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Tom Krazit, Editor in Chief at Runtime, joins Corey on Screaming in the Cloud to discuss what it\\u2019s like being a journalist in tech. Corey and Tom discuss how important it is to find your voice as a media personality, and Tom explains why he feels one should never compromise their voice for sponsor approval. Tom reveals how he\\u2019s covering tech news at his new publication, Runtime, and how he got his break in the tech journalism industry. Tom also talks about why he decided to build his own publication rather than seek out a corporate job, the value of digging deeper for stories, and why he feels it\\u2019s so valuable to be able to articulate the issues engineers care about in simple terms.

About Tom

Tom Krazit has written and edited stories about the information technology industry for over 20 years. For the last ten years he has focused specifically on enterprise technology, including all three as-a-service models developed around infrastructure, platform, and enterprise software technologies, security, software development techniques and practices, as well as hardware and chips.

Links Referenced:

• \\nRuntime: https://www.runtime.news/\\n

Transcript

Announcer: Hello, and welcome to Screaming in the Cloud with your host, Chief Cloud Economist at The Duckbill Group, Corey Quinn. This weekly show features conversations with people doing interesting work in the world of cloud, thoughtful commentary on the state of the technical world, and ridiculous titles for which Corey refuses to apologize. This is Screaming in the Cloud.

Corey: This episode is sponsored in part by our friends at Chronosphere. When it costs more money and time to observe your environment than it does to build it, there\\u2019s a problem. With Chronosphere, you can shape and transform observability data based on need, context and utility. Learn how to only store the useful data you need to see in order to reduce costs and improve performance at chronosphere.io/corey-quinn. That\\u2019s chronosphere.io/corey-quinn. And my thanks to them for sponsor ing my ridiculous nonsense.\\xa0

Corey: Welcome to Screaming in the Cloud, I\\u2019m Corey Quinn, and people sometimes confuse me for a journalist. I am most assuredly not one of those. I\\u2019m just loud and have opinions and every once in a while I tell people things they didn\\u2019t already know. That\\u2019s not journalism. My guest today, however, is a journalist, Tom Krazit, is the Editor in Chief of the just launched Runtime. Tom, thank you for joining me.

Tom: Thanks, Corey. It\\u2019s a long-time listener, first-time guest.

Corey: We\\u2019ve been talking for years now and I\\u2019m sort of embarrassed I haven\\u2019t had you on the show before now. But the journalists has always felt, to me at least, like they\\u2019re a step apart from the typical, you know, rank and file of those of us working in industry. You folks are different from us, and inviting you all just feels like a faux pas, even though it\\u2019s very clearly not. Well, how did you get here, I guess is the short version. I know that you\\u2019re at Runtime, now; you were at Protocol until its demise recently. Before that, when I first started tracking you, you were over at GeekWire. Where do you come from?

Tom: [laugh]. Well, I\\u2019ve been doing this for 20 years, which is a long, long time, and it\\u2019s amazing how much has changed in that time. I started off doing consumer stuff, I was covering Apple during the launch of the iPhone, I was covering Google as they sort of turned into the Borg. And then I joined GigaOm in 2012 and I joined them as an editor. And it became pretty clear that I needed to learn this enterprise stuff real fast because that was like the largest part of GigaOm\\u2019s business at the time.

And so, I kind of just threw myself into it and realized that I actually liked it, you know, which I think is [laugh] hard for some people to understand. But like, I\\u2019ve actually always found it really interesting how these large systems work, and how people build in a variety of ways based on their needs, and, you know, just the dramatic change that we\\u2019ve seen in this industry over the past ten years. So, you know, I\\u2019ve really been doing that ever since.

Corey: There\\u2019s a lot to be said for journalism in the space. And I know a lot of tech companies are starting to\\u2026 well, that\\u2019s starting. This is, I guess, a six-year-old phenomenon, at least. But a lot of these small companies were built, and well, we\\u2019re just going to not talk to the press because we\\u2019ve had bad experiences doing that before, so we\\u2019re just going to show instead of tell. And that works to a point, but then you hit a certain point of scale where you\\u2019re a multi-trillion dollar company and, \\u201cWe don\\u2019t talk to the press,\\u201d no longer becomes tenable. With success comes increased scrutiny, and deservedly so. I feel that there\\u2019s a certain lack of awareness of that fact in the tech industry versus other large industries that have come before.

