A montage of Palantir’s CEO, Alex Karp, and waving US flags set to a remix of AC/DC’s Thunderstruck blasts out as the intro for the tech billionaire’s interview with Sourcery, a YouTube present introduced by the digital finance platform Brex. Over the course of a pleasant stroll via the firm places of work, Karp fields no questions on Palantir’s controversial ties to ICE however as an alternative extolls the firm’s virtues, brandishes a sword and discusses how he exhumed the stays of his childhood canine Rosita to rebury them close to his present dwelling.
“That’s actually candy,” host Molly O’Shea tells Karp.
If you happen to are trying to hear from a few of tech’s strongest individuals, you’ll more and more discover them on a constellation of exhibits and podcasts like Sourcery that present a secure house for an trade that is cautious, if not overtly hostile, in direction of crucial media retailers. A few of the new media retailers are created by the firms themselves. Others simply occupy a particular area of interest that has discovered a pleasant ear amongst the tech billionaire class like a remora on a fast-moving shark. The heads of tech’s largest firms, together with Mark Zuckerberg, Elon Musk, Sam Altman, Satya Nadella and extra, have all sat for lengthy, cozy interviews in current months, whereas corporations like Palantir and Andreessen Horowitz have branched out this 12 months into creating their very own media ventures.
At a time when the majority of Americans distrust big tech and believe artificial intelligence will harm society, Silicon Valley has constructed its personal community of different media the place CEOs, founders and traders are the unchallenged and beloved stars. What was as soon as the province of some fawning podcasters has grown into a totally fledged ecosystem of publications and exhibits supported by a few of the tech trade’s strongest.
Whereas pro-tech influencers like podcast host Lex Fridman have for years shaped a symbiotic relationship with tech elites like Elon Musk, some corporations have determined this 12 months to reduce out the intermediary fully. In September, the enterprise capital agency Andreessen Horowitz introduced that it had launched an a16z weblog on Substack. One in all its outstanding writers, investor Katherine Boyle, has a longstanding friendship with JD Vance. Its podcast has in the meantime grown to greater than 220,000 subscribers on YouTube, and final month hosted OpenAI’s CEO, Sam Altman, who counts Andreessen Horowitz as a serious investor.
“What if the way forward for media isn’t managed by algorithms or legacy establishments, however by impartial voices constructing immediately with their audiences?” the agency wrote in its Substack announcement. The agency as soon as invested $50m in the digital media upstart BuzzFeed with an identical imaginative and prescient, solely to see it fall into penny inventory territory.
The a16z Substack additionally introduced this month that the agency was launching an eight-week new media fellowship for “operators, creators, and storytellers shaping the way forward for media”. The fellowship contains collaborating with a16z’s new media operation, which it describes as being made up of “on-line legends” making a “single place the place founders purchase the legitimacy, style, brandbuilding, experience, and momentum they want to win the narrative battle on-line”.
As well as to a16z’s media effort, Palantir launched a digital and print publication earlier this 12 months known as the Republic that mimics educational journals and thinktank-style magazines like Overseas Affairs. The journal is funded by the Palantir Basis for Protection Coverage and Worldwide Affairs, a non-profit of which Karp is the chair, although he solely works there 0.01 hours per week, in accordance to 2023 tax filings.
“Far too many individuals who ought to not have a platform do. And there are far too many individuals who ought to have a platform however do not,” states the Republic, which has an editorial crew made up of senior Palantir executives.
A sampling of the articles the Republic has printed contains an essay arguing that US copyright legislation restrictions will stop US AI dominance and one other from two Palantir workers on how Silicon Valley working with the navy is good for society, some extent Karp has himself made many times.
The Republic joins a burgeoning set of pro-tech publications like Area journal, which was based late final 12 months by the Austin-based enterprise capitalist Max Meyer. The outlet takes its motto, “The New Wants Mates”, from Disney’s movie Ratatouille.
“At Area, we don’t cowl ‘the information.’ We cowl The New,” a letter from the editors said in its inaugural subject. “Our mission at Area is to cheer on the individuals who are, slowly however absolutely – and generally in a short time! – bringing the future into the current.”
