Keyana Corliss: [00:00:04] Welcome to Just Checking In.
Rebecca Buckman: [00:00:06] I'm Becky Buckman.
Keyana Corliss: [00:00:07] And I'm Keyana Corliss. Each week we'll use humor, a little irony, and definitely some self-deprecation to dive into the world of high-tech corporate comms.
Rebecca Buckman: [00:00:16] We'll use our expertise and less-than-serious take on the tech news cycle to bring you the best in the business, across comms and media, for one-of-a-kind insights and perspectives you won't hear anywhere else.
Keyana Corliss: [00:00:27] Get ready to laugh.
Rebecca Buckman: [00:00:30] This is...
Keyana Corliss: [00:00:30] ... Just Checking In.
Keyana Corliss: [00:00:34] We're back! Super excited for Season Three of Just Checking In. It's been so long that the last time we were here, X was still called Twitter.
Rebecca Buckman: [00:00:45] A bunch of other things have changed too, Keyana, including that we have an amazing new partner for this podcast: Mixing Board.
Keyana Corliss: [00:00:52] That's right. Mixing Board is a incredible community of comms professionals, brand marketing, and it's a community that both you and I are obviously a part of, and they have underwritten this wonderful podcast. We're super, super grateful to them. And I know we've made it because we even had to record ads for this season.
Rebecca Buckman: [00:01:13] We're monetizing.
Keyana Corliss: [00:01:14] We're monetizing. This is no longer the freemium model.
Rebecca Buckman: [00:01:19] Right, right, right. This is what we tell all our portfolio companies to do is to monetize. But yeah, I mean, I think we're back with some great interviews. I hope listeners will think they're great, both with journalists and with comms professionals, as we strive to be the go to podcast for technology comms professionals. You know, Alex Konrad, who's the senior editor at Forbes, Eleanor Hawkins, who has a super interesting job at Axios, where, you know, she's a journalist there, but I think she previously was a comms professional. People like David Krane, who runs GV, formerly Google Ventures. But he used to be the comms lead at Google back in the day before anybody knew what they were.
Keyana Corliss: [00:01:57] We have some folks that are maybe not our traditional guests, like Mosheh Oinounou, who was the youngest executive producer at CBS Evening News, and he's been at a host of other places and now has an Instagram feed @Mosheh. And super interesting in how he's created a platform for getting news out there. So we talked to him about sort of the state of the media and how traditional media is evolving. So we have some really, really great guests this season, and I know it took us a while, but we're back, baby.
Rebecca Buckman: [00:02:31] Exactly, exactly. And I think a lot of our guests and the content that we'll cover also continues to highlight how journalism is changing, how comms is changing, you know, new industry trends that are going on, serving as the backdrop for all this. But we hope you enjoy it and we hope you'll have a listen.
Keyana Corliss: [00:02:48] All right, let's do it. Season Three. Just Checking In.
All right, so our guest today likely needs no introduction to our listeners, but I'm going to introduce him anyway. Alex Konrad is a very, very senior editor at Forbes magazine, arguably one of the most active and influential voices in the world of tech news. Those of you who are dying to get on the Midas List, the Cloud 100, the Under 30 list, this is your guy. And if you haven't seen him on the Hulu documentary about WeWork, you absolutely should. I'm actually just wondering when you're going to get your own show on CNBC. I've been waiting for it. Actually, that's not true, I'm waiting for when you're going to go full Andrew Ross Sorkin and create another Billions, because that would actually be my one, is another Billions. But thank you so much, Alex, for being here.
Alex Konrad: [00:03:31] Thanks so much for having me and for all the business ideas.
Keyana Corliss: [00:03:35] You got it.
Rebecca Buckman: [00:03:36] Because we heard that in media you need other revenue sources these days. So we're all about that.
Keyana Corliss: [00:03:42] It's the side hustle. Okay. So my first question.
Alex Konrad: [00:03:44] I can always use another agent.
