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A collection of 35 posts

Thank you, Matter.

Thank you, Matter.

It’s six o’clock on a Friday morning in June. No, I’m not blissfully catching up on rest ahead of a homework-filled weekend in Chapel Hill. Instead, I find myself coordinating coffee deliveries, finalizing space setup, and extinguishing every small fire in sight before entrepreneurs arrive. Months of

Enough is enough. It’s time to support startups that respect our rights.

Enough is enough. It’s time to support startups that respect our rights.

It’s hard to avoid the headlines. The personal information of tens of millions of people was scraped by a political consultant campaign, using the API of the world’s largest social network. There was no data breach; there were no hackers. The information taken from the API as designed

🎧 The Drunken Walk, S3-E3: Kaitlyn Jankowski— theSkimm

The Drunken Walk

🎧 The Drunken Walk, S3-E3: Kaitlyn Jankowski— theSkimm

The Drunken Walk - Kaitlyn Jankowski - 1:05:03 Kaitlyn Jankowski, better known among friends and colleagues as KJ, is Head of Marketing at theSkimm. In her… radiopublic.com Kaitlyn Jankowski [https://medium.com/@kate_jankowski], better known among friends and colleagues as KJ, is Head of Marketing at

Voice and ambient computing — for good

Voice and ambient computing — for good

“Alexa, what’s new?” It’s part of my morning routine — and the routine for 39 million Americans and counting [https://beta.techcrunch.com/2018/01/12/39-million-americans-now-own-a-smart-speaker-report-claims/] . As I drink my morning coffee, my smart speaker gives me short blasts from NPR News, BBC World News, and the Washington

Applying to Matter Nine? Here’s how we evaluate our accelerator investments.

Entrepreneurship

Applying to Matter Nine? Here’s how we evaluate our accelerator investments.

Applications are open for Matter Nine [https://medium.com/@benwerd/49e00e246d20] . In conjunction with our launch we wanted to demystify the process we use to evaluate companies. At Matter we look at five critical elements when making the decision about whether to invest in a startup: team, media, stage, mission

Build the media platform of tomorrow.

Build the media platform of tomorrow.

The way we learn about the world is transforming. The next wave of internet platforms is coming into view. Four years from now, over half of us will have an intelligent assistant in our home, [https://techcrunch.com/2017/11/08/voice-enabled-smart-speakers-to-reach-55-of-u-s-households-by-2022-says-report/] and over half of all internet searches will

Meet Matter Eight

Meet Matter Eight

When Matter was founded in 2012, the media industry was struggling in the face of huge changes in revenue models, technology, and audiences. The internet created a completely new playing field — one that allowed more voices to be heard, but also for a select few to make the rules. While

Maximizing the Matter Experience

Entrepreneurship

Maximizing the Matter Experience

Top highlight Twenty weeks go by in a blink. At Matter, our program can seem impossibly long when we begin with our bootcamp, and just as it gets hard to imagine what the end will be like, you lift your head and realize Demo Day is in just two weeks.

Matter 2017: The Year of the Rebelpreneur, Realized.

Matter 2017: The Year of the Rebelpreneur, Realized.

From the very start, Matter has been guided by a mission bigger than any one of us as individuals: Change Media for Good, supporting early stage media entrepreneurs and established media institutions who are helping to create a more informed, empathetic, and inclusive society. This year, we learned what it

🎧 The Drunken Walk, S2-E9: Jeanne Brooks — Virago Futures

🎧 The Drunken Walk, S2-E9: Jeanne Brooks — Virago Futures

Jeanne Brooks [https://medium.com/@jmfbrooks] is the founder and CEO of Virago Futures [https://www.viragofutures.com/welcome], a venture that uses community design to rethink and rebuild media systems. In a world that is more connected than ever, Virago Futures brings people of all genders, races, and abilities

Join Matter Eight

Join Matter Eight

Top highlight Media is the bedrock of democracy. It’s the way we learn about the world. It connects us. It empowers us to make stronger decisions by arming us with information. The stories we hear through the media define how we relate to the people we share our society

Applying to Matter? Here’s how we think about our accelerator investments.

Applying to Matter? Here’s how we think about our accelerator investments.

