Favorite news sources to stay on top of happenings in tech (relevant to recruiting for growth equity)

Some pointers (slightly expanding a previous post I made):

• websites
• email newsletters
• industry datasets or primers
• practitioners' thought pieces
• your own opinions

Let's unpack each.

(i) TechCrunch is a good resource for 'what's happening now' type of stuff, but the ratio of meaty content (thought piece type stuff) to simple news articles is low. Stratechery is good. Venturebeat, as you mentioned, is good.

(ii) You'll get more value from curated newsletters. Put yourself on as many good venture lists as you can manage. The strong ones are Pro Rata (from Dan Primack, the don of tech newsletters), Term Sheet (what Dan spent six years editing at Fortune, now written by Erin Griffith after his departure to Axios), Launch Ticker (from Jason Calcanis, arguably the most prominent angel, sort of this younger generation's Ron Conway), and if you wanted a fourth, StrictlyVC.

You'll get daily emails (some offer both morning and night). If you read them thoroughly and start building any kind of tracking or bookmarking system of your own, this is 30-60 minutes daily that will keep you up to speed on what's happening. Over a couple years (separate from your interview process), you'll have an immediate grasp on useful things to know, like the rough intervals between certain hot companies' raising rounds, average round sizes in specific verticals, and updates on who is currently where (it's good to know when investors are changing shops).

(iii) Resources like Pitchbook and CB Insights are a godsend. They're expensive for you to subscribe on your own, but if you give them your email you'll get a daily morning snapshot of every newsworthy item plus links to their own quick-hit analysis of pertinent factoids prompted by that day's news (e.g. quarterly growth in deal volume and dollar scale in AR startups over the past three years). If I had to stress one thing in this whole post it'd be these two resources.

(iv) Absorb as much quality long-form content as you can. At the beginning, the immediate value this presents is that you end up simply knowing what some of the smartest minds in venture are thinking. Over the longer term, you will be able to critically evaluate someone's thesis in light of your own insight.

Top-notch ones to start with include the First Round Review, Benedict Evans' blog, Fred Wilson's blog (AVC), all of Paul Graham's essays, Bill Gurley's blog, Marc Andreessen / Ben Horowitz's (look at A16Z.com) ... and then there's a host of other great ones from specialists.

(v) If you combine (i)-(iv), you should have a substantial basis of raw knowledge to apply some critical thinking to. The real difference maker when talking to senior people in this field is not simply knowing the what of the market, but having a coherent and articulate why on how it matters.

One thing I see so many people do is take the banking or PE interview approach. The 'I read up to know what's going on and for half a dozen deals memorized each party, the dollar amounts, and advisors and then thought of a rationale for why each side wants to do it'.

That may wind up working in late-stage (growth equity) at the really institutionalized places, but the earlier you go in terms of stage, the less useful and the more hurtful it becomes.

Separately, this is also the thing that kills people's ability to progress in seniority. Some guys wonder why they don't get the Principal / Vice President promotion when they've memorized the written job description, lived it to the fullest, and gotten solid feedback year after year. It's because the partners are looking for who 'gets it' and 'getting it' is a subjective thing where people weave a thesis out of thin air. That's three-quarters of the battle.

The rest is just having the stomach to maintain that thesis (this is not just an "investment thesis": it includes your thesis on how you screen founders, support them after you invest, build the board that oversees them and contribute on it yourself, and feed them inputs to correct their course over years of operating) until something you backed exits and prints you money.