Keyana Corliss: [00:03:45] Yeah, that's right. My first question, I'm totally asking for a friend, it has nothing to do with my personal portfolio or all of the vested RSUs that I'm sitting on. When do you think these IPO markets are going to open?
Alex Konrad: [00:03:57] Yeah, I was really hopeful that we would see a lot of IPOs in Q2 of 2024. But now I'm thinking after the summer it looks most likely, sadly.
Rebecca Buckman: [00:04:08] What do you think is driving that?
Alex Konrad: [00:04:10] You know, I think nobody wants to be first. There's a sense that while the ecosystem needs the IPO window to open, why should my company be the sacrificial lamb? And so I think you see some of the top tier blue chip companies, like Stripe, doing tender offers for employees that take the edge off for them. And then, you know, if you're the Collisons, you're saying, well then if my employees are fine, my investors are fine, what's the need to go public right now and be that stalking horse for the market? And so I think you see companies like Reddit that are losing money, could use the liquidity, and are in that classic position where raising another private round doesn't really make sense from a dilution standpoint, they're going to go out, but we're still waiting for the Stripes of the world to feel the need to do it. And I think they just keep kicking the can down the road.
Rebecca Buckman: [00:04:58] All right. We've got a ton of great topics to cover. We could even at some point talk a little more about your background and how you got to where you are at Forbes today. And we've got some questions about the state of the media industry, too. But maybe we could just kind of key off the opening discussion about the IPO market. Like, it seems like the tech markets, which you cover, tech and venture, it's sort of a tale of two markets right now. Right? On the one hand, we've got this issue with, you know, people wanting the IPO market to open, some companies unable to raise big new rounds, or at least at the valuation they had hoped for. But then on the other side, we have an AI bubble. And we have this explosion of interest in AI and people comparing it, you know, to the launch of the iPhone. So kind of what's your take on this market? Do you see this duality too? And kind of how is that playing into your coverage?
Alex Konrad: [00:05:47] Yeah, I think we're definitely seeing that sort of bifurcated market where it's really easy for some companies to raise money and pretty miserable for others based on your category, your pedigree, your stage. I think it's been a lot harder for companies that tried to learn a certain set of tricks, and then their VC masters taught them, no, no, no, you need a new set of tricks to get your treat.
Keyana Corliss: [00:06:14] The VC Jedis?
Alex Konrad: [00:06:14] And I think that's hard and unfair. Yeah, I think I think that's tough. So in a way newer companies have an advantage, I think, fundraising on some levels. And then of course, you know, within sectors, you know, everyone's seeing these AI rounds still happen extremely fast. Maybe some security companies, some other areas in software. But, you know, we see the funding route and we can kind of guess what kind of company it is, just seeing the numbers.
Keyana Corliss: [00:06:38] So what do you think it's going to take to kind of converge this market, or do you think like this is the world we live in now? Like, is it sort of always going to be like this, or do you think that there's going to be a moment where we sort of all come back together?
Alex Konrad: [00:06:49] I think the one thing we've been waiting for is for consumer to kind of pick back up again. I think that if you look at a lot of the, you know, iconic companies of generations that we talk about, like an Airbnb or an Uber or a Snap, whatever it is, you know, these were consumer companies. And I think right now you have still some momentum on the enterprise side. But what we're seeing is a market that's now in, you know, several years into basically it being only AI and enterprise and not really consumer. And that's kind of creating this weirdness where I think that if we can get consumer to pick back up, that would make everyone just feel like generally more bullish.
Keyana Corliss: [00:07:34] You guys go book your Airbnb's. There you go. You heard it here first.
Alex Konrad: [00:07:38] Well I think, I think the question is what is the next consumer platform. Right. Because you know these platform shifts have driven a lot. You know Airbnb and Uber came out of sort of proliferation of the iPhone. You know, maybe it's these AI companies in consumer, whether it's an assistant or a homework helper or whatever it may be, maybe those are the next generation. Maybe it's that TikTok actually gets banned and something has to replace it. We've been playing wait and see for a while, right? That's why VCs have gotten so good at podcasting.
