I’m Alastair, an independent journalist and podcaster based in the San Francisco Bay Area, with more than 30 years of experience reporting and breaking news on venture capital, startups and tech trends, including the impact of AI.

I host The Venture Variety Show, a podcast focused on entrepreneurs, investors and platform professionals talking about venture and startups. I also co-host The AI Cognitive Shift, a video podcast produced with AiNews.com, where we explore how AI is transforming society and the future of work.

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 content appears in AiNews.com, as well as on 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. (Read more about that on my Medium.)

In 2024, I served as a judge for the SiliconANGLE Tech Innovation CUBEd Awards, and in summer 2025, I judged the 2025 TechForward Awards, which recognized 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.

Scroll down to view photos of me in action,
and to explore some of my latest reporting.