NY Times hires Griffith to cover start-ups and VC

New York Times technology editor Pui-Wing Tam and business editor Ellen Pollock sent out the following announcement on Tuesday:

We’re delighted to announce that Erin Griffith is joining The New York Times to cover start-ups and venture capital. She will be based in San Francisco.

Erin has been a senior writer at Wired since last year, covering tech companies and tech trends. She was previously a senior writer at Fortune, where she reported on start-ups and venture capital, edited a newsletter called Term Sheet, wrote columns and co-chaired the Fortune Brainstorm Tech conference. She earlier worked at Pando.com, Adweek and peHub, among other publications.

Her coverage has often laid out where the momentum in tech is headed. At Fortune, she co-wrote a 2015 cover story putting the trend of “unicorn” start-ups, which are privately valued at $1 billion or more, in perspective. Another cover story in 2016 delved into the race between Silicon Valley and Detroit over the future of driverless cars. More recently at Wired, she chronicled how the tide turned against tech in an incisive December column, how the bad boys of tech always manage to come back, and topics such as blockchain and a Viagra start-up.

Erin is joining as some of tech’s biggest start-ups have thoroughly disrupted old-line industries and are on the verge of going public, which will likely yield huge financial bonanzas and another generation of billionaires. How they and Silicon Valley’s venture capitalists conduct themselves at a time when questions about tech’s responsibilities abound will help shape the next narratives in the industry.

Erin grew up in Ottawa, Ohio (population 4,500), and is a graduate of Ohio University. According to Katie Benner, who knows Erin from Fortune, Erin is an enthusiastic karaoke participant who is known for her oeuvre of Alanis Morisette songs. She also belongs to a Mariah Carey-themed fantasy football league called Sweet Sweet Fantasy Baby. Erin and her husband Matt will soon be trading in their apartment in Brooklyn for what are likely to be equally expensive digs in San Francisco.

Please welcome Erin to The Times. She starts next month.”