Education

Columbia University

B.A., Political Science & Government

1983

Podcasts

25:57

165: How to Pivot From Journalism Into Venture Capital Investing w/ Marcus Brauchli, North Base Media [Main T4C episode]

Marcus Brauchli is co-founder and managing partner of North Base Media, a partnership that invests in highly innovative media and technology companies in key growth markets around the world. He also serves as an advisor or director of several, including leading digital sites in Poland, India and Taiwan, and digital-content..

22:17

204: How to Break Into DIY or Traditional Print Journalism w/ Marcus Brauchli, North Base Media [Espresso Shots]

Career Path

Interview Highlights

“There’s several things that I think are critical elements to success in journalism. The first most element is curiosity. You really have to be interested in the world and the people in the world and how the world works and how the people who live in the world live. You have to be interested in everybody and you have to be openminded.”

Best Career Advice

“Remember, you’re writing for somebody else … You have to understand what they know about the subject you’re writing about and you have to be writing it understanding what their frame of reference is. You’re not writing it for yourself. You’re not writing it for the other journalists who went to the press conference with you or you compete with in the town. You’re writing for somebody whose base of knowledge you’re going to have to intuit and you’re going to have to be able to engage them and bring them into the story.”

Career Challenge

“When I just turned 23 … I was sent to Hong Kong to cover Hong Kong, China, Taiwan and the Philippines … One time, the most powerful and important company in Hong Kong [Jardine Matheson] reported its earnings … and I wrote an article. I put it out and I reported that they’d made a hundred million Hong Kong dollars profit. And the next morning … there was a copy of … the local newspaper and they had a story stripped across the front page ‘Jardine’s reports record loss.’ And I just felt this chill across my body because I realized I’d gotten it completely wrong. As I read the story, I realized I was reporting one number, which was not, in fact, their financial results … We corrected the story and that was the last I heard of it, except for I carried that around with me. I went back, I started talking to every company in Hong Kong about how to read company results. I used it as a learning opportunity.”