Axios reported in April that Andreessen Horowitz, the Menlo Park venture firm, had helped launch a 24/7 livestream on X called MTS. The name comes from "monitoring the situation," a meme about obsessively following breaking news. Co-founder Marc Andreessen framed it as a tool for "sense-making."
Six months in
- The San Francisco Standard reports MTS has narrowed from tech, finance and geopolitics to mostly AI and tech. It mostly goes live during West Coast work hours, with rotating hosts in their twenties.
- Guests have included Marissa Mayer, Travis Kalanick and a Palantir lawyer recruiting high school graduates for its Meritocracy Fellowship.
- The Standard reports about 570,000 X followers in the first seven months, but some segments draw only a few thousand views.
- In September, CEO Brent Liang announced a more explicitly "techno-optimistic" agenda and pledged to use its AI coverage as "good propaganda." Co-founder Chris Bakke said MTS was on track for a "$10M run rate."
- Sponsorship packages start at $50,000 a month, according to the Standard.
Part of a trend
Both outlets put MTS in a wave of tech money moving into media. That includes OpenAI's April purchase of the tech talk show TBPN. MTS reps declined to comment to the Standard.