“CEO said a thing” journalism
karlbode.com
karlbode.com
It's good that this ulterior motive exists but it's not something you can rely upon.
Similarly there wouldnt have been a pushback on net neutrality if big tech didnt want it so desperately.
And it’s often people who are only superficially involved in the thing they are so expertly talking about.
Sometimes it’s teenagers who just want to troll adults, especially knowing that their posts could appear in the news. Sometimes it’s adults who want to troll other adults for the LOLs or to fulfill a particular agenda. Sometimes it’s bots, actually, usually bots. Something the posts don’t even exist.
Certainly not journalism.
> This lazy simulacrum tends to be a death knell for genuine public interest reporting, resulting in a press that broadly normalizes (or just outright ignores) rampant corruption and real world impact.
Amazing article, and beautifully crafted conclusion. Thanks for taking the time to write this. Your sentiment is shared by many, even if the media wants you to believe otherwise with all the “CEO said a thing!” journalism.
Is there a term that's equivalent to "reactionary" but applies to leftist/liberal ideals or is it fine for me to start referring to this kind of writing as "reactionary" save that I apply some sort of qualifier like "leftist" or "liberal" before or afterwards?
Also, what would define a "leftist reactionary" anyway? An opposition to social conservatism? That's already the left's stance.
> is it fine for me to start referring to this kind of writing as "reactionary"
I really don't understand what's wrong with asking journalists to do their damn jobs and spend even a tiny amount of time checking the validity of what the people they're quoting are saying. Don't remove their statement, just point at the various potential ways they're misleading/wrong.
Journalists better start doing this basic part of their job again lest you want to be ruled by shameless incompetent buffoons that go unchallenged. Oh wait...
As the right has an immovable Evangelical wing, so now does the Left. A good word for such people is currently unoccupied.
Reactionary has become difficult because it can mean (i) opposed to reforms;
(ii) wishing to go back to some previous condition; (iii) by application, support-
ing a particular (right-wing) version of society. There are few difficulties when
all impulses to change (actions) are from the Left, and all resistance (reactions)
from the Right. But if, for example, a capitalist party is in an innovating phase, or
if a fascist party is proposing a new social order, each side can call the other reac-
tionary: (i) because capitalism and fascism are right-wing, reactionary, as such;
(ii) because resistance to particular kinds of change, and especially changes and
innovations in capitalism and capitalist society, is seen as reactionary (wishing to
preserve or restore some other condition). Thus we can be invited to identify the
reactionary Right (usually with a sense of the extreme Right, as distinguished
from progressive or reforming conservatives, as well as from Liberals and the Left)
but often, also, the reactionary Left (opposing types of change which they see as
for the worse, or relying on particular senses of the democratic or socialist tradi-
tion which they oppose to current changes of a different kind).
Where as, pre-labeling things as being politically one-sided is very reactionary, and seems to be what you're doing here. It's also not limited to just one side of the political spectrum. I would argue that Conservatives tend to be even more reactionary than liberals. See: All the legislation to prevent children from eating from dog/cat bowls in schools when there's no evidence of this occurring.
Jensen thinks DLSS 5 works at "the geometry level", for instance. Oh and he pays engineers $500,000 to spend $250,000 on Claude tokens.
Jensen isn't an idiot, he's capitalizing on the market.
This is true regardless of the specific jargon used, though. Or are you saying that idiot CEOs will not be impressed by correct claims only stupid claims?
All we know is he's saying things that are technically incorrect. And I'm not sure where that falls on the line of "Just Acceptable Marketing BS" to "Lying to the market about a Publicly Traded company" that would fall if he does understand it.
And while true he very much had deep technical education and roles, he's been C-level for over 30 years now. And a lot can change - both in the underlying technology and an individual's technical understanding - in 30 years.
What he said was that if he's paying 500,000 for an engineer, he expects that engineer to spend at least 250,000 in tokens, to get the most out of those $500,000.
