The Business of Information
In this episode of The Business of Information, Chris Mohr sits down with Andrew Lebbos to explore how Benzinga evolved from a scrappy financial news startup into one of the invisible engines powering modern retail investing platforms. Andrew explains how Benzinga’s real-time news, APIs, and market data quietly sit behind many of the trading apps millions of investors use every day—and why the company sees itself as both a media company and a data infrastructure provider. They discuss the rise of retail trading, the challenge of balancing AI automation with human-driven journalism, and why the future of financial media may belong to companies that can combine proprietary content with highly structured data. Andrew also reflects on Detroit’s post-bankruptcy reinvention, the startup mentality that shaped Benzinga’s culture, and what makes sales teams succeed in an industry where relationships and adaptability matter just as much as technical knowledge. In this conversation, you’ll hear: * How Benzinga became the “thing behind the thing” on major brokerage platforms * Why human-written financial news still matters in the AI era * The difference between commoditized market data and proprietary insights * How retail trading transformed the fintech and brokerage ecosystem * Why prediction markets, AI, and crypto are reshaping investor behavior * What startup grit looks like inside a fast-moving financial media company To learn more about the Software and Information Industry Association, visit: https://www.siia.net [https://www.siia.net] Follow SIIA on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/siia [https://www.linkedin.com/company/siia]
20 episodes
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