Alex Konrad on building Upstarts Media: service journalism for founders and the scoop economy

We'll talk to you.

Great to meet you. Very, very

cheers. Goodbye.

Um, and we have our last guest of the show. We will leave the land of lightning round and bring Alex Conrad in to the TV and Ultra Dome from Upstarts Media. How are you doing, Alex? Good to see you again.

Back.

Hey, I'm back. It's It's great to be virtually in the Ultradoo.

Yes. I love that poster behind you. Uh it's very

That's a TV.

Oh, is that a TV?

We're high tech here.

That's a TV. Okay, that makes sense. Anyway, um what's new since we last talked? Tell me about the shape of Upstarts, how it's going, uh what type of beat you you I don't know how have you defined your beat. I think everyone knows your beat from before with the Midas list of course, but uh what's changed? What's remained the same?

You know, it's been almost exactly a year since we launched and you guys had me on the show, which is awesome. And

as you know, year one started up. Everything is crazy but a lot of fun. You know, we've we've launched a podcast. We have started doing some feature stories. We had one on William hockey from column that was a lot of fun a couple weeks ago. That's right. And just and having a lot of fun experimenting. You know, we haven't been to the Ultra Dome in person, but that's a year two stretch goal. Yeah.

Yes. What about uh what about lists? I remember we talked about this and I was like I know you can't do the Midas list that's left behind, but I feel like there's a big gap in the tech media landscape around lists. Market maps do well. People are split on them. We had a lot of fun with a with a Metis list of AI researchers. Have you are listicles just cringe or are they just actually not that interesting to you or are they bad business because I feel like there's a there's something there and you're the guy.

You know, I I'm sorry to say we don't have that list for you yet. Um but maybe that'll be a thing this year. Okay.

We are trying to do really serviceoriented coverage for founders. I think you know the reality is founders are super busy, right? and and so are builders at startups. And so our podcast is one commute length. It's it's a

you know if you're not listening to TVPN yet, you're driving to the office, you can you can tune in for up starts each week, you know, 35 minutes. And then similarly, we tried with our article this week a illustration where um this woman Natalie Fra actually drew how data centers connect to this new GPU startup so that people could visualize it. And the hope is that it just helps people understand the info super fast.

That's very cool.

That's very cool. or I I I I read about this company Giga uh today that I don't even know if I should call it a startup. They haven't raised any money, but they're AI boom. It's just a business. Are you seeing like these knock-on effects of the AI boom show up? And are you getting pitches from those folks or do they see themselves as like outsiders and they're happy to remain outsiders or do they want to cross over into the tech ecosystem? like how do you think about the broader the broader ecosystem and knock-on effects of the AI boom?

Well, startup can mean anything these days, right? Like I remember when we all started our career, a startup was venture-backed. It was maybe less than seven years old.

It wasn't hiring people for a billion dollars. You know,

worth a trillion dollars preo.

Yeah,

that's right. And now startup I think is more of an aspirational goal. You know, some days upstart feels like a startup, some days it feels like a small business. And

I think similarly with these companies, my in my mind, if they're trying to be really high growth, if they're trying to move fast, and if they're serving a techsavvy audience, that's good enough to be a startup.

Yeah, I love it. Uh what what what do you think about the the scoop economy, the big labs, there's so much drama, so many personalities. There are some journalists who've gone out and carved out like, you know, they're just the scoop masters. Is that something? Scoop athletes, scoop athletes. Uh, is it scoop? As someone who's I don't think ever had a scoop, I don't know if I just haven't felt a rush. Is it addictive? Like what are the pros and cons of getting into that side of the business?

There is a huge endorphin rush. Like if if we're chasing endorphins and avoiding cortisol, I think like you know when you do publish that scoop, it can feel really good. You know, for a while our biggest story at Upstarts was last summer we wrote about a startup that had left OpenAI. Oh yeah. and they had raised a ton of money to do an RL, you know, reinforcement learning company. And when you looked at the spike in subscribers we got, like that felt really good in a way, but you don't want to play that game all the time. I think it it does end up being like chasing a rush that is not sustainable.

And so I think, you know, I will let Katy Roof and those self-described scoop athletes uh chase it for the love of the game. For me, it's only really relevant if if there's something concrete like a lesson or an insight for that wider ecosystem versus just the horse racing of, hey, these guys from OpenAI raised even more money than those last guys.

