mainstream journalists? Hire a bunch and then let them go soon after but now with a resume line that will not allow them to get hired by another journalistic organization? https://twitter.com/...
The arrogance with which a16z launched Future was out of control. Not only did they not “replace the tech media,” they didn't publish one single consequential story or break a single piece of news. https://www.businessinsider.com/ ...
a16z has shuttered Future, but it's by no means giving up on direct media: - still a steady drumbeat of blogs posted to https://a16z.com/ - it's leaning into YouTube as part of its podcast push - a job ad reveals it's launching a new culture podcast https://www.businessinsider.co…
a16z's failure to “replace the media” is in large part because its founders are completely out of touch about anything related to culture, and have surrounded themselves w/ red pilled weirdos who just tell them what they want to hear https://www.businessinsider.com/ ...
The arrogance with which a16z launched Future was something to behold. Its life was short and unremarkable. It ends with a whimper. https://www.businessinsider.com/ ...
SCOOP: Last summer, the debut of a16z's own content site sent shockwaves through the tech media. A year and a half later, it's stopped publishing and most of its editorial staffers have left. w/ @robaeprice https://www.businessinsider.com/ ...
A16Z killed their publication Future in exactly the way I said they would in June of last year https://ez.substack.com/... https://www.businessinsider.com/ ... https://twitter.com/...
One of the problems with VCs advising founders to “go direct” and skip mainstream media b/c not every story is as rosy as they'd like is that most people in tech don't want to invest the time to write the kind of content that most people want to read https://www.businessinsider.c…
oh no, Andreessen Horowitz and a16z's attempt to bypass press criticism by creating a zero-calorie pseudo-news empire of fluff isn't going well https://t.co/XMjbf1fJns
@CaseyNewton It's ironic given that Future plc make a lot of money in... Tech publishing 😂 there's so much wrong with this A1z move that I'm also laughing rn!