Rebecca Buckman: [00:08:09] Snark. But like just to be a little provocative because, as you know, the place where I work, we're kind of more B2B technology specialists. Does consumer have to bounce back? Or can the market be more B2B driven? I feel like I've seen some stories on this topic lately.
Alex Konrad: [00:08:25] Well, those stories are probably smarter than me, but my $0.02 would just be that when we think about any sort of really bold cycle in startups, it's when both are firing and when only one is firing and the other one is not, we're still in between. And I think people have felt in between from a venture standpoint and a startup standpoint for a while. You know, where they do see some startups raising, but then they also talk to founders who are doing extensions and who are having a miserable time fundraising. It's not like a moment where all systems are go. And so I do think for that to be the scenario, consumer has to pick up too.
Keyana Corliss: [00:09:03] Big of consumer. I'm going to switch gears for a second, because I will say that you and another one of our podcast guests, Alex Wilhelm, who beat you out to @Alex...
Alex Konrad: [00:09:13] No, he did not. He bought it.
Keyana Corliss: [00:09:15] Well, that's true, he bought it from a dude in Mexico or something for like $50 or something.
Alex Konrad: [00:09:19] He was way smarter. I know, I can't believe it. I tried to buy AKon and the recording artist would not sell it to me, which is just so rude.
Keyana Corliss: [00:09:27] Wait, how much was Akon gonna charge you? Not too much?
Alex Konrad: [00:09:30] I mean, there was no price. I offered Akon all I had, and it was not enough.
Keyana Corliss: [00:09:35] But X has been a very interesting roller coaster, for lack of a better word, this year. What do you sort of take on that? Because I mean, personally I used to get all of my information there, and now I mostly just wait for it to alert me that you have tweeted.
Alex Konrad: [00:09:51] I sure hope not. That would that would be a bleak reason to use the app, but almost as bleak as the reporters whose job is to follow Elon Musk and have to, like, literally get alerts on their phone every time he tweets, life is too short for me to set alerts for him. But I will say it's kind of just a worse experience right now, at least for me and a lot of people I know where we haven't been able to break free of Twitter/X, but at the same time, it's not as valuable and useful as it used to be. And so I think that that is just a frustrating situation where I have to spend 80% of the time I used to there, but also maybe spend more time on LinkedIn, spend more time on Threads, you know, think about Bluesky or whatever else it is. And I think that's just a tough user experience, right? Like, I already don't feel like I have a lot of time. And so for Twitter/X to be less useful, but still a place I have to be, is like a lose-lose.
Rebecca Buckman: [00:10:50] And I was going to say I agree because I also find it more difficult and less useful. I'm sure everybody does. It's a common experience, but most of the journalists are still there. Like I hear a lot of people say they're leaving, but I mean, in your experience, most of the people are still there, right? Because they're caught in the same dynamic.
Alex Konrad: [00:11:07] I think a few journalists like Casey Newton, who kind of made it a moment to leave, they have been able to build a following or sort of recreate their following elsewhere, but I don't think you can easily do that unless you fully commit. It has not made sense for me, at least, given my audience to do that. And so unless I fully committed and just left Twitter so that people had to find me somewhere else, I understand why they don't want to follow me five different places. And so yes, it feels like a little bit of the brand equity that a lot of us built up personally over the last decade has now just kind of dissipated out to a bunch of places in a not helpful way.
Keyana Corliss: [00:11:46] Do you think there's any coming back for it? I mean, it seems like it's kind of gone down a Myspace-esque spiral. Like, is that where it's going to end up? Like, wherever Myspace is now?
Alex Konrad: [00:11:57] Yeah. I mean, I think it's really hard to get the momentum back. I think that if Twitter went public and Elon was no longer fully involved and it kind of reset or kind of rediscovered, you know, I saw a smart tweet that was basically like, Elon is relearning why all the annoying systems in place were in place. As you know, one thing after another breaks like, oh, that's why we had that. And if maybe all those things were replicated and, you know, the company went public and it felt like there was a very different mandate, some people might kind of come back, but even then, I'm not overly optimistic because I don't see how the new generation of users and young folks are getting drawn onto X. You know, I think they're on TikTok or whatever replaces it. Right?