Tom: I think it\\u2019s always important to remember how, like, new a lot of this really still is, you know, when compared to, like, other American industries and businesses. Like, tech as a discipline, you know, it\\u2019s only really in the last ten years that it\\u2019s been elevated to the extent of, like, sports, or, like, a top-tier news category. And so, I think a lot of people who make those decisions, you know, grew up in a different environment where, you know, you didn\\u2019t really want to talk about what you were doing because you were worried about competitive things or you were just worried\\u2014you wanted to have a ground-up story. And like, yeah, the world is very different now. And I think that, you know, a lot of companies are starting to get that and starting to change the way they think about it.

I mean, I also would argue that I think a lot of enterprise tech companies see better value in running ads alongside golf tournaments than actually talking to people about what they really do because I think a lot of them don\\u2019t really want people to understand [laugh] what they do. They want them to think that they\\u2019re, you know, the wizard behind the curtain, solving all your digital transformation needs and not actually get into the details of that.

Corey: I used to think that I was, as an engineer, much smarter than any of the marketers who were doing these things that obviously make no sense. Like, why would you have a company\\u2019s logo in an airport for an enterprise software ad, but no URL or way to go buy something? Aren\\u2019t those people foolish? Yeah, it turns out no. People are not just-fell-off-the-turnip-truck level of sophistication.

It\\u2019s a brand awareness story where you wind up going in and pitching to the board of some big company someday and they already know who you are. That\\u2019s the value of brand awareness, as I\\u2019ve learned the fun way because I accidentally became something of a marketer. I have this platform\\u2014

Tom: [crosstalk 00:04:46], Corey\\u2014

Corey: In the newsletters, but\\u2014

Tom: Come one. You\\u2019re totally a brand. You\\u2019re a brand.

Corey: Oh, absolutely. And breakfast cereal.

Tom: [laugh].

Corey: But I was surprised to realize that people not only cared about what I had to say but would pay me cash money in order to have their product mentioned in the thing that I do. And, \\u201cCan you give me money? Of course you can give me money.\\u201d But it was purely accidental along the way. So, I have to ask, given that you seem to be a fan of, you know, not starving to death, why would you start a media company in 2023?

Tom: Uh, well I needed to do something, Corey. You know, like [laugh] [crosstalk 00:05:22]\\u2014

Corey: You had a bright career in corporate communications if you want to go over to the dark side. Like, \\u201cI\\u2019m tired of talking to the audience about truth, I\\u2019d rather spin things now because I know how the story gets told.\\u201d

Tom: I mean, that may come down the road for me at some point, but I wasn\\u2019t quite ready for that just yet. I have really felt very strongly for a long time that this particular corner of the world needs better journalism. I just, I feel like a lot of what is served up to the people who have to make decisions about this incredibly complicated part of the world, you know, it\\u2019s either really, really product-oriented, like, \\u201cSo-and-so introduced the new thing today. It costs this much and it does these three things that they told us under embargo,\\u201d you know, or you get, like, real surface-level coverage from, like, the big financial business publications, you know, who understand the importance of things like cloud and things like enterprise software, but haven\\u2019t really invested the time to understand the technological complexities behind it and how, you know, easy narratives don\\u2019t necessarily, you know, play in this world.

So, there\\u2019s a middle ground there that I think we at Protocol Enterprise found pretty fertile. And, you know, I think that, for this, for Runtime, you know, I\\u2019m really just continuing to carry that work forward and to give people content they need to make decisions about using technology in their businesses that business people can understand without an engineering degree, but that engineers will take a look at it and they\\u2019ll go, \\u201cYou know what? He did that right. He did his homework, he got the details right.\\u201d And I think that\\u2019s rare, unfortunately, and then that\\u2019s a gap I hope to fill.