Uh, in terms of the horse race, obviously you ran the Midas list for many many years. Um, is there is there are there any venture capitalists who are o who are underrated right now or or do you think that there's uh there's there's any like misconceptions in the venture capital community? because I feel like the strategies have shifted so much and we're seeing bifurcation between the small funds and the mega funds and there's folks who are venture capitalists but they're trading in public markets all day long or running private equity shops now or buying hospital networks like the strategies have evolved so much like what's uh what other stories are interesting in the venture capital landscape broadly

well first I think this year we're going to have to start a upstart spotted on the street

VC thing because I I saw I spotted Keith Rab boy at a restaurant earlier this week in New York and I gave him the eye you know and I said

come over and we shook hands and you know the poor founders who are with Keith were like who is this dude? So I I do think we should do a segment of just where I spot VCs around New York City and San Francisco and awkwardly wave to them.

TMZ in terms Yeah. TMZ mode.

Um that's the coverage we need, right? We need the gossip coverage of VC again. Um, but on a serious note, I I mean I love the domain experts, like the really nerdy guys who

are not posting a lot on X, who are just really well regarded. When I ask around like, hey, who's really smart on GPUs? And and so my advice to VCs usually is like

have a thing you're known for. Yeah.

If all you're known for is posting on Twitterx, that's probably not a defense, you know, defensible strategy in the long run.

Yeah. Yeah. people

uh what is what what advice do you give to VCs that might be due for their first Midas list appearance now that you have a bit of space and you're not involved in the process

interesting

I mean at the end of the day venture is a results business I mean you you guys have had guests on recently who talked about what is real and what is not and I think the numbers generally do speak for themselves you know you get a big exit that is kind of the mic drop that I think Midas is a lagging indicator

to notice um I think for VC who feel like they have that portfolio that's not recognized yet. The first thing I would say is be top of mind for your founders.

You know, often journalists like me or or at the big shops, like we'll talk to a founder and we'll be like, who are the couple VCs who backed you who we should call to get to know your business better.

If you're not one of those first two or three VCs that the founder mentions as a reference,

that's that's not great. So, I'd start there with like, are you top of mind for your biggest winners?

Yeah. So, it's a mi mix of results plus the mic drop moment in the last 12 months plus kind of founder brand. Is that a good way to think about it?

Well, yeah. I mean, the Midas is data only. So, the the founder brand doesn't matter as much. But I think if you're feeling like, hey, I I I want those

flowers. Yeah. Well, it's data. It's data only, but it's not just like blended IRR across every investor. There's still like crazy internal politics at every VC firm of like, oh yeah, that associate who was here for 2 years and uh was the one who actually got that deal but then left. Like that's my deal now.

Hey, I mean you guys know venture is a tough game like that. You know, my wife just left VC to go into operating back at a startup Clay and you know she she will have her deals that she sourced and she was involved in and will she be in the history in years? You know, we don't know. And I think you know similarly

if you sourced the deals and you moved on to another firm or you went back into operating like history will I think give you the credit in the long run but yeah for Midas that can be tough because like five people at Sequoia claim each you know big deal.

Yeah. Yeah. I heard that there's one firm I don't know if it's benchmark but they have like a ledger that when the deal closes they all agree on the allocation. Okay you brought it in and you're going to be on the board you get 80% but I worked the deal with you so I get 20%. and we all sign and then we know who got the system of record a system of record ERP

basically but I don't know if that that's employed at every uh WBC firm. Has there ever been uh in in your memory a a situation where uh sort of like a VC stake was discovered in sort of an IPO perspectus or like an S1 because I imagine usually the VCs are taking plenty of victory laps throughout the process once things get close. But I'm I'm wondering if there's ever been like the quiet VC not on Twitter, not posting, and then all of a sudden the IPO comes out and they're like, "Wait, they own 20% of this company? This is crazy."

Yeah. I mean, a a firm that was historically under the radar was uh Sutter Hill.

Oh, yeah.

So, Michael Spiser. When Snowflake went public, he got tons of credit, deservedly so,

but they had been totally under the radar. And so, those more incubation type ones, those are really interesting. Um,

and I think I think otherwise the thing to know with S1 is it's usually like a big dog at the firm whose name is attached, but that doesn't mean they necessarily

Yeah.

were the the person who did the deal. Um, what happened early in my career is people would be like, "Did you know I sourced that deal?" And then I left that firm and I hadn't been in the game long enough to like know any of this trivia. And so that was terrifying for me. Over time, I I started to know all the trivia. Like Airbnb was sourced by this person and then this person was on the board and then this person was on the board. And I I don't wish that data on anybody's head.

That's hilarious. Um, do you view venture capital and the startup ecosystem as like a buyer market or a sellers market? Like like is it a good time to be in a startup versus it's a good time to be a VC? And where are we in the cycle?