Keyana Corliss: [00:12:43] I feel like, to your point, like you guys spent, you know, a decade or however long kind of building your brand equity, like no one wants to start that over, especially like if you've built your brand equity on TikTok or whatever, you're not bringing it over. It sounds like Twitter just needs to go on like an eat, pray, love find itself, like mission to the Himalayas or something.
Rebecca Buckman: [00:13:04] Yeah.
Alex Konrad: [00:13:04] Didn't Jack Dorsey already try that with the--
Keyana Corliss: [00:13:07] -- oh that's true.
Rebecca Buckman: [00:13:08] -- He did, he did. So listen, Alex, I wanted to get back a little more to kind of how you're thinking about your coverage these days because this podcast is, after all, about technology, communications, and so, again, we want to thank you for kind of indulging us and answering our questions and questions I'm sure our readers have. So, I mean, one thing that I'm hearing a lot these days from, you know, fellow comms people and CEOs is like, well, the market's so terrible, so few companies are getting funded, if we have a funding announcement, of course it's going to get covered. Everyone's going to want to write it or hey--
Keyana Corliss: [00:13:43] -- incorrect.
Rebecca Buckman: [00:13:44] Yeah, yeah, I agree with you. It is incorrect. But I'd love to hear Alex say that and explain why. And then related to that is, oh my god, we have a new AI product or an AI strategy, surely that will be of interest to the mainstream press.
Alex Konrad: [00:13:56] Totally. So I think at the highest level, we are facing a unprecedented amount of noise and apathy when we are writing stories, and journalists like me and my team are trying to break through a pretty intense level of resistance to get any sort of, you know, exit velocity with an article and articles can really sink or soar, like very fast and almost arbitrarily. And so it's a very tough time where you can't just bank on getting a lot of readership or attention for just whatever story you write, even if you've spent a decade plus building your brand as a journalist. You know, some of my stories really pop, some really don't, and even I can't perfectly predict why that happens, you know, right now. I think given that, it pushes journalists to look for stories that are outliers, that are surprising, that are controversial, because that's what people want to talk about, right? Like, you know, when you're sitting with friends, you are complaining about something or you're talking about something that you thought was really screwed up or something that was amazing that you just saw. But you're not just like, I had a coffee today, it was pretty good. And the other person's like, yeah, my coffee was decent as well. And you're like, oh what decent coffees are you drinking?
Keyana Corliss: [00:15:20] I always tell people they're like, well, why does there need to be drama? I'm like, no one wants to read about how we crushed it and we only crushed it and nothing bad happened and it was amazing. Like, that's boring. I was like, don't want to read that.
Rebecca Buckman: [00:15:33] Yeah.
Alex Konrad: [00:15:33] You know, there's an old adage, right? Your success is not my story. That's something true. You know, there's a reason that founders, even when they go direct and kind of talk directly to mass audiences, when they're showing vulnerability or talking about struggles they had or being really controversial, unfortunately, that's what resonates. Not just like, so our second year we grew 100% and then our third year we grew 90%. Here's how.
Keyana Corliss: [00:15:58] The adversity. Oh the adversity.
Keyana Corliss: [00:16:06] Besides sharing this podcast, Becky and I have a bunch of things in common. For example, we both love a good train wreck of a PR story, and I'm assuming we both like a good glass of wine. Actually, this podcast was created over a drink, you know, we both share that. And we're both members of a comms and brand marketing expert community called Mixing Board.
Rebecca Buckman: [00:16:24] Yes. And thank you very much to Mixing Board for working to raise the value of our industry and for producing this podcast.
