Colossus is Silicon Valley’s Investor-Backed ‘In-Flight Magazine’ ⇥ sfstandard.com

In September, I linked to a lengthy profile of Mark Zuckerberg written by Jeremy Stern in Colossus. It was a useful complement to Meta’s Connect presentation. But I had not heard of Colossus before then, and I wish I had done more digging into how what seemed to be a small publication was granted such generous access.

Andrew Fedorov, the San Francisco Standard:

Colossus is the brainchild of Patrick O’Shaughnessy, a Connecticut-raised heir to an oil fortune, who went to work for his father James’ firm, O’Shaughnessy Asset Management, in 2007. Patrick took over the company in 2018 and sold it four years later to Franklin Templeton. In 2016, he launched a podcast called “Invest Like the Best,” borrowing the title of a book his father published in 1994.

Well, that makes sense. This is yet another venue where, after mainstream media outlets and even tech-focused publications recognized a more skeptical tone toward the industry, CEOs and executives can appear to deliver their talking points with little pushback. It is in the same vein as Cheeky Pint and Alex Heath’s Sources, except there is a serious-looking print copy you can order to leave in waiting rooms and on shelves around the office.