Allie Garfinkle

@bdanweiss @jeffjohnroberts You are so spectacularly talented Ben! Can't wait to keep reading your work!

hello! today is my last day at Fortune. grateful to all of my colleagues, especially @jeffjohnroberts, for the opportunity to report on the wild weird world of crypto. taking the next two weeks off and i'll resurface with details about my next move then!

Some exciting news here @FortuneMagazine. We're stoked to be welcoming @EmilyForlini as a new senior reporter covering AI. talkingbiznews.com/media-news/for…

@ajs HAHA free for anyone who wants it!

Free unicorn startup idea @agarfinks and I just hatched in the office: prediction markets, but for individual people, where you can buy/sell/trade/bet on people who are on the up and up (or the down and down). FWIW I would totally buy shares of Allie 🤩!

“I think everybody's a fraud.” @Lux_Capital cofounder @wolfejosh told Fortune's @agarfinks and the #TermSheet podcast that he can assess a founder's motives within the first few seconds of meeting them. bit.ly/4p52ugV

"99% of them are going to fail." @Lux_Capital cofounder @wolfejosh told Fortune's @agarfinks and the #TermSheet podcast that the AI boom is headed for a crash that will wipe out trillions in market cap and take most of the venture industry with it. bit.ly/4p52ugV

Filing: Roelof Botha has joined the board of SpaceX as an independent director, seven months after stepping down as Sequoia steward (@agarfinks / Fortune) (Visit Techmeme dot com for the link and full context!)

Scoop from me: fortune.com/2026/06/17/pay…

My new train is leaving the station! 🚂 After four years covering AI through one of the most consequential — and chaotic — periods in tech history, most recently at Fortune, I'm launching an independent media platform called Ground Level AI. 🥳 Ground Level AI is focused on one big question: What happens when AI meets the real world? The massive infrastructure buildout, the enterprise reality, the security stakes, the policy decisions happening right now, the societal consequences, the geopolitical fault lines: these are the stories that will define how this technology actually lands. Ground Level AI launches as a newsletter and podcast on Substack, featuring original, often on-the-ground reporting, exclusive interviews, and analysis of the fast-paced AI news cycle 2-3 times per week. I'll be following the story wherever it leads—from research labs and industry conferences to corporate boardrooms, data center communities, and the DC policy debates shaping AI's future. My goal is to connect the dots, and I've also been around long enough to be wary of hype. Sometimes, though, I just like to laugh at the craziness of it all! You'll find that here, too. If you are a practitioner building AI, an executive deploying it, or work in AI policy, security or infrastructure, you're my people. But if you're looking for signals or you’re just curious about where AI is going, you'll feel right at home as well. This is a leap, and I'd be so grateful to have you along for the ride at groundlevel-ai.com I feel like I've been building toward Ground Level AI my whole career. I've spent more than 25 years in journalism in almost every role imaginable — including staff writer, editor, reporter, blogger and even fact-checker. Before covering AI at Fortune and VentureBeat, I spent more than a decade building a successful independent freelance business. Throughout it all, I've always been drawn to creating things from scratch: new projects, new communities, and new conversations. It was a dream come true when AI editor @jeremyakahn brought me onto the small but mighty tech team at @FortuneMagazine, and I'm so grateful to have reported on one of the biggest stories of our time for such an iconic publication. I'm planning to continue contributing to Fortune, but I'm also ready for this new chapter. I'm hoping you'll subscribe, share, comment, and help me get Ground Level AI, well, literally off the ground: groundlevel-ai.com. I'm also planning to bring some of these conversations offline through intimate events and discussions with the people building and grappling with AI firsthand. Interested in collaborating, sponsoring, or having me speak? Reach out at sharon@groundlevel-ai.com. I'm all ears. For news tips (not PR pitches), you can also reach me securely on Signal at sharongoldman.43 (we can start off the record and take it from there).

This is gonna be a big story that @agarfinks hit...on the nose! 👃 “How many people think that they have bought into SpaceX, but they’re actually just funding some dude’s coke habit in Miami? The number is not zero,” said Anduril cofounder Matt Grimm fortune.com/2026/06/11/as-…

In the latest episode of #TermSheet, Fortune's @agarfinks sat down with G Squared founder Larry Aschebrook, who shared the reckoning he sees coming when companies like SpaceX, OpenAI, and Anthropic finally go public. bit.ly/4v53jbB

The Fortune 500, in its 72nd year, just dropped. For the first time in over a decade, it has a new No. 1! The companies generated a combined $21.0 trillion in revenue and $2.1 trillion in profits last year. They employ 30.5 million people. I’ll be on CNBC this afternoon with the (awesome) @KellyCNBC to unpack it. fortune.com/ranking/fortun…

SpaceX’s $80 billion IPO has a catch: 78% of the money is already spoken for fortune.com/2026/05/28/spa…

Inside the fraud-ripe feeding frenzy to snag Anthropic shares while the company remains private - @agarfinks with the tea on the insanity, including gobs of money being wired before investors ensure the shares they think they’re buying are even real fortune.com/2026/05/22/ins…

Who else is coming to @FortuneMagazine #BrainstormTech? Delighted that @Anduriltech CEO @SchimpfBrian will join us to talk about artificially intelligent drones, missiles, submarines, and software—oh, and humans, too. June 8-10 in Aspen. Join us: conferences.fortune.com/event/brainsto…

"Action is always the solution to anxiety or uncertainty." @clairejyz shared her top business advice with the #TermSheet vodcast. 📽️Watch her full conversation with @agarfinks: bit.ly/4urVcFT

"I genuinely do believe that people in a lot of these companies have the right motives," @clairejyz tells the #TermSheet vodcast of those working on AI. 📽️Watch her full conversation with @agarfinks: bit.ly/4urVcFT

@semil Heck yeah. So great to finally meet you!

“Venture Capital is a world of contrarians who love following each other.” - @agarfinks

“You've seen the headlines where it’s just, ‘we're going to build a Manhattan-sized data center,’ and not really explaining the why.” @clairejyz breaks down the gap between Silicon Valley and the general public on the #TermSheet vodcast. 📽️Watch her full conversation with @agarfinks: bit.ly/4urVcFT

There was a time when investors stayed behind the scenes and media personalities stayed in front of the camera. Now, worlds collide. Thank you to @agarfinks and @FortuneMagazine for this thoughtful conversation with our newest Investor & New Media, @clairejyz. The interview explores AI, Silicon Valley, media, and the growing gap between the people building technology and the public trying to understand it. Over the last six years, Claire has built both an investing career and one of the most trusted audiences in tech, with 350,000 followers and millions of monthly views translating the future in real time. Thrilled to have Claire at Lightspeed and excited to share this discussion.