Keyana Corliss: [00:16:31] So Mixing Board has a very cool, savvy way of tapping the collective networks of their super-connected community so that organizations can find right senior comms and marketing talent fast. If you are hiring for a full-time role, or trying to find the exact right consultant and want the expert guidance for an extremely reasonable price, I could not recommend Mixing Board's Talent Network more. The way it works is that Mixing Board shares the opportunity with the community - and this community is incredible, you guys, it is a who's who - and ask their members to submit candidates that they think would be perfect for the position. Most of the time, these folks are folks they've worked with or they've directly known for years, and they will quickly share back a super qualified list of candidates and make connections where there's interest. Go to the Talent Network page at MixingBoard.com for more info and mention Just Checking In for a special rate. The talent that comes out of Mixing Board is incredible. It is a really great way to find top-notch talent. So I encourage you guys all to go.
Rebecca Buckman: [00:17:33] Well, what you mentioned a couple times about a story popping. This may be too personal to ask, but like, how do you and your editors judge that? What means a story has really popped?
Alex Konrad: [00:17:42] It's interesting because we moved a few months ago at Forbes to a subscription focus, where all my stories are behind a paywall right now. And so that does mean that I'm not getting necessarily the same kind of empty calorie, raw traction that I might have, but I'm looking for are people signing up for the story? Are they, as happened with me with a recent story, complaining by the dozen that they can't read my story? That means they actually want to read it. And am I seeing people talking about it? Whether it's random social media posts or aggregated by other journalists? Of course, I don't live for like the envy of other reporters, and I feel plenty of it for other people's stories, but of course, it feels great when, you know, competitors write you and they're like, damn, I wish I had that story. So those are all kind of signals. But right now, it's not like there's one magic KPI that even tells a journalist if they're doing a good job, which is probably why we're all like kind of neurotic.
Keyana Corliss: [00:18:39] People only read the headline anyway, so it's fine, Alex.
Rebecca Buckman: [00:18:44] There you go. Don't say that.
Keyana Corliss: [00:18:45] I'm just kidding, guys. I'm just kidding.
Alex Konrad: [00:18:48] I'm crushing it in headlines, you know, and headline readership up.
Rebecca Buckman: [00:18:53] And I was going to say, I was thinking the story you might have been referencing was your big deep dive into Garry Tan and Y Combinator, which everybody should get a Forbes subscription and read that because it's a great story, but like that, I'm assuming that took months to put together, right?
Alex Konrad: [00:19:07] Yeah, it's a tough state of affairs, you know. I went and spent time with Y Combinator mid-February. The story comes out the first week of March.
Rebecca Buckman: [00:19:16] Wow.
Alex Konrad: [00:19:17] You know, the end of the first week of March. And, you know, there was time in between, I went to a conference and spoke there, I worked on a couple other stories, I moved apartments, but at the same time--
Keyana Corliss: [00:19:28] -- that actually sounds like the most stressful of all the things you did, by the way.
Alex Konrad: [00:19:32] It was terrible timing to go to YC the day before Valentine's Day and then move like the day after Valentine's Day. I would not recommend that to anybody.
Keyana Corliss: [00:19:40] You're a newlywed too, right? Like, or I mean, I don't know.
Alex Konrad: [00:19:43] Still, somehow. Yeah, yeah, yeah, even after that. When you think about the time spent, you know, that's two days that I flew and spent at Y Combinator. Then over the next two weeks, I did over 30 interviews with people around the industry about Y Combinator. Then we had an extremely detailed fact-checking process, because we do not want to get something wrong in a story that we think will be scrutinized like that, I mean, we never want to get something wrong, but extra cautious there. And so the whole process takes probably 200 hours, maybe more? Like at least 200 hours. And then you think, okay, well, who's going to pay to fly someone to go do that, to spend all that time ignoring everything else, not publishing stories for a couple of weeks, and also have two amazing editors edit the story carefully, you know, and the edit was intense. There was so much great stuff that we didn't include in that Garry Tan story, and some stuff that we rightly took out that initially I thought was great to include, and so I can't really do that without those editors easily. Anyway, the long story short, someone has to pay for all of that, right? And I think that's where it's tough, because a lot of people today don't believe they should pay for journalism. But then you ask them, who should? How should journalism be paid for? They don't necessarily have a great answer for that either.