Basically that it would be counterproductive to hire a top tier engineer and restrict his token usage to let's say $200 or $500 a month.
I think he's right on this.
That's not what he said, though. He gave a number, and that number happens to correspond to something on the order of 25 billion Opus 4.6 tokens (hard to say what input vs. output ratio is like). He also said he is currently "deeply alarmed" if his engineers don't spend that much.
He's not stupid.
Do you think you're smart? Have you ever done something and said "man, I'm an idiot"? It's just like that.
Of course, the other explanation is that he's just grifting, which is also very possible.
Having raw intelligence doesn't help if you don't apply rigor to your thinking. I suspect that very successful people actually end up falling into habitual mental shortcuts that cause them to promote stupid things at a later time.
And there is a huge difference between a CEO having "no clue" and a CEO trying to speak in terms that laymen and the business press can understand (even if a ton gets lost in translation).
But even just taking what you wrote, there is a huge difference between lying to the press to get positive coverage/hype and just being outright clueless, which is what the GP comment was asserting. I sincerely doubt Jensen Huang is clueless.
If a CEO wants to pay engineers $500,000 and then let them spend as much as they need on tools and services, I'm all for it.
Getting angry at a CEO for paying high compensation and also having a high tool use budget is not a take I expected on Hacker News.
It's an insane take. Completely bone-headed. Just obvious grift.
Let’s recognize those bait posts as what they are, which for sure is not journalism.
I don't have a good work-around for this either. I try to gather news from different sources and use my brain, but even then my brain is influenced a lot by what information is given. Youtube is kind of great and awful here; great because you may have critical content (e. g. I like Vlad Vexler's thinking and reasoning, even if I may not always agree with the rationale, analysis, premise or outcome), but there is also soooo much propaganda on youtube. Tons of parrots repeating a certain narrative. Peter Zeihan is my personal disfavourite right now (the recent "How to Break Iran" is pure propaganda IMO) but there are so many more examples, influencers too. One day I'll need to disconnect myself from youtube (and, in the process, Google); right now I admit I am too addicted to some of it (the content, not the platform; the platform pisses me off. It is not even usable anymore without ublock origin).
> A CEO trying to reindustrialize America says blue-collar pay is headed for ‘massive hyperinflation’ and kids should skip college to become welders
> Trump said the Iran war was ‘very complete’ three weeks ago.
> Nvidia’s Jensen Huang says ‘We’ve achieved AGI.’
It's like reading dispatches from an alternate post-truth universe.
> You can never return back to the claims to inform your readership whether they were actually true (this is especially true of CEO promises made before giant, pointless, disastrous mergers).
That's the worst. It's like it's now wrong to call CEOs on their bullshit.
Yesterday I noted that Donut Labs, with their heavily promoted solid state battery, had previously announced they would be shipping in volume in Q1 2026. I wrote on HN "They have until Tuesday." That was voted down.
Yeah, shrinking revenue, lawsuits, death threats, buyouts and takeovers, government strong-arming all contribute to not really wanting to fight the fight that they need to.
There isn't a solution to this as you can't bankroll media outlets or journalists and not expect to be considered biased. The revenue has to come from every day people. So if the revenue isn't there to pay the best people, you're simply not going to have a good, independent media industry any more. Any very-rich person bankrolling that probably also has political affiliations, which again introduces bias.
With rising cost of living, the population will clearly cut out the media subscriptions thinking that the free journalism slop is enough to keep them informed.
If you are half wrong with your first examples, maybe you should focus on yourself first?
I get the point you are trying to make, but you can't do that spreading misinformation. Jesus.
I mean, I can do the "critical reading of CEO claim" part myself, thank you very much.
And it’s not just CEOs. Politicians, spokepersons of foreign nations, academics, journalists also do that "X said a thing" thing. It’s perfectly fine. I don’t need or desire the personal take of the journalist on that declaration. They have opinion pieces for that.