The letter echoes a sentiment shared by its founder, who has criticized publications like Wired and TechCrunch for being too crucial of their protection of the trade.
“The magazines which have traditionally lined this space are simply tremendous unfavourable now. By being daring and optimistic, we’re going to battle with them,” Meyer instructed Joe Lonsdale, a co-founder of Palantir, on the latter’s podcast.
Some elements of tech’s new media scene have additionally grown extra organically, fairly than being created as an official company media arm – even when the optimistic total tone is related. The TBPN video podcast, which reimagines tech trade trivia like hirings as a high-stakes drama akin to an NFL draft, has quickly grown in affect since launching late final 12 months. The present’s self-aware but pro-tech vibe has attracted outstanding followers and company, together with Meta’s CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, who gave an in-person interview in September to promote Meta’s good glasses.
One other podcaster, 24-year-old Dwarkesh Patel, has equally constructed out a miniature media empire lately via lengthy, collegial interviews with tech leaders and researchers about synthetic intelligence. Earlier this month Patel talked with Microsoft’s CEO, Satya Nadella, who gave him a tour of considered one of the firm’s latest datacenters.
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As with many developments in tech, Elon Musk was an early adopter of this fashion of pro-tech media appearances. Since the billionaire purchased Twitter in 2022, the firm has throttled hyperlinks to crucial information retailers and arrange autoreplies that return poop emojis when reporters attain out for remark. He has seldom given interviews to established media retailers, however seems for lengthy sit-downs with sympathetic hosts like Lex Fridman and Joe Rogan, by which his opinions go largely unchallenged.
Musk’s embrace of making a media bubble round himself has additionally proven how indifferent this sort of content material can turn into from actuality and end in the pursuit of different information. The billionaire’s longstanding discontent with Wikipedia led him this 12 months to create the AI knockoff Grokipedia, which generates blatant falsehoods and outcomes that match his personal far-right worldview. Musk’s chatbot Grok has in the meantime repeatedly expressed opinions that mirror the billionaire’s personal opinions or go to ludicrous lengths to flatter him, together with final week claiming that he was fitter than LeBron James and will beat Mike Tyson in a boxing match.
The rise of tech’s new media is additionally half of a bigger shift in how public figures are presenting themselves and the degree of entry they are keen to give journalists. The tech trade has an extended historical past of being delicate round media and intently guarded about their operations, a bent that has intensified following scandals like the Facebook files which have uncovered inner paperwork and potential harms. In a single instance of how skittish some in tech have turn into round unfavourable press, journalist Karen Hao writes in her 2025 book, Empire of AI, that OpenAI did not formally communicate to her for 3 years following a crucial profile she did on the firm in 2019.
Tech’s transfer in direction of sympathetic retailers and in-house media creation additionally mirrors a technique the leisure trade took on years in the past. Movie and album launch press excursions have lengthy been tightly managed affairs, the place actors and musicians undergo a gauntlet of simply vetted, low-stakes interviews on exhibits like Scorching Ones. Politicians have embraced an identical mannequin – as was evident throughout Donald Trump’s 2024 marketing campaign tour of podcasters like Theo Von, or California’s governor, Gavin Newsom, launching his personal politics podcast earlier this 12 months – which provides them each entry to new audiences and a safer house for self-promotion.
Even when a lot of this new media isn’t aiming to expose wrongdoing or problem individuals in energy, it is not precisely with out worth. The content material that the tech trade is creating is ceaselessly a mirrored image of how its elites see themselves and the world they need to construct – one with much less authorities regulation and fewer probing questions on how their firms are run. Even the most banal questions can be a glimpse into the heads of people that exist primarily in guarded board rooms and gated compounds.
“If you happen to had been a cupcake, what cupcake could be?” O’Shea requested Karp on Sourcery introduced by Brex.
“I don’t need to be a cupcake as a result of I don’t need to be eaten,” Karp mentioned. “I’m resisting turning into a cupcake.”
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