Corey: Something that really struck me as being aligned with how I tend to view things is\\u2014to be clear, our timing is a little weird because to my understanding, the inaugural issue is going out later today after we record\\u2014

Tom: That\\u2019s correct.

Corey: But that would have already happened and have landed in the industry by the time people listen to this. So, I\\u2019m really hoping, first off, that the first issue isn\\u2019t horrifying to a point where, \\u201cOh God, distance myself from it. What have I done?\\u201d But you\\u2019ve been in this industry enough that I doubt that\\u2019s going to be how you play it. But I am curious to know how it winds up finding its voice over the coming weeks and months. Even when you\\u2019ve done this before, as you have I think that every publication starts to have a different area of focus, a different audience, and focus on different aspects of this, which is great because I don\\u2019t want to see the same take from fifteen different journalist publications.

Tom: Totally. I mean, you know, I think a lot of what Protocol Enterprise was, was my voice and, you know, how I thought about this industry and wanted to bring it forward. And so, I think that, you know, off the bat, a lot of what Runtime is will be similar to that. But to your point, I think everything changes. The market changes, what people want changes, I mean, like, look, just the last six months, the rise of all this generative AI discussion has dramatically changed a lot of what software\\u2014you know, how it\\u2019s discussed and how it\\u2019s thought about, and those are things that, you know, six months ago, we were talking about, maybe, here and there, but we certainly weren\\u2019t talking about them to degree than we are now.

So like, those changes will happen over the coming months. And you know, you just have to sort of keep up with them and make sure\\u2014my job is to make sure I am talking to the right people who can put those things into context for the people who need to understand them in order to make their own decisions. You know, I mean, I think we talk a lot about the top-tier decision makers, you know, of companies who need information, but I think there\\u2019s, like, a whole other, I don\\u2019t want to call them an underclass, but like, you know, there\\u2019s a lot of other people within companies who advise those people and who genuinely need help trying to understand the pace and the degree to which things have changed and whether or not it\\u2019s worth it for them to invest, you know, hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of dollars in some of these new technologies. So, you know, that\\u2019s kind of the voice I want to bring forward is to represent the buyer, to represent the person who has to make sense of all this and decide whether or not, you know, the sparkly magic beans coming down from the cloud providers and others are really what it\\u2019s cracked up to be.

Corey: The thing that really throws me is that when I started talking to you and other journalists where you speak generally to a tech-savvy audience, but for whatever reason, that audience and you by extension are not as deeply involved in every nuance of the AWS ecosystem or the cloud computing ecosystem as I am. So, I can complain for five minutes straight to you about the Managed NAT Gateways and their pricing and then you\\u2019ll finally say, \\u201cYeah, I don\\u2019t know what any of the words Managed, NAT, or Gateway mean in this context. Can you distill that down for me?\\u201d It\\u2019s, \\u201cOh, right. Talking about what I mean in a way that someone who isn\\u2019t me with my experience can understand it.\\u201d I mean, that is such a foreign concept to so many engineers that speaking clearly about what they mean is now being called prompt engineering, instead of, \\u201cDescribe what you want in plain English.\\u201d

Tom: Yeah. I think that\\u2019s a lot of what I hope to accomplish, actually, is to be able to talk to really smart engineers who are really driving this industry forward from their contributions and be able to articulate, like, what it is that they\\u2019re concerned about, like, what it is that they think is exciting, and to put that into context for people who, you know, who don\\u2019t know what a gateway is, let alone, like, any of [laugh] those other words you used. So, you know, like, I think there\\u2019s a real opportunity to do that and that\\u2019s the kind of thing I get excited about.

