Should companies and founders rely on traditional press for their narrative, or build direct-to-audience channels instead?
5 recorded positions from 3 people, first published Jun 12, 2024. They do not agree — the readings below are what each one actually argued.
Press coverage is overrated niche community channels drive real value
Mati Staniszewski · published Sep 8, 2025
Media PR is far less valuable than first-time founders assume; channels where your users actually are — AI newsletters, YouTube creator communities, Discord, Reddit, Hacker News — drive immensely more value
their carefully prepped big-publication beta story had no impact beyond a few investors noticing, while newsletters, Discord, Reddit and Hacker News drove real users
23:12 20VC: ElevenLabs Hits $200M ARR: The Untold Story of Europe's Fastest Growing AI Startup | The Real Cost of AI from Talent to Data Centres | How US VCs are in a Different League to Europeans | The Future of Foundation Models with Mati Staniszewski
Harry Stebbings · published Sep 8, 2025
Founders grossly overestimate the importance of traditional press coverage.
His own first TechCrunch feature, at a time when the publication was far bigger, produced almost no followers or real impact.
24:36 20VC: ElevenLabs Hits $200M ARR: The Untold Story of Europe's Fastest Growing AI Startup | The Real Cost of AI from Talent to Data Centres | How US VCs are in a Different League to Europeans | The Future of Foundation Models with Mati Staniszewski
Also on the record
Alexandr Wang · published Jun 12, 2024
The traditional press industry is not conducive to great companies being built; the best PR is no PR
Traditional press is oriented around generating clicks, so it builds companies up for clicks on the way up and tears them down for clicks on the way down, unlike direct outlets where founders control their message
40:07 Traditional press incentives make direct channels the safer choice
Alexandr Wang · published Jun 12, 2024
The traditional media system structurally has no way of being fully fair to companies, so the imperative is on companies to tell their story through direct channels
Because the system is click-oriented rather than genuinely educational, fairness is not achievable within it — he received more fair treatment testifying before Congress than from media outlets
41:15 Media system cannot be fair so companies must tell their own story directly
Harry Stebbings · published Jun 12, 2024
Founder brand is more important today than ever
If you don't own your means of distribution, your message will be contorted by those who do
41:53 Founder brand and direct distribution matter more than ever
Your assistant can query this graph directly — 5 positions here, 19,646 across the corpus. Add 996.fm over MCP.