The first
editions.
From the launch of The Atlantic Wire to AOL News, The Daily, and Talking Points Memo: reporting and editing as news found new digital forms.
EXECUTIVE EDITOR, VENTUREBEAT
Carl
Franzen
Content leader.
Narrative innovator.
Award-winning journalism, tech communications and content leadership
Building publications.
Growing audiences.
Carl Franzen leads VentureBeat as Executive Editor. His career brings together newsroom leadership, research storytelling, and experiments in how people create and experience stories.
From the blogging and digital-media era to social publishing, mobile news, and the tablet’s touch interface, he has worked where new technology changes the way stories reach people. Across The Atlantic, News Corp., Talking Points Memo, Popular Science, The Verge, Vice Media and more, he has carried that curiosity into editorial leadership: developing new formats, building teams, and helping established brands find new audiences.
Today, his work at VentureBeat and independent AI projects extend that same approach into another transformation. The through line is a willingness to explore emerging tools early—and turn their possibilities into useful, engaging stories.
01 / THE THROUGH LINEOne career.
One career.
Many innovative publications.
The first
Culture meets
technology.
News Editor at The Verge. Digital Director at Popular Science. Managing Editor at Motherboard/VICE. Different publications, connected by curiosity about what comes next.
A newsroom,
in motion.
As Editor in Chief of Inman, Franzen ran the newsroom, overseeing coverage, publishing schedules, and standards across reporting, video, and social media.
Inside the
research.
At Xerox and Argo AI, he worked with scientists and engineers to bring research out of the lab and into stories for public and business audiences.
A publication
from the start.
As a founding editor of Lyft Rev, he helped create and launch the publication, shaping its voice, stories, standards, and publishing process.
The next
chapter.
At VentureBeat, first as Head of News and now Executive Editor, he leads coverage of AI and enterprise technology—and the people changing both.
02 / SELECTED WORKHigh-quality reporting
High-quality reporting
& writing.
Why I’m not worried about AI killing us all (and you shouldn’t be, either) An argument that the real danger is people using AI against one another, not AI turning on humanity. 
AI is the sixth great revolution in filmmaking (and maybe the most important) How AI video lets ordinary people turn imagination into film without actors, crews or equipment. 
An interview with the most prolific jailbreaker of ChatGPT and other leading LLMs Pliny the Prompter on jailbreaking leading AI models, and why it counts as red-teaming. 
The AI feedback loop: Researchers warn of ‘model collapse’ as AI trains on AI-generated content Researchers find that models trained on AI-generated data get worse with each generation. 
Police Give More Speeding Tickets to Minority Rideshare Drivers Than White Ones, Data Shows A study of Lyft and Florida data found minority drivers paid 23% to 34% more in fines. 
Animal Overpasses Save Bambis … and Benjamins Wildlife crossings get animals safely across highways and save millions in accident costs. 
Xerox Selects Clear as Its Inaugural Color of The Year 2020 A playful announcement naming clear, the color of fishbowls and windows, Xerox’s first Color of the Year. 
Climate Change Will Plunge The Real Estate Industry Into Chaos NASA scientist Mika Tosca on how wildfires and flooding will threaten homes around the world. - Watching People Snort Cocaine on Periscope Is Just the Beginning What viewers owe one another when livestreams show illegal, stupid or dangerous acts.
Ill-gotten gains: how many museums have stolen objects in their collections? A feature on the push to return looted artifacts held in museum collections.
03 / AI MEDIAAt the edge
At the edge
of the possible.
01 / AI VIDEOAlternate Worlds.
AI video experiments.
WATCH ON YOUTUBE ↗
02 / CONVERSATIONSThe people behind
the pictures.
PROMPT SCENE ↗
03 / EXPERIMENTSA new way to
tell the news.
ONE BIG STORY ↗04 / FICTIONOther lives.
Other lives.
Possible worlds.
The Perfect Porn ↗
Science fiction published by VICE.
Brain Freeze ↗
Read the story on Carl’s writing archive.
Off-Duty
A science fiction novel exploring AI, work, and consciousness. Represented by Fleabane Literary.
Follow the project ↗05 / GALLERYAI for
AI for
creativity.
Golden Age Sci-Fi · 1 / 36
Stories that
leave a mark.
10×201520162017
NAREE Awards
National Association of Real Estate Editors
2018–2019
Best Screenplay
Long Island International Film Expo
“Off-Duty”
DeBakey Award
Excellence in Medical Science Reporting
“Monkeys Drive Wheelchairs Using Thought Alone”
As editor · Popular Science
Webby Award
Motherboard / VICE
“Connected”
As managing editor