Covering Silicon
Valley:
An Introduction
Winter 2015
1.6.15
Class 1
CLASS Themes & Goals
•  How to cover the technology beat.
•  Explore business basics in context of SV players and
public companies located in Stanford’s back yard.
•  Understand current SV trends and ecosystem.
•  Keep abreast of the news.
•  Stories: Breaking news, earnings, IPO, M&A,
document, conference coverage, trend/profile,
enterprise, multimedia.
THE TECH BEAT
A foreign language?
Credibility
New vocabulary
•  Requires care to build.
Rules & Regulations
•  Be mindful: Business execs
know more than you do.
Requires math (sometimes)
Agencies: SEC
Access: How to navigate?
•  Gap: Between what they
see and what you report.
•  Execs: 49% accuracy rate
vs. Journalists: 84%
Covering Technology:
The basics
Where do tech reporters
work?
•  The “business” or
“science” desk
•  SV or SF Bureau
•  Coverage expands to
important news and
analysis about business,
economics, society, politics.
•  Tech journalists: Often
pioneers of new gadgets;
point the way we (the
people) might work in the
future.
Who Are they?
Influential
technology journalists
Scott Dadich
Wired
Michael Lewis
John Markoff
NYT
Malcolm
Gladwell
New Yorker
Kara Swisher
& Walt Mossberg ReCode
James
Surowiecki New
Yorker
LA Times
Class Alumni
•  THE WALL STREET
JOURNAL: Riva Gold
(2012), Kathleen
Chaykowski (2012);
Alexandra Wexler (2011),
Georgia Wells (2011);
•  THE NEW YORK TIMES:
Nicole Perlroth (2007)
•  MARKETWATCH: Laura He
(2007)
•  BLOOMBERG: Joseph Ciolli
(20110), Ketaki Gokhale
(2009)
•  FORBES: Ryan Mac (2010)
•  Re/Code: Eric Johnson
(2012), Vjeran Pavic (2014),
Lauren Goode (2014)
•  Vice News: Drake Martinet
(2010)
•  Google: Stacie Chan (2010),
Oliver Chiang (2009)
•  DropBox: Sara Lannin
(2011)
•  Morgan Stanley: Tracy Vu
(2014)
Inside the
technology beat
•  Personal technologies:
gadgets/high-tech “stuff”
consumers depend on.
(Walt Mossberg)
•  Technology companies:
create and market new
technologies / economic
impact of these
innovations. (WSJ)
•  Social impact/trends:
How new information and
communications
technologies change the
way we work/live.
(Markoff: cultural/social
trends; Wired: big ideas)
•  People: Creators,
promoters and marketers
of popular technologies.
(Forbes/Fortune)
Tech Coverage
Also Includes:
•  Economics: Who’s making
money? Or not.
•  Financiers: Venture
Capitalists
•  Marketing, engineering,
management executives.
Where is Silicon
Valley?
Silicon Valley: A geography, a place, a mindset.
Where to start when parachuting in?
How to tackle this
beat?
•  People: Build sources over
time
•  Documents / Reports
•  Field Visits/Conferences/
Association Meetings
Technology Sources:
People
Sources: PR ACCESS
•  Outcast Communications
•  Hatch Agency
•  Wagner Edstrom
•  Sard Verbinnen
•  BrewPR
•  Third Point
•  Brunswick Group
•  Weber Shandwick
•  SparkPR
•  Internal? External? Who’s
Who?
Documents/Reports:
Silicon Valley 150
Forbes.COM
Conferences
It’s a region, geography, a place, a mindset…
CLASS Themes & Goals
•  How to cover the technology beat.
•  Explore business basics in context of SV players and
public companies located in Stanford’s back yard.
•  Understand current SV trends and ecosystem.
•  Keep abreast of the news.
•  Stories: Breaking news, earnings, IPO, M&A,
document, conference coverage, trend/profile,
enterprise, multimedia.