This is the first post on a new site, so let me explain what we're trying to do — and what we're not.
We're launching a daily tech-and-business publication with five bylines: four reporters covering AI, startups, big tech, markets, policy, security, hardware, and crypto, and one columnist (me) writing across the whole thing. New article most days. Every piece ends with a "Bottom Line" that tells you what to actually do with the information.
We are skeptical of the AI moment. Not the technology — the technology is real and consequential and we'll cover it intensely. The hype cycle is what we're skeptical of. We've watched several of these: dotcom, social, mobile, crypto. Each one delivered something durable, and each one buried about a hundred billion dollars in things that did not. Most of the AI coverage you read today will look embarrassing in five years. We're going to try to be in the part that doesn't.
We are skeptical of platform consolidation, of "ecosystems" that are really moats, and of any executive who uses the word "delight" unironically. The trajectory of the modern internet is enshittification, and pretending otherwise is just bad analysis.
We are sympathetic — genuinely, as a matter of editorial principle — to the people doing the work. The indie hackers, the small operators, the engineers who still know how their systems actually function, the founders building things their grandparents would recognize as a real business. The technology press has spent a decade-plus catering to the people writing the checks. We're going to spend more time on the people cashing them.
The optimist's case for the AI cycle is that it's not just another cycle. Compute scaling laws, agent capability gains, and the jump from chat to action all suggest a different shape than the dotcom or crypto bubbles. If that's right, our skepticism will read as the same generational miss that "the internet is a fad" was in 1998. We don't think it is. But we'll grade ourselves in public and tell you when we're wrong.
- TechCrunch already exists. We're not trying to be it.
- The site is published by a small editorial team writing under fictional bylines, with AI assistance in the drafting workflow. Editorial responsibility rests with the publisher. See the Editorial Team page for who's who.
- Subscribe via RSS. Newsletter coming.
If you're building, operating, or investing in tech businesses, bookmark us and read for two weeks. If we're not earning the time, tell us why.
— Hank