Keyana Corliss: [00:20:59] Right. You know, I've worked with you guys forever. I worked with Kendrick on that really, really big Databricks story, which was incredible. But I mean, the amount of work and time and energy and effort that went into that, I mean, it was, it's a lot. And I think that, I think people that aren't close to this have no idea just how much work it takes. And, you know, like it's mind blowing to me, just how important it is. I mean, like, you pay for everything else. Why wouldn't you pay for this? And the thing is, is we used to pay for the newspaper, right? Like you paid for the newspaper. This isn't like a new thing that all of a sudden we're, like, charging for news. I remember when I was a kid, we had the Washington Post, and I think my parents paid, like, you know, whatever, $20 a month or whatever it was. Actually, I'm pretty sure my husband was the last remaining print subscriber of the Denver Post. Like it used to come, this poor paper guy probably had like one house in our neighborhood. And it was us.
Rebecca Buckman: [00:21:54] No, we were the--
Alex Konrad: [00:21:55] And it was your husband?.
Keyana Corliss: [00:21:57] Yeah, he was trying to save journalism single-handedly.
Rebecca Buckman: [00:22:00] In our neighborhood it's stratified by age, and we were definitely, we were definitely the youngest people that continued to receive the paper Sunday New York Times.
Keyana Corliss: [00:22:07] That's the thing. Like we, I mean like, traditionally we paid for news, you pay for the paper. So subscriptions, let's do it. Okay. So what do you guys have coming up that you're excited about? I know there's the Midas List. When does that come out? Remind me?
Alex Konrad: [00:22:21] Wouldn't you like to know?
Keyana Corliss: [00:22:23] I mean, my friend Becky would like to know.
Rebecca Buckman: [00:22:26] No, actually. Yeah.
Alex Konrad: [00:22:27] No, fair enough. We don't always give the exact date because, you know, from time to time, competitors try to do a version of the Midas List. But the Midas List is in its 25th edition, and no one has been able to replicate it in any meaningful way since, you know, so it'll, it's from before my time, it'll be after my time. It will come out, you know, later in the spring. I think more end of May, early June. And it's a big, it's a big project. So we're already working on it hard.
Rebecca Buckman: [00:22:55] I'm somebody who has a vested interest in the Midas List. And fun fact, I did once work at Forbes and I was going to do the Midas List, I think this was 2009, and they actually elected not to do it that year. That was the financial crisis year. And I think there were some thoughts about rejiggering the criteria.
Alex Konrad: [00:23:11] And that was the only year that we haven't done it. And it makes my life so confusing because I'm like, wait, it's the year minus one. Yeah.
Rebecca Buckman: [00:23:22] I know, and it's my fault.
Alex Konrad: [00:23:23] You guys really screwed it up for me.
Rebecca Buckman: [00:23:24] Yeah, just blame me. Blame, or whoever the editor was that signed off on that. But speaking of that, I mean, I've seen the Midas List evolve, like I think when I was first involved with it, it only counted realized exits. So as most people know, this is a ranking of world's venture capitalists based on the returns that they generate. I forget when this happened, but some number of years ago you guys changed the criteria to also include companies that are still privately held, because with the proliferation of unicorns and decacorns, I guess my question is, and maybe you can't talk about this too much publicly, but how has the criteria changed to adjust for the fact that you had all these companies that had crazy high valuations and they're--
Keyana Corliss: [00:24:06] -- that were necessarily correct, right--
Rebecca Buckman: [00:24:08] -- well, right. And they're certainly worth less than that today. But we don't know that because everybody's stockpiled so much cash. So like are people still going to get credit for those nosebleed valuations? Or do you have ways to figure out what..
Keyana Corliss: [00:24:19] You guys can't see this but there is a very knowing smile on Alex's face.
Rebecca Buckman: [00:24:23] Yes, he's, yeah right. He's like, oh, wouldn't you like to know. What can you tell us?
Keyana Corliss: [00:24:26] It's a very strong smile.
