Tech Bros do not walk softly, but they do carry big sticks. They have transformed many an event just by showing up. Coachella, Burning Man, and Cannes come to mind. 

And now there’s SXSW, which began as a celebration of all things art, culture and music, carving out Austin’s place on the map for having a distinct vibe.

While much of the SXSW programming remains outstanding, and the drop-by celebs continue to be a draw, the focus has shifted from a celebration of the arts to the art of the deal. 

I spent four days roaming the SXSW grounds in search of what’s changed and what’s remained the same over the years. 

• My rough estimate is that half the people I ran into didn’t buy a pass to attend SXSW. They found plenty to do at “out-boarded” events happening all around town, where a badge was not required. Outboarding has always existed; this year it seemed more pervasive.
• The SXSW Go Show app is much improved for finding out about content at the show proper, but this is the first year I found WhatsApp being used as an insider’s guide to telling you where to be and when. I was invited to join several WhatsApp groups that dutifully reported on the whereabouts of places to eat, off-site parties, celebrity sightings, and best talks. WhatsApp, not the SXSW app, became my go-to navigator and impromptu community. 
• Plans for the 2026 SXSW remain murky, but it will be a different beast. The organizers announced that they’re eliminating the last two days of the “music” portion of the program because attendance has been down for the past few years. This doesn’t mean people don’t like music, but SXSW is a famously long and expensive show to attend. (A Platinum Badge will set you back $1200, and the hotels and lodging companies take full advantage of rate hikes.) Cutting two days off of the show is a good business decision, and music will be interspersed throughout the conference. 
• On top of a shortened festival, the Austin Convention Center will be reduced to a pile of rubble next year, with the rebuild taking at least least four years, while the venue is doubled in size and modernized. SXSW is already a decentralized conference with many of its talks and exhibits taking place in nearby hotels and restaurants. That decentralization will be amped up by the absence of the convention center. The rumor mill suggests that UT Austin might house some of the fun. It remains to be seen whether SXSW will be hurt or thrive without a central hub, but it is a disruption to business as usual. 
• Many of the best activations were not part of the official festival footprint. The Dubai Futures, Fast Company Grill, Inc Founder's House, Rolling Stone and Meta’s Creator House, and scores of others, had their own daily programming competing with the SXSW schedule. 
• Amy Webb, the tech trends doyenne of SXSW, talked about FOMO (Fear of Missing Out) giving rise to FOMA (Fear of Missing Anything) because that’s how fast our world is moving. Queues for her trends talk started at 7 AM for a 10 AM talk. Me, I’ve become a fan of IRWTR (I’d Rather Watch the Rerun). Standing in line for a few good soundbites seems like a fool's errand. My gift to you? The link to her amazing Trends report.
• Loneliness in the Crowds: So much of this year’s SXSW content, a full 5 years out from the start of the pandemic, centered on mental health, loneliness and the need to find new ways to connect.

Off the beaten path in Austin was the AI Journalism House, hosted at the Texas Tribune. One of the more fulfilling parts of SXSW, the AI Journalism House was geared toward reporters, journalists, publishers and other media folk unpacking how AI is upending the news process, for better and worse. 

One panel featured a study that looked at the public’s view of AI and journalism. Verdict? Distrustful. Most folks would rather see real reporters hard at work than trust an AI to create their news. Another panel looked at how legacy newspapers integrate AI into the newsroom, from copyediting to summarizing, fact-checking to attribution. If you value journalism and believe that AI can be a force for good in the newsroom, keep an eye on Paul Cheung and Burt Herman, the two guys responsible for putting together this great programming.

It’s quickly become the must read of the season: Careless People: A Cautionary Tale of Power, Greed and Lost Idealism. Written by Sarah Wynn-Williams, the first global policy director for Facebook (now Meta), it details her job working alongside Mark Zuckerberg, Sheryl Sandberg and the cast of top brass, while they pursued their goal of making Facebook the world-connector. In large part her job was to make certain that Zuck was thought of as the most important person in the room (with mixed results). From Central Park to Myanmar to China to the US Congress, Wynn-Williams played advance woman, delivering the talking points to ensure that Facebook kept expanding.

The book’s portrayal of Meta’s top echelon as egomaniacal, narcissistic, self-consumed, often mean-spirited, and sometimes downright harassers, has spurred the wrath of Meta. And now Meta is doggedly trying to stop the continued publication of the book and stop the author from engaging with any media interviews. Naturally, the more they try to gag her, the more the book keeps climbing the charts. (It’s now number 1 on the NYT nonfiction list.) 

Meta historians will remember Frances Haugen, the pre-Wynn-Williams whistleblower, who disclosed Facebook’s questionable privacy practices and cavalier attitude towards kids' use of the platform. (I wrote this piece about her in 2021.)

As a woman, some of the most disturbing parts of Careless People are the gut-wrenching stories of Wynn-Williams pregnancies. For her first, she tells the story of feeling compelled to complete a memo that Sheryl Sandberg needed while her feet were in the stirrups pushing out her baby. For her second, she suffered from a life-threatening pregnancy complication but got little sympathy from her employer. Like so much of today’s corporate tech world, the story is sad but not surprising.

Tools Worth Checking Out

• Jotto is an AI tool for immediate crowd analysis. Say you respond to a polling question using a product like Mentimeter. Jotto takes it a step further, leading you from sentiment to more information to download or engage with.

• Mirage Captions is a multi-function content creation tool. I uploaded a video of myself and translated it into multiple languages instantly using AI dubbing. I could also choose a digital character, create an AI script, select a background, and have a video rendered in moments. The only thing I can’t do is share the results with you because it’s not part of the free option. Try it for yourself.

NAB Creator Lab

The NAB Show is just around the corner. This year one of the highlights is the Creator Lab, which the Virtual Events Group is building in partnership with NAB. It’s chock full of experts including Jim Louderback, Renee Teeley, Thai Randolph, Dhar Mann, Jasmine Enberg, RJ Larese, Dylan Huey, Rene Ritchie, and dozens of others. Three and a half days of top-notch programming sponsored by Blackmagic Design, Adobe, LucidLink, Opus Clip, and others. The Creator Lab is the place for content creators of all types to improve their skills, network, and learn about the latest trends and technologies in this growing ecosystem. Send us a note if you’ll be there. Would love to host you. See the full Creator Lab conference schedule.