What an easy question, right? You're you're saving all the the easy ones for last. I think you know we continue to be in that have and have not market where I think you see crazy valuations for companies that have traction and then I hear from so many startups there's still like how do we meet these guys like how do we get anyone to pay attention to us and it's it's humbling for me that you know even though I'm saying hey we want to cover startups that aren't getting that coverage even then there are most that I just can't help or get to and so I think like

I would encourage people to get away from the buzzwords uh you know especially get away from Silicon Valley and there's still plenty of companies that are not getting funding.

Yeah. Will you ever write a book?

About what? About you guys?

No. About your experience? I mean, this is a common path. I feel like uh sometimes find a company or team that

and and and the scoop grows into a book. Sometimes there's, you know, a composite profile of an industry or career. I don't know. It sounds like No, it sounds like you have no appetite for a book at all. But is that

well I think I just don't have the the bandwidth. I mean like you guys I think I'm in the arena every day now

putting points on the board and I think you know books seem like a beautiful stretch goal

if upstarts really scales but you know I I wanted to write books in the past maybe but I think you need to really have the idea.

Yeah.

Um you can't just reverse engineer it. It's like saying I want to be a founder and not knowing what company.

You have to have a book in you at the time and uh and then it just has to

you have to love the topic, right? Like how boring would it be to write the world's 10th book about Nvidia? Like do we need that? I don't think so. So

I don't know.

I don't know. I Jordie's like, "You're going to do it." I would I think I would I mean I would I would I would read an entire book just about the 200 potentially the leather jacket

or just an entire book just around the history of DLSS. Just just deep learning super sampling. Well, you know what I think you guys are speaking to that I do think about a lot. Like information is so crazy right now. You know, you guys have these amazing guests on every day. You're grinding and you know, so many people are out there putting out good information. Is there room for that person who just kind of disappears for a long time on a crazy project and comes back with like a big fish?

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I know, we talked about this uh a while back with uh there's this YouTube channel that I love called The Corridor Crew, and they uh talk about visual effects specifically, very niche. How would that ever be on T? It just would never be on TV, but it's turned into a TV show. Uh multiple episodes every week, fantastically successful, they build a whole business, they have a studio and team. Uh and and their their dream was always, okay, we're good at visual effects. we want to do a movie or be the VFX crew on a movie we're capable. But they kept building up their YouTube business and every time Hollywood would come to them, they would say, "Yeah, we'll give you, you know, we'll give you 300K." And they're like, "But our business is making a million dollars now." And they say, "Okay, it doesn't work." And they'd come back and be like, "You know what? We're ready. We got a million and a half dollars for you." And they're like, "But our business is doing three million. Like, we can't step away." And so this p this tugofwar is always happening. And I feel like the book is the same thing where, you know, can you really turn off the podcast or can you turn off the reporting or can you turn off the the the all the all the other I've just come back to this is like legacy media brands are the best place to go, you know, fishing

because they're they will say yes, you can we're going to pay you a salary and you're going to go work on the story

and you might not be able to show any real results for

a longer period of time. doesn't work that well for a Substack model where you got to show value every week.

Yeah, that's totally true. I mean, every week I feel like I got to win win the week, you know? I feel like I'm proving myself to my audience every single week and day.

I will say

we are doing these quarterly profiles now. Hockey was the first one with Colum. Great.

I think we have a really cool one cooking for the second quarter. And the dream is that maybe like we put four of those in a little booklet. That'd be cool.

That, you know, can be on a coffee table and maybe we start to get into print and have fun that way. But it's it's baby steps, you know.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That makes a lot of sense. Um, do do you have sort of a a a media critique take on like the future of investigative journalism, where that might exist, what the funding model for that is, because it feels harder than ever to have a uh a journalist go and spend a year on something that may or may not work out. Yeah, I think um the short answer is that I agree with Jordy in a lot of ways that you do need the sort of big shops that can still weather the storm for someone. You know, at Forbes, I would be hunting that big cover story and do it and then recharge my battery while other people were kind of putting up the singles and the doubles. And now it's like you need the singles and doubles and then you look for the home run. Um so I do think a team is important there. But one one thing I would challenge people to think about is is there a way to fund a project for a year like you know like whether it's Patreon or Substack or something like that where you do a year or even a multi-year subscription where you say we're going to give you money upfront do the best craziest thing you can do in that time and you know it can it can be as few as one thing.

Yeah.

But then we'll be happy because I think the challenge as you said with Substack is Substack sends you the numbers you can see them going up and down. You never want to see them going down. And so could we create that headsp space via some sort of crowdfunded model? I mean, I would love to see the innovation.

Yeah, same stuff. Well, thank you so much for taking

Let's hit the gong for a year. Is it actually the year the the first year? Did you hit the anniversary yet

or is it a week away? Can we anyway?

We're going to hit.

Thank you so much, Alex. Great to catch up and we will talk to the team.

Goodbye.

Cheers.

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