Applications are open for Matter Eight [https://news.matter.vc/join-matter-eight]. In conjunction with our launch we wanted to demystify the process we use to evaluate companies. At Matter we look at five critical elements when making the decision about whether to invest in a startup: media, stage, mission alignment,

🎧 The Drunken Walk, S2-E6: Max Ventilla — CEO, AltSchool

The Drunken Walk

🎧 The Drunken Walk, S2-E6: Max Ventilla — CEO, AltSchool

Max Ventilla is the founder of AltSchool [https://www.altschool.com/], a collaboration between engineers and educators to help build the future of education. He’s also an accomplished serial entrepreneur whose journey has taken him through Aardvark, Google and beyond. In this talk recorded at Matter in San Francisco,

Matter: Redefining Media Entrepreneurship

Entrepreneurship

Matter: Redefining Media Entrepreneurship

I’m grateful for having the opportunity to do my MBA summer internship at Matter, a media accelerator and investment firm that supports media entrepreneurs who are building a more empathetic, inclusive and informed society. I’ve enjoyed having the chance to work with the team and Matter’s entrepreneurs

🎧 The Drunken Walk, S2-E2: Raju Narisetti — CEO, Gizmodo Media Group

🎧 The Drunken Walk, S2-E2: Raju Narisetti — CEO, Gizmodo Media Group

Our guest in this episode is Raju Narisetti, CEO of Gizmodo Media Group. Raju’s journey is inspiring: from a dairy salesman to the head of a digital media group at the heart of Univision. He speaks with Roxann Stafford [https://medium.com/u/287e0168d545?source=post_page-----e67824358a35--------------------------------] , Matter’s

Meet Matter Seven

Meet Matter Seven

Top highlight This year is different. When Matter. [https://medium.com/u/5d32fb15ef39?source=post_page-----d07f02683108--------------------------------] launched in 2012, we were inspired by Clay Shirky [https://medium.com/u/dd09b2ab4ae2?source=post_page-----d07f02683108--------------------------------] ’s words on the rapidly-changing newspaper market [http://www.shirky.com/weblog/2009/03/newspapers-and-thinking-the-unthinkable/]: “now is

Rules for Rebelpreneurs

Venture Capital

Rules for Rebelpreneurs

Top highlight Journalists are under threat in our country — people don’t trust the news, fake publications and “alternative facts” make it an increasingly burdensome task to identify the truth, and multiple figures in the White House, including the president, have declared the media to be the “Enemy of the

Be Better!

Top highlight Last year I had the honor of participating in the United State of Women Summit [https://www.theunitedstateofwomen.org/], a gathering focused on gender equality and empowerment that kicked-off the #StateofWomen movement. Oprah Winfrey, in one of the plenary sessions, asked, “what can men leaving here [Summit] do?

Why Misinfocon gives me hope

Why Misinfocon gives me hope

Let’s start with this: if you don’t know what Misinfocon is or what it’s all about, you should [https://news.matter.vc/misinfocon/misinfocon-a-summit-on-misinformation-feb-24-26-at-mit-media-lab-the-nieman-foundation-for] . The summit, which took place the last weekend of February at the MIT Media Lab, brought together 200 thought leaders tackling misinformation who

Securing free speech

Securing free speech

This year, Matter. [https://medium.com/u/5d32fb15ef39?source=post_page-----c117eebf0b48--------------------------------] is hoping to invest in teams working on easy-to-use secure communications. It’s a new area for us, but online security and freedom from surveillance have never been more important, both for media and society. Freedom from surveillance means

In search of human entrepreneurs

In search of human entrepreneurs

Top highlight The myth of the Great Jerk rules over Silicon Valley. Since Steve Jobs ran roughshod over friends, colleagues, and enemies alike, and he was an incredible success, many in the tech world feel it is acceptable and even expected for startup founders to behave in similarly tyrannical fashion.

Want to be a part of Matter Seven? Here’s what we look for.

Want to be a part of Matter Seven? Here’s what we look for.

Top highlight Media is under siege, which means so is our democracy — but there is a silver lining. Now more than ever, founders have the opportunity to effect a positive change on society [https://medium.com/@benwerd/69a035759339] and we are looking for the teams that are up to the

Be part of the solution.

Be part of the solution.

Top highlight This moment matters. Matter [http://matter.vc] has always set out to create a more informed, connected, and empowered society, and that mission has never been more important than today. Media is an integral part of democracy, but it faces unprecedented opposition. Even the core idea of truth

Entrepreneurship

Meet Roxann!

“You can’t use up creativity. The more you use, the more you have.” — Maya Angelou This is one of my favor quotes of Dr. Maya Angelou, because it encompasses a “scientific law” of creativity that can often be misunderstood. Creativity isn’t a limited resource. The more you deeply

Meet Josh!

As I start at Matter, I’m filled with an overwhelming sense of gratitude that I get to be one of the lucky few who can say they derive meaning from (and enjoy) what they do while making a positive impact on society. When I think about why I feel