Checking In with Alex Konrad of Forbes on Tech Markets & The Midas List

Just Checking In

Keyana Corliss and Becky Buckman welcome guest Alex Konrad, Senior Editor at Forbes, to Just Checking In. IPOs and the state of the tech markets open a conversation that leads to Alex sharing the work that went into writing his recent story on Garry Tan and Y Combinator. It begs asking what stories pop in an online market and how journalists grab the attention of the mainstream press.

Alex weighs in on why adversity commands headlines which is part of a response to the noise and apathy surrounding journalistic articles and stories. There is a struggle to find what will compel readers and what unique or controversial facts will combat the ennui of hearing only success stories. Beyond print media decline and attention-grabbing headlines, Becky and Keyana really want a glimpse into 2024’s Midas List, but Alex keeps things close to his chest while giving just enough way to spark discussion and address questions surrounding the process.

“... 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.” Alex Konrad

Join technology comms pros Becky Buckman and Keyana Corliss as they cut to the heart of today’s tech-news cycle and the general craziness that is high-tech corporate communications right now. With a short, not-too-serious take on the industry - with plenty of humor and irony thrown in - they’ll bring you the best in the biz, across comms and media together, for one-of-a-kind insights and perspectives you won’t hear anywhere else!

About Alex Konrad:

Alex is a senior editor at Forbes covering venture capital and startups, especially in cloud and AI, out of New York. He edits the Midas List and Under 30 for VC, and created the Midas List Europe and Cloud 100 lists. He’s written more than a dozen cover stories on business leaders including Marc Benioff, Patrick Collison and Melanie Perkins. Previously, he worked at Fortune and WNYC, and studied medieval history and archaeology at Harvard University.

Resources discussed in this episode:

• “Inside y Combinator’s ‘Boom Loop’: The Startup Factory Goes Brasher, Leaner And Meaner” by Alex Konrad
• VCs Congratulating Themselves on X
• TrueBridge
• The Midas List: 2023
• Bret Taylor and Clay Bavor of Sierra
• Sean Mendy

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Contact Rebecca Buckman and Keyana Corliss:

• Rebecca on LinkedIn
• Rebecca on X
• Keyana on Linkedin
• Keyana on X

Contact Alex Konrad:

• Website: Forbes.com/sites/AlexKonrad
• Instagram
• Twitter
• Linkedin

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Transcript

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