Corey: I am curious, given that you are just launching at this point, and you have the express intention of being sponsor-supported, as opposed to a subscriber-driven model, which I\\u2019ve thought about a lot over the past, however many years you want to wind up describing I\\u2019ve been doing this. The problem that I\\u2019ve got here is that I have always found that whenever I\\u2019m doing something that aligns with making money and taking a sponsor message and putting it out to the world, how do I keep that from informing the coverage? And I\\u2019ve had to go a fair bit out of my way to avoid that. For example, this podcast is going to have ads inserted into it. I don\\u2019t know what they are, I don\\u2019t know who these companies are, and that only gets done after I\\u2019ve recorded this episode, so I\\u2019m not being restrained by, \\u201cOhh, have to say something nice about Company X because they\\u2019re sponsoring this episode.\\u201d It stays away.

Conversely, if I want to criticize Company X, I don\\u2019t feel that I can\\u2019t do that because well, they are paying the bills around here. You\\u2019re still in a very early stage where it is you, primarily. How are you avoiding that, I guess, sense of vendor capture?

Tom: You have to be very intentional about it from day one. You have to make it clear when you\\u2019re talking to sponsors from the business side where the lines are drawn. And you have to, I think from the editorial side, just be fearless and be willing to speak the truth. And if you get negative reaction from sponsors over something you\\u2019ve said, they were never going to be a good long-term partner for you anyway. And I\\u2019ve seen that over the years.

Like, companies that get annoyed about coverage because they\\u2019re sponsors are insecure companies. It\\u2019s almost a tell, you know, like when you attempt to put pressure on editorial organizations because you\\u2019re a sponsor and you don\\u2019t like the way that they\\u2019re covering something [laugh], it\\u2019s a deep, deep tell about the state of your business and how you see it. So, like for me, those are almost like signals to use and then go deeper, you know? And then, you know, I do think that there are enough companies that feel strongly about wanting to support the kind of work that I do without impugning the way I think about it, or the way I write about it. Because I mean, like, there\\u2019s just no other way to do what I do without pulling punches.

And I think you would agree, you know, in terms of what you do, like, the voice that you have, the authenticity that you have, is your selling point. And if you compromise that, people know. It\\u2019s pretty obvious when you are bending your coverage to suit your sponsors. And there\\u2019s examples of it every day in enterprise tech coverage. And you know, I feel like my track record speaks for itself on that.

Corey: I would agree. I don\\u2019t like everything you write. That\\u2019s kind of the point. I think that if you look at anyone who\\u2019s been even moderately prolific and you like everything that they\\u2019re writing, are they actually doing journalism or are they catering to your specific viewpoint? Now, that doesn\\u2019t mean that well, I don\\u2019t like this particular journalist. It\\u2019s, well, \\u201cOh, because you don\\u2019t agree with what they say?\\u201d \\u201cNo, because they\\u2019re editorially sloppy, they take shortcuts, and they apparently peddle misinformation gleefully.\\u201d

Yeah, I don\\u2019t like a lot of that type of coverage. I\\u2019ve never seen that from you. And you\\u2019ve had takes I don\\u2019t agree with, you\\u2019ve had articles that I thought were misleading at times, but I\\u2019ve never gotten the sense at all that they were written in bad faith. And when I run into that, it often makes me question my own biases as well, which is sort of a good thing.

Tom: I mean, it\\u2019s really tough because there are people out there in journalism and media who are operating in bad faith. Like, there\\u2019s just no\\u2026 there\\u2019s no other way to dance around that. That is a fact of life in the 21st century. And I mean, all I can really do is do what I do every day and put it out there and, you know, let people judge it for what it is. And you know, like, I feel like, I have a pretty strong sense of what I will, you know, what I\\u2019ll cover and how I\\u2019ll cover it and where I\\u2019ll go with it, and I think that that sort of governs, you know, every editorial decision that I\\u2019ve ever made. For me, there\\u2019s just no other way to do it. And if I get to a point where I have to make those compromises in order to have a business, like, I\\u2019ll just go do something else. I don\\u2019t need this that much.

Corey: When I was starting the Duckbill Group, one of the problems that I had was\\u2014it\\u2019s hard to start a company for a variety of reasons, but one that is not particularly sympathetic is that everything is hard when you\\u2019re just starting out. You don\\u2019t know where any business is going to come from if it ever does. And at any point, I looked around, and I have an engineering skill set and I live in San Francisco, and I look around and say, it\\u2019s Wednesday. I could have a job at a big tech company for hundreds of thousands of dollars a year by Friday if I just go out and say yes. And it\\u2019s resisting that siren call while building something myself that was really hard.

