I’m Alastair, an independent journalist and podcaster based in the San Francisco Bay Area, with more than 30 years of experience reporting on venture capital, startups and the innovation economy.

I host The Venture Variety Show, a podcast focused on entrepreneurs, investors and platform professionals shaping startups and tech trends. I also co-host The AI Cognitive Shift, a video podcast produced with AiNews.com, where we explore how AI is transforming labor, society and decision-making.

AiNews.com distributes to more than 20,000 monthly subscribers, and episodes typically attract 100 to 400 downloads, placing the show in the top tier of emerging podcasts.

My writing appears on AiNews.com, Substack and Medium. My newsletter, The Venture Lens, reaches an audience of more than 3,000 subscribers, with additional coverage through my LinkedIn and social networks.

I previously served as editor of Venture Capital Journal for more than a decade, and my bylines have also appeared in Reuters, PEHub, Global Corporate Venturing and the Silicon Valley Business Journal, where I was on the beat when Netscape went public in 1995.

I regularly moderate panels and investor roundtables, most recently leading a discussion on leadership, culture and capital at the Euda Roundtable in partnership with San Jose State University’s SpartUp Accelerator.

In 2024, I served as a judge for the SiliconANGLE Tech Innovation CUBEd Awards, and I’m currently judging the 2025 TechForward Awards, which spotlight emerging solutions across AI, cloud, security and data infrastructure.

Whether I’m reporting, podcasting or moderating, my goal is the same: to report on ideas and tell the stories that impact venture, society and the future of work.

Looking for recent stories? Scroll down to explore my latest reporting.