060: Jon Fortt on CNBC, Empathy, and Building Bridges as a Generation

Gen X Amplified with Adrion Porter

On this episode of Gen X Amplified, Adrion Porter is joined by Jon Fortt, who is the co-anchor of Squawk Alley on CNBC, and the host of the Fort Knoxx podcast. And they discuss not only Jon's professional journey as a business journalist and anchor, but also his thoughts on the current COVID-19 pandemic and its significant impact on people of all ages.

Adrion and Jon also spend time unpacking how Gen Xers are uniquely positioned to be very effective and powerful leaders that can build bridges across all generations - especially during challenging times such as these.

Jon Fortt is co-anchor of CNBC’s “Squawk Alley” (M-F, 11AM-12PM ET) broadcast live from the New York Stock Exchange. Previously, he was an on-air editor based at CNBC’s global headquarters in Englewood Cliffs, N.J. Fortt joined CNBC as technology correspondent in July 2010, working from CNBC’s Silicon Valley bureau where he covered the companies, start-ups and trends that are driving innovation in the industry. He also contributes to CNBC.com.

He came to CNBC from Fortune magazine, where as a senior writer he covered both large technology companies— such as Cisco, Hewlett-Packard, and Microsoft—and trends, including cloud computing and the smartphone revolution.

Before joining Fortune in 2007, Fortt was a senior editor at Business 2.0magazine where he produced the “What Works” section.

From 1999 to 2006, Fortt wrote and edited at the San Jose Mercury News, Silicon Valley’s hometown newspaper. There he contributed to several efforts that won awards from the Society of American Business Editors and Writers.

As a personal technology writer, his coverage duties included Apple, Palm and Adobe. He also served in roles outside the business department, covering education, editing local news and developing technology strategy. As the newspaper’s senior Web editor, he helped develop a blog and podcast network, managed the creation of multimedia projects and served on the board of the Associated Press Managing Editors.

Fortt graduated from DePauw University as a Media Fellow, with a B.A. in English.

(Above Jon Fortt bio courtesy of cnbc.com)

Resources mentioned in this episode:

• Squawk Alley on CNBC
• Jon Fortt on LinkedIn
• Jon Fortt on Twitter
• Fort Knoxx Podcast
• Jon’s Recent Interview with Microsoft CEO, Satya Nadella

Jon's Personal Theme Songs

• “Power Trip”, by Lecrae
• “Duck Down!” by The Roots
• “High Hopes” by Panic! At The Disco

Thank you for listening!