You have that challenge as well, I\\u2019d have to imagine because there are always people that various companies are looking to build out their PR and corporate comms groups, and people who understand the industry and know how to tell a story, which you clearly qualify, are always in demand, regardless of the macroeconomic conditions. So, at any point, you have the sort of devil on your shoulder saying, it doesn\\u2019t need to be this hard. There\\u2019s an easier, more lucrative path instead of struggling to get something off the ground yourself. Do you find that that becomes a tempting thing that you want to give into, or is it, \\u201cMmm, not today, Satan?\\u201d

Tom: The latter. I mean, I\\u2019ve had offers from companies I respect and from people I would, you know, be happy to work with under other circumstances. But I mean, I sort of feel like I\\u2019m just wired this way. And then that\\u2019s, like, what I enjoy getting out of bed every day to do, is this. And, you know, like, it\\u2019s not to say that I couldn\\u2019t find, long-term, some kind of role inside one of those types of companies that you just mentioned, but I\\u2019m not ready for that yet.

And, you know, I think I\\u2019d bring more value to the industry this way than I would jump in on some pre-IPO rocket ship kind of thing right now. I will say that, like, a lot of this business is a young person\\u2019s game, so like, that equation changes as you get older. I always tell everybody that, like, journalism over the last 20 years has been, like, one of the slowest-moving games of musical chairs that you\\u2019ll ever play. And, you know, I\\u2019ve [laugh] been pretty lucky over the past number of years to keep getting a chair, you know, in every single one of those downturns. But, you know, I\\u2019m not naive enough to think that my luck would\\xa0 run out one day either. But I mean, if I build my own business, hopefully, I can control that.

Corey: There are a lot of tech publications out there and I\\u2019m curious as to what direction you plan to take Runtime in, given that it is just you, and you presumably, you know, sleep sometimes, it\\u2019s probably not breaking news with the first take on absolutely everything, which just, frankly, sounds exhausting. One of the internal models we have here is the best take, not the first take. So, where does your coverage intend to start? Where does it intend to stop? And how fixed is that?

Tom: Well, at the moment, you know, what we really want to do is tell the stories that the herd is not telling. And you know, we\\u2019re making a very deliberate decision to avoid a lot of the embargoed product training\\u2014I \\u2014I don\\u2019t know how many of your listeners actually know how the sausage is made, but like, so many PR departments and marketing departments in tech really like to tell news through these embargoed product announcement things. And they\\u2019ll email you a couple days ahead of time and they\\u2019ll say, \\u201cHey, Tom, we\\u2019ve got a new thing coming up in our, whatever, cloud storage services area. You know, are you interested in learning more under embargo?\\u201d And then a lot of people just say, \\u201cSure,\\u201d and take a briefing and write up a story.

And like, there\\u2019s nothing inherently wrong with that. It is news and it is\\u2014if you think it\\u2019s interesting enough to bring out to people, like, great. There\\u2019s a lot of limitations to it, though, you know, in that you can\\u2019t really get context around that story because you sort of by definition, if you agree to not tell anybody about this thing that the company told you, you can\\u2019t go out and ask a third-party expert what they think about it. So, you know, I think that it\\u2019s a way to control the narrative without really getting the proper story out there. And the hook is that you\\u2019ll be first.

And so, I think what we\\u2019re trying to do is to step away from that and to really tell more impactful stories that take more time to put together. And I mean, I\\u2019ve been on all sides of the news business and when you get on the hamster wheel, you really don\\u2019t have time to tell those stories because you\\u2019re too busy trying to deal with the output you\\u2019ve already committed to. And so, like, one thing that Runtime will be doing right off the bat is taking the time to do those stories to interview the people who don\\u2019t get talked to as much, who don\\u2019t have twenty-five PR people on staff to blast the world about their accomplishments, you know, to really go out and find the stories that aren\\u2019t being told, and to elevate the voices that aren\\u2019t being heard, and to shine a light on some of the, you know, more complex technological things that others simply don\\u2019t take the time to figure out.

