Balaji Srinivasan

Yeah, but Baljit, why don't you contextualize where we are right now in this media moment, right?

We've been talking about where tech fits in, how tech needs to build its own media landscape.

We've also been talking about how the New York Times has continued to groan.

How do you kind of make sense of where we're at in 2026 as you've been on this sort of, you know, 10 plus year quest to not just understand the media landscape, but also build within it?

That's right.

So, okay.

Essentially, there's a long version and there's a short version, which is tech and media actually share a common root in that we're both about the collection, presentation, and dissemination of information.

So the collection of information, like they're sourcing our data, presentation, user interface or articles, dissemination, distribution, whether on social feeds or newsprint or what have you.

So at a very structural level,

We are the internet first digital alternative to the 20th century printing press newspaper kind of model.

We are essentially a contender, a competitor for what is upstream.

You know, if you ask the question of what is upstream of, at least in the West or in the Anglosphere,

And you keep asking the question, what's upstream of a factory?

Well, it's, you know, political this and it's capital.

And what's upstream of that?

Well, it's eventually you get to money and media because media is upstream of politics and money is upstream of media, but media is also upstream of money.

And that's an Ouroboros where that circle eats its tail.

So the venture capitalists and the journalists, right, the tech and media are actually sort of locked in a struggle for what is upstream, right?

And that's like a good way of seeing it.

Like who's at the control panel flipping the switches, hitting the buttons and so on and so forth.