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Getting into CNN was the the culmination of everything that I'd ever ever done before
from
working at a summer camp to working at The Apple Store.
Everything builds on everything else and there's no job that I've ever
had that was beneath me in that quest to get something greater and something
more, so...
I basically got into CNN because I worked at The Apple Store
and I learned how to
build Final Cut Pro editing systems and I learned how to maintain computer systems
and taught myself how to edit video and
met people.
And people that I met and people that I helped
They got me jobs, I got them jobs, they brought me into CNN and I
guerrilla-built them some Final Cut Pro systems
and somehow managed to turn that into a job.
I'm a little bit of unique case. They said "Hey, we have this bus we want to drive it
around the country make a bunch of TV,
do you want to do that?"
I was willing to give up a year and a half of my life to basically travel.
Take every opportunity that comes at you. That's was basically how I got to where I am.
It was just,
help other people out, they'll help you out, and take advantage of everything
that comes your way.
The best thing about working for CNN is I get to travel around the country and
I get to meet all kinds of people.
One thing I've been able to take advantage of is over the past year and
half of I've been covering the election
and I make sure that what I would stop in a different city, I would find
the startup scene in that community. I'd go to Indianapolis and find the Capital Factory
of Indianapolis. I would go down to Jacksonville, Florida, and I'd find the Josh
Baer of Jacksonville, Florida, and it's, it's --
Talking to people and learning new things is the greatest part of my job.
After moving to Austin and spending time in the startup scene,
I realized how much a presidential campaign was like a startup company.
You have the candidate. The candidate is your idea, essentially, the candidate is your
platform
it's crowdfunded.
Everybody's looking for, you know, give me five dollars, give me ten dollars...
There's venture capitalists putting money in from across the country and at the end you
take it public.
If you win, you take it public.
The similarities also extend into the kind of hours that you're going to be at work,
the un,
creativity that you have to
uh... put into it
and just -- it consumes your life.
Ask anybody who's worked an election and they'll tell you that's all there was
during that period of time. It's a sprint and a marathon all wrapped up into one.
Ostensibly the idea is to change the world and to change the country for the
better?
Frankly, I like the "micro" of the tech startup scene better than the "macro" of
the presidential election startup scene.
Um... it's just a little bit,
frankly more realistic.
The coverage of tech in austin is not where I personally want it to be or
think it should be. I think
there is over emphasis in America on the tech scenes of New York and Silicon Valley.
I understand why it is, I understand that's where the critical mass is.
I'm not interested that. I think there is more fire in the middle of the country right now.
There's something about
this community and the businesses that are started here.
Yes, they want to change the world,
but they're not stupid enough to say, "Well,
we're not going to worry about how we're gonna make money." They understand that
look: it's business. They want to be in business, they want to make money. But
fixing the world and making things better for everybody?
By and large, it's part of the business plan. That's a
revolutionary idea,
I feel like, for a city, and something I'd love to be a part of.
Or at least cover.
It's difficult for a startup to get national press.
It really all comes down to network, in all
honesty, and I think anybody who's in a startup knows that
You have to be out there constantly, you have to be talking to people, you have to be
meeting people.
I can't tell you the thousands of PR pitches I get all the time and eventually it just --
you don't pay attention anymore.
The PR pitches, the ones that I listened to? Are the ones that come from
friends of mine,
are the ones that come from people that I've met randomly on the street.
So...
your personal network cannot be underestimated for its ability to get
you more attention
and to get stuff out there. The best piece of advice I was ever given
for new ideas and for startups
was...
I was reporting...
I was down at Geekdom, which is an incubator down in San Antonio.
And
I walk in there and I'm meeting all of these different companies, and I walk in and this
one company is telling absolutely everything about their business:
who they're funded by, who their competitors are, what they do, how
they do it. And I pause for a second and I say "Guys, thank you,
but aren't you concerned about
intellectual property, aren't you concerned about piracy?"
And they said no, flat out.
Piracy is not the issue in startups. Obscurity is the issue in startups.
You need to tell people what you do, you need to tell everybody what you do
and you need to be telling them that
all the time.
The echo chamber and word-of-mouth is your greatest ally in eventually making
your way into national recognition.
If the rest of the country were to adopt the model that Austin has developed for
itself?
And the spirit of community and altruistic entrepreneurialism
that's developed here?
It'll change the nation as we know it,
and I think you're seeing that happen in, frankly, the mid-size cities. Silicon
Valley is Silicon Valley and New York is always going to be New York,
but you're seeing communities like Indianapolis,San Antonio, Minneapolis,
Cincinnati, Jacksonville, Florida -- all of these mid-size cities are having almost
an awakening.
Basically they're not
trying to steal factories from each other anymore
and to get the next, you know, car manufacturer to come down. Now what they're doing is trying to
foster their start-up community and
take that next generation of kids and say "Look:
you could go and spend your 20s in New York and Silicon Valley, but when you're ready
to start a family, when you're ready to actually get something real going? Come here.
The quality of life is better.
The cost of living is lower.
and we have all of the advantages that those coasts have.