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Introducing Command Line, a newsletter about the tech industry’s inside conversation by Alex Heath

Introducing Command Line, a newsletter about the tech industry’s inside conversation by Alex Heath

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Every week, I’ll bring you scoops, interviews, and analysis you won’t find anywhere else.

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Image: The Verge

I’m excited to announce Command Line, a new weekly newsletter I’ll be writing at The Verge

Command Line is focused on the people and strategies leading the most consequential companies in tech. Each Thursday, I’ll dive into the biggest stories of our time, from the belt-tightening that’s happening across Big Tech to what’s next for generative AI, social media, and the looming AR headset wars, and give you scoops, insight, and perspective you won’t find anywhere else. The first edition comes out later today.

My goal is to break a lot of news on the industry I’ve been passionate about covering for a long time and to regularly bring you exclusive conversations with the most interesting people in my contact list. It’s also a chance for me to tell more of the story behind the story and not just rehash the news. I want each edition to feel informative, fun, and just a tad gossipy.

You can sign up here. New subscribers will receive a one-month free trial with the option to pay $7 per month or $70 per year. The corporate / group rate is $60 per year for a minimum of 10 subscribers. Free subscribers will receive occasional previews of paid editions along with my other stories, like big interviews and investigative features.

A bit about me: Over the past decade, I’ve broken hundreds of stories about the most influential names in tech. More recently, I broke the news of Facebook rebranding to Meta, Snap laying off 20 percent of its workforce, and the twists and turns during Elon Musk’s chaotic Twitter takeover. Some of my stories have won awards and been cited in congressional hearings. A prominent tech CEO (who shall remain nameless) once tried to get another website I worked for taken offline because of a story he didn’t like.

One of the main reasons I’m doing a newsletter is to build more of a direct connection with you, the reader. Each edition will come from my real email address here at The Verge, and I’ll occasionally feature smart commentary from subscribers. Over time, my hope is that Command Line feels like a community, not just a newsletter.

If you’re a longtime reader of The Verge, the name Command Line may be familiar. It started in 2016 as a daily news digest from our newsroom before eventually becoming Processor, a consumer tech newsletter authored by our former executive editor Dieter Bohn. Command Line is now The Verge’s second paid product after Hot Pod, the vital podcast industry newsletter we acquired last year that’s now written by Ariel Shapiro.

The name Command Line has special meaning to me. I first became interested in computers when I was in middle school. While holed up during a snowstorm in the midwest, I embarked on turning my dad’s old Dell Inspiron laptop into a Hackintosh. That project meant spending a lot of time trying to solve annoying driver issues through the command line. Browsing forums for answers is what made me interested in blogging about tech, which I started doing as a full-time job in high school and through college. Ultimately, that curiosity is why I’m at The Verge today.

Last but not least, I want to thank all of my colleagues who helped make this newsletter possible, especially Esther Cohen, William Joel, Jake Kastrenakes, Helen Havlak, and Nilay Patel, and those of you who read and gave feedback on my test editions as I was figuring out what this newsletter could be. Hope you enjoy it!