Rebecca Buckman: [00:24:27] Give us a nugget. What can you tell us?
Alex Konrad: [00:24:30] So I think at the highest level, you know, the Midas List is a balance between like tradition and consistency and pragmatic understanding of the environment we're in. And so I think as the editor for the last ten years, which is wild, I think I'm the longest tenured editor the list has had by a fair bit, what I've tried to do is make sure that we don't lose our identity, and what makes the list so consistent and have lasted for so long, to overreact from one year to another or one cycle to another - we've been through multiple cycles, boom and bust with Midas over those 24/25 years, depending on whether we count Becky's year off - and so I think that's one thing, is that I'm very mindful that I'm steward of what is a very long-lasting project there. And I don't want to, you know, upset the apple cart. At the same time, you know, it is a model that we can update. And so every year we run multiple versions of the model and we look at it and we sort of think about what passes the smell test, what feels consistent with what the list is trying to reward, which is bigger, bolder bets, the kind of career making investments that venture capitalists aspire to, that make people famous, you know, within the community, within the tech world, get to have their popular podcasts when they retire, like Bill Gurley, etc., etc..
Keyana Corliss: [00:25:56] Or Becky Buckman, for example.
Alex Konrad: [00:25:57] Or Becky Buckman. Yeah, although she's not retired.
Keyana Corliss: [00:26:00] She's not.
Rebecca Buckman: [00:26:01] Very much not.
Keyana Corliss: [00:26:03] She's ahead of the game. She's ahead of the game. Everyone's just trying to make it on or keep themselves off VCs Congratulating Themselves, which actually might be my favorite Twitter after yours, Alex.
Alex Konrad: [00:26:12] There you go. I love that account.
Keyana Corliss: [00:26:13] That is the best account.
Alex Konrad: [00:26:14] We're Twitter pals for sure. No, anyway, so that's a long kind of diplomatic way to say that we do not count private valuations as much as we would count an exit. And then at the same time, in an environment where there are very few exits, that puts pressure on the list. Like how are people moving up and down, what really happens? And as you said, should a valuation that feels really stale and inaccurate be as powerful as a new one? And so we are trying to have the model do sort of corrections and checks that account for all these things, the same way that I think a lot of people in the industry would hope we would. And then the question is getting the balance right so we're not overdoing it. It's a very tough process and I want to shout out our data partner, TrueBridge Capital Partners, which is a fund of funds, already has a lot of good venture experience, they want to be in the market for decades too. And so it's a very labor intensive back and forth between my team and theirs to get that balance right.
Keyana Corliss: [00:27:18] I want to know how many people email you after this goes live and ask you for, you know, does this count? What about this? What if I did that? Do you get a lot of those like, people? Just?
Alex Konrad: [00:27:27] I already got three of those today. So it's hard.
Keyana Corliss: [00:27:32] You know what? Maybe we'll be like, look, stop emailing him. He explains the whole thing right here.
Rebecca Buckman: [00:27:37] Yeah, I know. This was a cogent point.
Keyana Corliss: [00:27:38] Just point people to this podcast. Be like, I already talked about it, it's right here.
Rebecca Buckman: [00:27:41] This is my okay final Midas List question and then we will move on. You've kind of already answered this, but I do sometimes hear this, not at my firm but in the industry, what do you say to people who say, oh, that list is just subjective. Like that list is not really based on data, they just pick who they want. What do you have to say to that?
Alex Konrad: [00:28:01] My cynical answer would be if it were so easy to replicate or beat our list consistency, then why hasn't it happened? You know, good luck trying. You know, there have been a few people that have tried. They have not lasted more than a year or two or really taken the place of the Midas List. And I think it's, you know, largely because it is mostly quantitative. We get submissions every year from many hundreds of VC partners across dozens of firms, including, you know, most of the top VC firms in the world. And we also have that data going back two decades. And so even if a firm takes a year off or someone moves or two firms disagree on who did a deal, that is creating a baseline of data that allows us to kind of account for people misremembering, to put it generously, or exaggerating.
