A career connecting newsroom leadership, editorial products, technology reporting and experiments in how stories are made.
Carl Franzen leads VentureBeat as Executive Editor. He directs the publication’s editorial priorities and standards while reporting on AI, research and technologies changing how businesses operate. His responsibilities include hiring and managing editorial staff and guiding stories from initial assessment through publication.
His career connects newsroom management with the development of editorial products. Over more than 16 years, he has worked in digital news, overseen multiplatform journalism and brought reporting techniques into technology companies. The consistent focus is on making complicated subjects intelligible, giving publications a clear voice and helping teams deliver work that serves their readers.
Throughout that career, Franzen has interviewed leading technology founders, CEOs, scientists, researchers and creatives. He has also moderated and delivered live talks for audiences numbering in the thousands at Inman Connect, VentureBeat Transform and other major conferences and industry events, bringing the same editorial focus on clarity and useful context to conversations on stage.
Franzen joined VentureBeat in 2023 as Head of News and subsequently became Executive Editor. His reporting covers AI models, tools for developers and the systems businesses use to put AI into practice. The role combines direct engagement with research and product developments with decisions about which stories the newsroom pursues and how it explains them.
Before his work in corporate editorial, he led Inman as Editor in Chief from 2017 to 2019. He managed its newsroom across reporting, editing, video and social media, with responsibility for publishing schedules, coverage priorities and standards.
At Motherboard, VICE’s technology publication, he served as Managing Editor from 2016 to 2017. As Popular Science’s Digital Director from 2015 to 2016, Franzen oversaw journalism distributed through the website, social media, podcasts and video. Earlier, he was News Editor at The Verge from 2013 to 2014.
At Xerox, where he was Storyteller-in-Residence from 2019 to 2021, he worked with scientists and technical leaders on digital stories explaining research and its practical applications.
From 2021 to 2022, he worked at Argo AI as Senior Digital Media Specialist, collaborating with researchers, engineers and safety specialists on autonomous-driving coverage. As a founding editor of Lyft Rev from 2022 to 2023, he co-created and launched the publication.
Alongside his VentureBeat work, Franzen develops independent projects that explore how technology changes storytelling. One Big Story is an AI-powered news publication he built. Prompt Scene examines AI imagery through conversations with artists and attention to their creative practices.
His creative work also includes short fiction and experiments with AI-generated images and video.
Franzen is based in Brooklyn, New York. He studied Magazine Journalism at the University of Missouri School of Journalism in Columbia from 2005 to 2009. His studies also included Religious Studies, and he graduated summa cum laude.
Carl Franzen leads VentureBeat as Executive Editor. His journalism and media career spans more than 16 years, including newsroom leadership at Inman, Motherboard/VICE, Popular Science and The Verge. He co-created Lyft Rev, worked on research storytelling at Xerox and Argo AI, and develops independent projects exploring AI and creative publishing.
Carl Franzen is VentureBeat’s Executive Editor, responsible for editorial direction, newsroom standards and coverage of AI and enterprise technology. His career spans more than 16 years at the intersection of journalism, publishing and technological change.
His previous positions include Editor in Chief at Inman, Managing Editor at Motherboard/VICE, Digital Director at Popular Science and News Editor at The Verge. In technology companies, he developed research stories at Xerox and Argo AI and co-created Lyft Rev as a founding editor.