Silicon Valley dispenses a lot of terrible advice about PR.
Search for pretty much anything from the folks at Y-Combinator and you’ll encounter dilettantism on a grand scale. Alongside investors, a range of other, non-VC actors, espouse ideas that are untethered to reality.
A core tenet of Valley PR bullshit involves the idea that Founders should “go direct.”
This typically means bypassing traditional media, which is “dying,” and building direct channels to audiences via a range of things from the owned and rented media spheres (depending on the proponent, this might be a personal or company podcast, a Substack, an email list, or using social media platforms to connect with followers without intermediaries).
The press, according to proponents of this logic, are just an annoying filter that either have an agenda or are going to get the story wrong.
A foundation of truth
As with most ideas taken to extremes, there are some truths baked into the foundation of this argument:
- We all know about media layoffs and the pressure skeleton-crew reporting teams face. The resource crunch is real and mistakes happen as a result of it. Reporters are human.
- Further, no sane PR pro would suggest that Founder-led comms were a bad idea (provided of course the Founder was a reasonably capable communicator and not offensive or something.)
- Neither would anyone argue with the power of going direct to various stakeholders sans intermediaries. Across a range of scenarios, this is ideal.
From truth to illogic
So what’s the problem?
Simply put, this is a limited approach that ignores reality and leaves too much on the table.
AI-search has given traditional media a renewed relevance that is not up for debate. Reams of aggregate and company-level data support the idea that AI bots scrape earned media at high volume. Ignoring big media, and solely going direct, is blind to reality and the fact that AI-search presence is the new frontier of reputation. Why would anyone choose to do this?
Second, Nielsen’s most recent Trust in Advertising report suggested 88 to 92 percent of people trust earned media. Our own research reveals that, in tech, there is a strange bipartisan trust in major outlets – a rare segment where this occurs in America. Again, how could a sane person look at the upside of engaging with traditional media and conclude it was not worth their time. The data is clear and has been for a long time.
Finally, “going direct” is wonderful for Founders with profile, a specific set of talents and personality traits. But, let’s be honest, there can only be so many Palmer Luckys, Sam Altmans, heck even Mikey Shulmans. Most tech bosses are never going to be these people, realize their level of success or build an audience that is entirely their own and large enough to matter.
What’s really behind this?
A few factors drive the “go direct” approach to PR.
First is clever marketing. Several of the movement’s major figures are highly intelligent and strong communicators. They have tapped into something that meshes well with the psychographic and personal profile of a big segment of tech Founders – a group that has to have outsized egos and an incredible belief in their product and mission to succeed.
Beyond marketing, the “traditional media is dying” narrative layers well and jives with the fact the tech Founders tend to be futurists for whom older moorings are anathema.
Why waste time with a stodgy old institution, full of know-nothings who are just going to misunderstand your vision, or, worse, critique what you’ve built gratuitously?
The danger of dilettantes and badly applied expertise
PR’s become both required and inevitable because of AI search.
However, that means the risks are high. Listening to some investor who has spent 100 hours in their lifetime thinking about the PR channel, or working with an expert who dogmatically pushes a narrow view about going direct on you can precipitate lasting reputational damage.
Rather than limit the buffet of tactics, approach the channel with an open mind. All the pieces that would fall under the rubric of going direct should be on the table, but so too should a range of new and old media, along with outlets big and small.