Silicon Valley investment firm Andreessen Horowitz (known by insiders as a16z) is expanding its own media activity by publishing tech content on its website through an opinion section that publishes articles from outside contributors, according to The Information.
Andreessen is recruiting an executive editor and an opinions editor and says the firm wants to “dramatically scale our editorial operation—across coverage areas and across mediums (especially video)…to grow and lead a talented team of creatives, producers, talent, and marketers.”
Sonal Chokshi, a former editor at Wired magazine, who joined Andreessen in 2014 as its editor in chief, will oversee the media expansion, which comes (according to The Information) “amid growing tension between prominent venture capitalists and the news media”.
Marc Andreessen, the firm’s co-founder, has reportedly expressed antipathy toward the media, which he and some other Silicon Valley leaders consider to be unfairly critical of tech firms and their impact on society. Fortune magazine says: “After a decade of cultivating journalists over intimate cocktail affairs, the firm has decided it no longer needs them.”
Other tech investment firms, including First Round Capital and Bessemer Venture Partners, have long published their own content, including interviews with entrepreneurs they have backed. But Andreessen Horowitz has been the most ambitious, in terms of what it has published and the media training and other public relations assistance it provides to companies in which it has invested.
Could this move (eventually) lead to a serious media venture to challenge those awful tech journalists? Easy to get the funding.