Corey: Well, do you have an intended publication schedule at this point or is it going to be when it makes sense? Because one of the things that drove me nuts that I would go back and change if I could is Last Week in AWS inherently has a timeliness to it and covers things over a certain timeframe as well. I don\\u2019t get to take two weeks off and pre-write this stuff.

Tom: Yeah. So the primary vehicle right now is an email newsletter for Runtime and that\\u2019ll come out three times a week on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturday mornings. You know, I\\u2019ll also be publishing stories alongside those newsletters. That will be a little more ad hoc. You know, I\\u2019d like to have that line up with the newsletters, but you know, sometimes that\\u2019s not, you know, a schedule you can really adhere to.

But the newsletter is a three times a week operation at the moment and that, you know, is just basically based on\\u2014you know, at Protocol, we did five times a week with a staff of six. And that was a big effort. So, I decided that was probably not the best thing for me to tackle right off the bat here. So, one thing I really would like to do with Runtime is to get back to that place where there\\u2019s a staff, there\\u2019s beat reporters, there\\u2019s people who can really take the time to dig into these different areas, you know, across cloud infrastructure, AI, or security, or software development, you know, like, who can really, really plunge themselves into that, and then we can bring a broad product to the market. You know, it\\u2019ll take some time to get there, but that\\u2019s the goal.

Corey: How do you intend to measure success? I mean, there\\u2019s obviously financial ways of doing it, but it\\u2019s also one of those areas of, like, one of the things that drove me nuts is that I\\u2019ll do something exhaustively researched that takes me forever to get out, and no one seems to notice or care. And then I\\u2019ll just slap something off eleventh hour, and it goes around the internet three times. And I always find that intensely frustrating. How do you measure whether you\\u2019ve succeeded or whether you failed?

Tom: Well, I mean, welcome to the internet, Corey. That\\u2019s just how it works. I think I will be able to measure that, you know, by how sustainable of venture this is, and like, whether or not I can get back to that point where, you know, we can support a small team to do this because I, you know, I sort of feel that that\\u2019s the best\\u2014that\\u2019s really what this part of the world needs is that kind of broader coverage from subject matter experts who can really dive into things. I mean, I know a lot about a lot, but I can\\u2019t spend all my time talking to security people to really understand what\\u2019s happening in that market, and the same for any other, you know, one of these disciplines that we talk about. So, you know, if a year from now, I come on this show for the one-year anniversary of the launch, and we\\u2019ve got sustainable runway, we\\u2019ve got, you know, a few people on board, I\\u2019ll be thrilled. That\\u2019ll be great, you know?

And like, one thing that I think will really be helpful, for me, at least in terms of determining how successful this is, is just how things travel, and not necessarily like traffic in terms of how things travel, I think that\\u2019s an easy trap to fall into, but whether or not you know, the stuff that we write about is circulating in the right places and also showing up in the coverage that some of those broader business financial publications actually wind up doing. You know, if you can show that, like, the work you\\u2019ve been doing is influencing the conversation of some of these topics on a broader national and global scene, then for me, that\\u2019ll be a home run.

Corey: Taking a step back, what advice would you give someone who\\u2019s toying with the idea of entering the media space in this era, whether that be starting their own publication or becoming a journalist through more traditional means? Because as you said, you\\u2019ve been doing this for 20 years; you\\u2019ve seen a lot of change. How would you get started today?

Tom: It was a lot easier. It was smaller. It was just a much smaller industry when I first started doing this, and\\u2026 there wasn\\u2019t social media. The big challenge, I think, for a lot of people who are just starting now and trying to break through is just how many voices there are and, like, trying to get a foothold among a much, much bigger pond. Like, it was just a much [laugh] smaller pond when I started, and so you know, it was easier to stand out, I guess.

