Cover image for Austin Rief

Austin Rief.

Morning Brew Co-Founder, Forbes 30 Under 30, $75M Exit · Founder/Co-Founder

$75M
Successful Exit
209k
Combined Audience
19+
Investments to date
159k
X Followers

About Austin.

Biography.

Austin Rief is the co-founder and Executive Chairman of Morning Brew, the business media brand he built from a college newsletter to a $75 million exit. He is now building his next company, a heavily backed, seed-stage vertical AI startup currently operating in stealth.

Austin co-founded Morning Brew alongside Alex Lieberman while the two were undergraduates at the University of Michigan, starting as a daily business newsletter before rebranding and scaling into Morning Brew. Under his leadership as CEO, the company grew to over 5 million newsletter subscribers and crossed $50 million in annual revenue before its acquisition by Axel Springer in 2020. He stayed on as CEO until February 2025, when he stepped into his current role as Executive Chairman.

Today, Austin's primary focus is his new venture in vertical AI. Still in stealth, the company has raised significant seed funding as it builds AI-native solutions for a specific industry, bringing the same operator mindset that took Morning Brew from dorm room to acquisition.

Alongside his operating work, Austin is Co-Owner of Oceans, a talent platform connecting high-growth startups with vetted operational talent in Sri Lanka, which has scaled past $15M in annual recurring revenue. He also invests in early-stage startups through Austin Rief Ventures, with 19+ investments to date.

Austin is a Forbes 30 Under 30 honoree and was named alongside Alex Lieberman as one of The Hollywood Reporter's 35 Most Powerful People in New York Media (2022), the youngest two people on that list.

Austin's presence across channels.

PlatformFollowers

LinkedIn

@austin-rief

50k

X / Twitter

@austin_rief

159k

What Austin covers, and who shows up for it.

Talks About

  • Business Media & Journalism
  • Newsletter Growth & Engagement
  • Startup Investing & Ventures
  • Entrepreneurship & Leadership
  • Building AI Products & Companies

Audience

  • Founders
  • Entrepreneurs
  • C-Suite Executives
  • Investors
  • Media Leaders

Best for

  • Media
  • Software & Technology
  • Startup
  • Artificial Intelligence
  • B2B

Formats available.

  • Brand partnerships

    Austin brings the channel and the credibility. Social, newsletter, video, and more, running as long as the work needs.

    Channels & formats

    • LinkedIn

      • Image Post
    • X

      • Post
    • Podcast

      • Interview
    • Webinar

      • Partner webinar
  • Speaking

    Keynotes and fireside chats built around Austin's own stories, lessons, and hard-won experience.

    Formats

    • In-Person Keynote
    • Virtual Keynote / Webinar
    • Podcast Guest
    • Fireside Chat

FAQ

Questions before you brief Austin.

How booking works, what to expect, and how we scope work with Austin.

Austin has his own rate card, and the cost depends on the format, the deliverables, and how long the engagement runs. A single LinkedIn video sits at a very different level to a nine-month ambassador programme. Send us your brief with what you have in mind and we'll come back with pricing for Austin specifically.

We move quickly. Social and newsletter partnerships can go from brief to live in about a week when the diary allows, and live dates and ambassador programmes may need a little more notice. The real constraint is that Austin gets booked up, and we deliberately limit how much sponsored work any creator runs in a given period. An audience that sees back-to-back brand posts stops trusting them, and it's your campaign that pays for that. Send us your date with the brief and we'll tell you straight away what's open.

Yes. Austin takes in-person keynotes and live event bookings internationally, with travel and accommodation costed into the engagement. If the budget or the timing doesn't support travel, he also does virtual keynotes, webinars, fireside chats, and podcast appearances.

Austin writes and produces his own content. You brief the message, the audience, and the non-negotiables, and he decides how it lands, because that judgement is what his audience turns up for.  Scope and usage rights are agreed in the contract, and you see the work before it goes live.

Usually yes. Austin  may work with more than one brand in a category over time, but what matters is how it's spaced and what's agreed. We manage that actively, with exclusivity periods and gaps between competing campaigns, so your work isn't running alongside a competitor's and neither of you is paying for a diluted message. Tell us your category in the brief and we'll be straight with you about what's already committed.

Interested in working with Austin?

Every query gets a rapid response from Austin's manager.

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