While everyone else covered the headlines, he mapped the systems underneath. 150,000 subscribers. One newsletter. No corporate overlord.
In 2015, when every tech reporter was writing about Facebook's earnings, Alex Kantrowitz was getting rare access to its experimental AI systems. He wasn't chasing the news cycle. He was watching what would eventually reshape everything - years before the rest of the press corps caught up.
That gap between what's being reported and what's actually happening is Kantrowitz's permanent address. He grew up on Long Island, studied labor relations at Cornell (he co-hosted a campus radio show and wrote for the student paper), and then did something most journalism-track students would never admit: he took a job buying digital ads for New York City. "Journalism seemed like a dying field in 2009," he says. "So I pivoted."
That detour turned out to be the most useful credential he'd ever hold. While other reporters covered big tech from the outside, Kantrowitz understood the plumbing - the ad auction mechanics, the incentive structures, the reason Google and Facebook would never, structurally, be neutral. He didn't stumble into that insight. He lived it, invoice by invoice, before he ever wrote a word about it.
At Ad Age and then BuzzFeed News, he became the reporter tech companies quietly feared. Not because he was hostile, but because he was thorough. In 2019, he broke the story that Saudi intelligence had recruited Twitter employees to spy on dissidents - a piece sourced from an FBI complaint that landed him a Mirror Award and sent shockwaves through Washington and Silicon Valley simultaneously.
In May 2020, two weeks after his book hit shelves, he launched Big Technology on Substack. The newsletter has since grown to 150,000+ subscribers and millions of annual podcast downloads. He appears regularly on CNBC, moderated panels at SXSW and Web Summit, and has interviewed everyone from Sam Altman to Mark Zuckerberg to Larry Ellison - usually asking the question their PR teams hoped he'd skip.
The philosophy is simple and relentless: cover the systems, not the symptoms. Why does tech concentrate power? How does the recommendation algorithm actually work? What does "Day One culture" mean when you're a trillion-dollar company? These are harder questions than "what did the CEO say on the earnings call," and that's exactly why Kantrowitz asks them.
His goal, if you press him on legacy, is not a byline count or a Pulitzer. "Being good to people," he says. "If I can be remembered as being good to people, then that's good enough for me." It is either the most disarming thing a journalist can say, or the most honest.
Probably both.
"Too often we'll cover what I call the symptoms - without spending time examining the underlying systems."- Alex Kantrowitz, on his approach to tech journalism
The concept is borrowed from Bezos: Day One is the mode where everything is urgent, fresh, and at stake. Day Two is stasis - "followed by irrelevance, followed by excruciating, painful decline, then death," as Bezos wrote in a shareholder letter. Kantrowitz's insight was that the largest tech companies in history had built institutional cultures specifically designed to stay in Day One permanently.
To prove it, he cold-messaged LinkedIn contacts for months, conducted 130+ interviews with insiders - ranging from Zuckerberg himself to hourly workers on Amazon warehouse floors - and assembled a portrait of how these companies actually function from the inside out. Not the press-release version. The real one.
Inc. Magazine named it one of the business books you had to read in 2020. He narrated the audiobook himself.
"The gangster read that provides an inside look at the culture that has allowed the tech titans to perform infanticide on their competition... Alex Kantrowitz is both thorough and critical while reminding us to remain optimistic."
- Scott Galloway, NYU Professor & Author"The Tech Giants are far from perfect, but Always Day One reveals the inventive elements of their culture that entrepreneurs can and should learn from."
- Mark Cuban, Entrepreneur & Investor"A must-read for anyone trying to understand how successful companies operate in the age of the tech titans... a delightful romp through Silicon Valley and beyond."
- Charles Duhigg, Author of The Power of HabitOne of the ten most cited technology reporters in the world
Named one of 54 most influential tech reporters by Business Insider
Mirror Award winner (2019) - BuzzFeed News team, "Social Media in the Crosshairs"
Always Day One named to Inc. Magazine's Must-Read Business Books (2020)
Broke the Saudi intelligence / Twitter spy story - sourced from FBI complaint
Regular CNBC on-air contributor on Closing Bell, Power Lunch, and more
Interviewed Zuckerberg, Altman, Ellison, Hassabis, Dorsey - the full cast of the tech era
Built Big Technology to 150K+ subscribers and millions of annual podcast downloads - independently
Work cited in The New Yorker, WSJ, NYT, Sports Illustrated, and dozens of major publications
Big Technology Podcast guests include the architects of the AI era - people who rarely sit for long-form interview conversations. Kantrowitz gets them.
"What seems impossible is actually quite possible. Don't let yourself be held back by what people are telling you that you can't do."- Alex Kantrowitz, on advice to his younger self
Too often we'll cover what I call the symptoms - without spending time examining the underlying systems.
On Big Technology's editorial philosophyBeing good to people. If I can be remembered as being good to people, then that's good enough for me.
On legacyThe replies were more heartfelt and informative than the vitriol on Twitter.
On why he loves newsletter reader repliesWhat seems impossible is actually quite possible. Don't let yourself be held back by what people are telling you that you can't do.
On advice to his younger self