Q2 Media Landscape Update + Allie Garfinkle Interview
Q&A with Allie Garfinkle @ Fortune
The AI fundraising pipeline hasn’t slowed down a bit, with the latest example being Cognition’s rapid fire funding (product inconsistencies be damned). And while we’ve some light testing of public market fervor for VC-backed tech startups, it’s hard to say the IPO window is open. With the FTC’s hands in everything from AI to luxury fashion, the exit environment is becoming alarming, leading Axios’s Dan Primack to call out the VC community for “blowing it.”
With stock markets booming, and capital more readily available, the public-private market divergence is somewhat baffling. With that in mind, who better to speak to than a reporter chronicling those markets daily? In this installment, we spoke with
Fortune’s senior finance reporter, Allie Garfinkle. Allie authors Fortune’s daily Term Sheet newsletter, and covers venture capital, private equity, startups and M&A.
“Writing a daily newsletter means you have a lot of volume, so within the same week I can be writing about thermal batteries, IPOs, emerging managers and fintech,” she said. “I also take on longer features or investigative pieces, and am always looking for someone interesting (and non-obvious) to profile.”
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Five questions with… Allie Garfinkle, Fortune
What do you wish PR people knew about working with you? Any advice to work with you better?
The first thing that comes to mind: I’m always behind on my email, but I’m really doing my best and sometimes it’s easier to find me over text if something’s urgent. And when we are emailing, I love short emails with a few bullet points. But most of all, I’m a relationships person – our lives are the people we talk to every day, and I really try to take the time to get to know the folks I work with. One thing you really shouldn’t do: follow-up with me four times or more.
It’s been a little under six months since you joined Fortune to author Term Sheet. What are your biggest lessons learned, and what do you most want to cover in the next few months?
Believe it or not, it’s only been about four months! Thank you, I honestly see that as a huge compliment, because that suggests the transition has been smooth for readers. Term Sheet has such a sharp, devoted readership, and I really wanted to show up for them.
I think the biggest thing I’ve learned so far is that it’s important to balance focus and flexibility – every day, I have to zero in on one thing, and make a point clearly and concisely, all while being ready to pivot if news breaks. To that end, there are all sorts of areas I’m excited to cover, including IPOs, ERP software, LPs, AI, and more – I’m also looking forward to doing more profiles. A note on those profiles – I generally require a lot of access to subjects, and am inclined to look for unconventional places and ways to interview people.
A number of the tech industry’s top journalists have previously been Term Sheet writers. How are you making the newsletter your own? What changes can we expect?
My joke about this: I was given a crowded theater then everyone held their breaths to see if I could sing. In seriousness, Term Sheet has a history of incredible reporters (special love to Anne Sraders and Jessica Mathews, whose work you should follow right now). I’m genuinely honored to have taken up the Term Sheet mantle and I mean this sincerely: Joining Fortune has meant so much to me. I mean, I grew up with Fortune magazines, right? And my whole career I’ve looked up to journalists like Bethany McLean and Carol Loomis. I know I have a lot to live up to.
For better or worse, my style is pretty off-kilter. I like to make myself a guinea pig. I reference Stephen Sondheim, Olivia Rodrigo and Hammurabi’s Code, tying them into topics like AI and interest rates. That’s weird, yes, but it feels authentic to me and people seem to like surprising touch points.
I also think every Term Sheet era is distinctive just by the nature of the medium. A daily newsletter is kind of like giving a block of marble to a bunch of different sculptors – they’ll all come up with something quite different.
What are you reading right now?
I just finished Rob Copeland’s The Fund: Ray Dalio, Bridgewater Associates, and the Unraveling of a Wall Street Legend. It’s astonishingly good reporting, and reads like a thriller. And I just started two incredibly different books at the same time: The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo and The Price of Time: The Real Story of Interest. One’s a novel about a reclusive movie star, and the other is economic history. Bet you can’t guess which is which!