What’s Inside
The growing role of marketing in venture
Why AI is helpful but is not a replacement for real storytelling
What still works in a noisy content landscape
Not long ago, I met up with Matthew Quint and Patrick Whitmarsh at a hotel café in Santa Clara. Matthew — a supportive subscriber of The Venture Lens — runs Quint PR, a boutique comms firm that’s worked with tech companies and semiconductor clients over the years.
Patrick, his longtime colleague and friend, previously ran Matthew’s office and now serves as an advisor on operations and the comms industry. He also runs a business in the sailing world and brings a sharp eye to how storytelling intersects with strategy.
They invited me to swing by the Hyatt Regency during a break in a conference next door at the Santa Clara Convention Center. We sat down for what I expected to be a short hello, but we ended up in a longer conversation that touched on the evolution of venture, the rise of AI-generated content and what makes storytelling still relevant in this content-heavy era.
Matthew pressed record on the Otter app on his phone and later sent me the transcript. It wasn’t a formal interview. More of a low-key chat among three media veterans about how journalism and marketing work gets done behind the scenes.
Here are some of the themes that stood out.
Venture used to be a tight-knit club. You knew who the few major firms were, and more importantly, who at each firm was approachable enough to call directly. That world is now long gone.
Matthew said something that stuck with me: “It used to be Sequoia, Accel, Kleiner. Now there’s a million people who say they’re VCs.”
He’s not wrong. The category has ballooned. There are multi-stage firms, solo GPs, crossover funds, corporate VCs, angels, Family offices and scout syndicates, among others, all playing at once. And worldwide. Everyone has a thesis. Everyone has a platform. Everyone has a megaphone.
I told Matthew and Patrick that if I had my way, I’d work only with emerging managers, the ones raising their first or second fund. Typically, they’re focused on the early stage. They’re closer to the founders and the trends taking shape. More humble. Easier to reach. And happy to chat. But the tradeoff is they often don’t have much budget, especially for content or storytelling support.
Patrick asked if that made them less ideal as clients. I said sometimes, yes. But other times, it’s an opening, because they don’t have a comms team playing goalie and getting in the way.
One of the major changes we talked about was how much marketing has grown inside venture firms. When I started covering this space three decades ago, very few firms had in-house comms. A lot of them didn’t even bother with websites.
That’s changed.
“Now they all have huge marketing staffs,” Matthew said. Some staffs are larger than others, but it’s hard to find an established firm without support functions. Firms that once operated modestly now roll out newsletters, podcast series, LinkedIn playbooks, blogs, events and even full-blown media ops. It’s mostly about attracting founders, keeping LPs engaged and building a narrative that scales alongside the fund.
But more content doesn’t always mean better content.
I’ve worked with firms that understood what they want to say, and others that hand me a grab bag of vague ideas and hope it turns into something coherent. A few even ask me to rework their investment thesis into a story founders might actually want to read.
Patrick asked: “So are these firms basically pitching you their worldview and then you’re turning it into something usable?”
Yes. And with emerging managers — again, the ones I prefer — the real challenge is helping them shape their smart ideas into something that actually gets read and remembered.
We couldn’t have this conversation without talking about the elephant in the room. Somewhere in the middle of my iced espresso drink, we got to AI. It’s a topic that always comes up before the ice melts.
Matthew said he’s long used Grammarly and more recently began experimenting with tools like ChatGPT to summarize articles and research. But when it comes to client work, he prefers to handcraft his writing to hit the right tone and avoid sounding artificial or off-brand.
“Some people think they can just prompt their way to a 500-word LinkedIn post,” he said. “But it never reads right.”
Patrick pointed out how even junior PR folks — and sometimes big agencies — rely on templated language that sounds polished but says nothing. We all agreed: the best writing still feels human. It has rhythm, Clarity and a point of view. And that doesn’t always come from gen AI.
AI is a tool. I use it. I write about it. I’ve even taught people how to use it to get unstuck. But as I said during our talk, the moment you lean too hard on AI to do the work for you, especially on a topic like startup Investing, the stories fall flat. And the audience can tell.
The real issue isn’t the tool. It’s the mindset. People chase speed and scale, so they flood LinkedIn with rushed content and wonder why it doesn’t land.
Here’s my hot take: AI isn’t killing creativity. People are. They’ve forgotten how to be creative in the first place. A bad worker blames their toolbox. Whether you use ChatGPT or a yellow legal pad and Bic pens, you still have to know your audience, what you’re trying to say and why it matters.
One thing I said during our conversation that got a nod from Matthew and Patrick: “I’m writing about things now I couldn’t write when I was at a traditional publisher.”
That’s not a complaint. That’s how the system works. Editors want investor-friendly stories, especially about major brands that move the needle. But the stories that stick today are the ones with nuance, friction and a clear point of view.
That’s part of why I launched this newsletter. I wanted space to write about how AI is reshaping the workforce, how storytelling actually works inside a venture firm, or why most startup content feels like it was written by committee, because it was.
Matthew gets this. He’s old-school in the best way. When he’s not dealing with the animals on his property in Cotati, he still cares about sourcing, structure and having something to say. That’s rare in an era when “content” often means “just get something out there.”
We didn’t solve the world’s problems over coffee. But we agreed on one thing: the noise isn’t going away. So if you want to break through, your voice has to be clear, honest and actually worth listening to.
My hour-plus in the Santa Clara hotel café wasn’t planned content. It was just a good conversation about how the venture and media worlds have changed, and why real storytelling still matters.
I’ve spent years inside newsrooms and alongside founders and investors. And what I keep coming back to is that the best stories don’t need spin. They just need clear writing. And people willing to slow down enough to get it right.
Whether you’re a GP, platform lead, founder or comms pro trying to tell a company’s story, your words still matter. Tools can help. Templates can get you part of the way. But if you want to make an impression, you need to think like a writer, not a content engine.
Sometimes, that just starts with sitting down over coffee and talking it out.
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If you have thoughts on this post or want to work together or get in touch with Matthew and Patrick, let me know. You can also find Matthew Quint on LinkedIn.
Thanks for reading.