I started in the trade magazine world; I started with IDG and I started\\u2014you know, which is a real, great bedrock system of knowledge for people to really get their footing in this industry on. And you know, you can count on many, many hands the number of people who started at IDG and have gone on to, you know, a very successful tech and media careers throughout. So, you know, for me, that was a big, that was a big thing. But that was a moment in time. And like, you know, the world now is so different.

The only thing that has ever worked, though, is to just write, to just start, to just get out there and do what you\\u2019re doing and develop a voice and find a way to get it to the people who you want to read it. And you know, if you keep at it, you can start to break through. And, like, it\\u2019s a slog, I\\u2019m not going to pretend otherwise, but yeah, if it\\u2019s a career you really want to do, the best way to do it is just to start. And the nice thing about the modern era, actually is, like, there\\u2019s never been easier ways to get up and running. I mean you look at like things like Substack, or I\\u2019m using Ghost, you know, like, the tools are there in a way that they weren\\u2019t 20 years ago when I started.

Corey: Step one: learn how to build a web server is no longer your thing. No, I think that that\\u2019s valuable. One of the things that I find at least is people are so focused on the nuts and bolts, the production quality. People reach out to me all the time and say, \\u201cWhat microphone should I get? What my audio setup should I use? What tools should I do for the rest of this?\\u201d

And it\\u2019s, realize that it doesn\\u2019t matter how much you invest in production quality; if the content isn\\u2019t interesting and the story you have to tell doesn\\u2019t grip people, it doesn\\u2019t matter. No one cares. You have to get their attention first and then, then you can scale up on the production quality. I think I\\u2019m on generation six or so of my current AV setup. But that happened as a result of basically, more or less recording into a string can when I first started doing this stuff. Focus on the important part of the story, the differentiated parts.

Tom: The best piece of advice, I got when starting Runtime was just to start. Like, don\\u2019t worry about building a perfect website, don\\u2019t worry about, you know, getting everything all dialed in exactly the way you want it. Just get out there and do the work that you\\u2019re doing. And it\\u2019s also a weird time right now, obviously, with the [laugh] the demise of Twitter as a vehicle for a lot of this stuff. Like, I think a lot of journalists are really having to figure out what their new social media distribution strategies are and I don\\u2019t think anybody\\u2019s really settled on anything definitive just yet.

So, that\\u2019s going to be an interesting wrinkle over this year. And then I think, you know, there\\u2019s also still a lot of concern about the broader economy, you know, advertising is always one of those things that can be the first to go when businesses start to look at the bottom line a little bit more closely. But those things always come around, you know, and when the economy does start to get a little bit better, I think, you know, we\\u2019ve seen a little bit more, maybe [unintelligible 00:26:28] of the market over the last couple of weeks, you know, with some of the earnings results that we\\u2019ve seen. So, you know, like, I mean, those are famous last words, obviously, but I think that looking forward into the second half of the year, people are starting to get a little more confident.

Corey: I sure hope so. I really want to thank you for being so generous with your time. If people want to learn more, and\\u2014as they should\\u2014subscribe to see how Runtime plays out, where can they find you?

Tom: runtime.news.

Corey: Excellent. We\\u2019ll, of course, put a link to that in the [show notes 00:26:54]. I\\u2019m really looking forward to getting the first issue in a few hours myself. Thanks again for your time. I really appreciate it.

Tom: Thanks, Corey.

Corey: Tom Krazit, Editor in Chief at Runtime. I\\u2019m Cloud Economist Corey Quinn, and this is Screaming in the Cloud. If you\\u2019ve enjoyed this podcast, please leave a five-star review on your podcast platform of choice, whereas if you\\u2019ve hated this podcast, please leave a five-star review on your podcast platform of choice, along with an angry comment telling us that your company\\u2019s product is being dramatically misunderstood and to please issue a correction.

Corey: If your AWS bill keeps rising and your blood pressure is doing the same, then you need The Duckbill Group. We help companies fix their AWS bill by making it smaller and less horrifying. The Duckbill Group works for you, not AWS. We tailor recommendations to your business and we get to the point. Visit duckbillgroup.com to get started.