I started covering tech in 1999, in Lexington, Kentucky. Later that year I moved to Silicon Valley to cover the online revolution.

Since 2016 I've been publishing content with the Fortt Knox brand, first as a podcast, now as a livestream, video series, newsletter and community. The themes are innovation, entrepreneurship and leadership. I interview builders, innovators and visionaries and engage a community here to benefit from shared knowledge.

In 2020 I launched The Black Experience in America: The Course. Learn more about it at forttmedia.com.

In 2025 I launched a podcast and Bible plans with David Tieche under my Fortt Media brand. See it all at bible.fortt.com.

Elastic CEO Ashutosh Kulkarni says AI is now driving real revenue acceleration. Elastic is serving as the “data layer” that brings large language models to enterprise data, fueling 18% growth, rising margins, and hybrid, sovereign deployments as customers move from AI experimentation to production. Q3 FY 26 revenue beat at $449M vs $438.4M. Link to the full Fortt Knox conversation in the comments:

Jon Fortt

I speak with Pegasystems CEO Alan Trefler about the company's Q4 earnings and raised guidance.

Catch me weekday afternoons at 4 ET/1 PT co-hosting CNBC's Closing Bell Overtime with Morgan Brennan, analyzing markets and uncovering innovation. You can also sign up for my On the Other Hand newsletter at cnbc.com/OTOH, based on the weekly Squawk Box segment in which I argue two sides of a contentious business issue to illuminate the facts. I also created a weekly segment on Power Lunch in 2021 called Working Lunch, in which I introduce viewers to the personalities and outlooks of company founders and CEOs.

Since 2016 I've been publishing content with the Fortt Knox brand, first as a podcast, now as a livestream, video series and newsletter. The themes are innovation, entrepreneurship and culture. I interview builders, innovators and visionaries and engage a community here to benefit from shared knowledge.

In 2020 I launched The Black Experience in America: The Course. Learn more about it at forttmedia.com.

Fortt Knox Host + Fortt Media Creator

Stephan Whelan

I speak with Amazon Web Services (AWS) CEO Matt Garman about Amazon's strategy behind AI datacenter spending, growth measures vs. rivals, the impacts of sovereign data concerns, the shift in software value and more.

Amazon Web Services (AWS)

CEO at Amazon Web Services (AWS)

Amazon

David Ward, EMPS

I speak with Cognizant CEO Ravi Kumar S and Uniphore CEO Umesh Sachdev about the rise of agentic AI, and its impact on markets, industries and workforces.

Cognizant

CEO | Board Member | Advisor

Uniphore

CEO & Co-founder @Uniphore | Business AI Cloud | AI Visionary | Global AI Thought Leader | Entrepreneur

B H A R A T H .

Nimble today announced a $47M Series B, and CEO Uriel Knorovich told me he believes enterprise AI agents will only scale if they can reliably search and verify the live web. With its new funding, Nimble is building the search infrastructure layer that lets Fortune 500 companies trust agents to monitor real-time pricing, regulations, and market data and act on it in production. Link to the Fortt Knox conversation in the comments.

Amplitude CEO Spenser Skates says most public SaaS companies aren’t transforming fast enough for the AI era. By forcing company-wide AI adoption, accelerating product cycles to weeks not quarters, and using its massive behavioral data set to power self-improving analytics, Amplitude aims to be a consolidator rather than a casualty of the “SaaS-pocalypse.” Link to the full Fortt Knox conversation in the comments:

Forethought Chair Deon Nicholas shares his predictions for AI advancements in 2026 and the consumer is at the center. (w/Teddy Farkas)

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