Keyana Corliss: [00:28:50] Misremembering.
Alex Konrad: [00:28:52] Or disappearing.
Keyana Corliss: [00:28:53] I misremember all the time, Alex. It's fine.
Alex Konrad: [00:28:55] Yeah. Well, you'd be amazed how many investors think in their memory that they were the first check into a top company, right?
Rebecca Buckman: [00:29:02] Oh, goodness. That's fact checkable, isn't it? Goodness. Yeah, that's a bad one.
Keyana Corliss: [00:29:07] All right.
Alex Konrad: [00:29:07] But that creates, I just want to say that creates a baseline of data that we can always improve. And we don't claim the list is perfect. But I do think it is a massive competitive advantage for us. And we're very proud of it and its integrity.
Keyana Corliss: [00:29:21] Okay. So, well, let me ask, let's ask you one last question just to kind of wrap it up. Who do you think right now is just the most interesting people in tech, like people that are just, you're super fascinated by or that are, you know, popping stories, if you will?
Alex Konrad: [00:29:35] As founders or...?
Keyana Corliss: [00:29:37] Just anyone.
Rebecca Buckman: [00:29:38] Or investors, because you cover both sides of that. I would say, you know, people in tech or maybe there's fascinating investors.
Keyana Corliss: [00:29:44] Tech adjacent.
Rebecca Buckman: [00:29:45] Yeah. Tech adjacent. That's a good term.
Alex Konrad: [00:29:47] Well, when we do write about funds, they're often funds who are just approaching things really differently. And so a story that will have come out and anyone can check, you know, in the audience when this goes live, will be about Sean Mendy, who ran the Boys and Girls Club of Silicon Valley for ten years and now has a venture fund which gives half of its profits to nonprofits. And they have a much bigger new second fund and a new brand. And so you should check out that story. But that's the kind of innovation we like to see in venture is people taking a slightly different, even, you know, better if it's impactful, approach to the industry. Then in terms of companies, we are spending a lot of time looking at AI, I had a great time just connecting with Bret Taylor and Clay Bavor, who have a new company called Sierra that's a buzzy new company in AI, and we're having fun exploring all the different places where AI can have real impact. So that could be drug discovery, elder care, lots of places that I think it makes sense and is not just hype. One area that I'm not trying to worry about is all-time bitcoin highs. Great for the crypto people, but I'm going to try to stick to my knitting on this one.
Keyana Corliss: [00:31:02] I'm really glad that we lost our bitcoin audience this late in the podcast, so we're good. It's fine.
Alex Konrad: [00:31:10] And for all we know, bitcoin has crashed again by the time this comes out.
Keyana Corliss: [00:31:13] Yeah, that's true. By the time this thing gets edited, bitcoin might be gone. Well thank you so much, Alex, for joining us. This has been awesome. We really appreciate you taking the time. We know you're super busy and you guys go get a Forbes subscription and read his stuff.
Rebecca Buckman: [00:31:28] So if SBS Comms sounds familiar, it's because you might have seen them recently listed as a Top Five Most Innovative Company in Fast Company's first ever PR and Brand Strategies category. They're one of the tech industry's hottest agencies that's attracted the attention of companies like American Express, Cloudflare, GitHub, Flexport, and more. SBS Comms embraces a modern ethos in technology comms, shedding outdated strategies for progress and results. SBS works across industries and with companies at all stages of growth, from industry leaders to those building tomorrow's consequential breakthroughs such as Air Company, Runway, Astro Forge, Versal, Light Matter and more. You can learn more about SBS at www.SBSComms.com, that's a lot of comms, or by checking out their very active Instagram account, where they post weekly roundups of media hits at @SBSComms. Just Checking In is produced by Astronomic Audio and underwritten by Mixing Board, a curated community of the most sought-after communications and brand marketing leaders.
Keyana Corliss: [00:32:32] Thanks for listening to Just Checking In. Follow us at @KeyanaCorliss and @RebeccaBuckman.