EP 58: CNBC’s Julia Boorstin On The Future Of Media & Tech

8 snips

Sep 16, 2025

Julia Boorstin, Senior Media & Tech Correspondent at CNBC and author of When Women Lead, dives into the evolving world of media and technology. She shares her journey from Princeton to Fortune, emphasizing the importance of a growth mindset in leadership. Julia advocates for embracing AI rather than fearing it, revealing its potential in journalism. She also discusses her research on women's leadership qualities and offers valuable advice for young professionals facing workplace biases.

Ask episode

AI Snips

Chapters

Books

Transcript

Episode notes

ANECDOTE

From History Major To Business Reporter

Julia expected to take a year off after Princeton and work at a magazine but stayed at Fortune and learned business on the job.
She overprepared to compensate for lacking formal econ training and learned from editors like Carol Loomis.

ANECDOTE

Dressing For Credibility Early On

Young male interviewees questioned Julia's presence so she adopted boxy suits and fake glasses as a 'costume' to be taken seriously.
She supplemented the look by overpreparing for interviews to overcome imposter syndrome.

ANECDOTE

Thrown Into TV And Found Her Fit

Julia began appearing on CNN as a business expert while at Fortune and discovered she liked TV after being encouraged to go on air.
CNBC then hired her on a one-year trial and she never left, finding TV a collaborative, adrenaline-filled medium.

Get the Snipd Podcast app to discover more snips from this episode

Get the app

Julia Boorstin thought she might take a year after graduating from Princeton and have some fun working at a magazine in New York City before going to grad school. As she shares with Karen Finerman on this episode of HOW SHE DOES IT, she was hired as a reporter at Fortune magazine (despite never having taken an economics class), fell in love with the world of business news, and never looked back.

Julia is now CNBC’s Senior Media & Tech Correspondent working out of the network’s Los Angeles bureau. Beyond reporting on tech mergers and interviewing titans of the media landscape, she has developed signature franchises for the network. Among those are the CNBC Disruptor 50, which highlights “private companies transforming the economy and challenging companies in established industries.”

She is also the author of When Women Lead: What They Achieve, Why They Succeed, and How We Can Learn from Them. In it, she interviewed several female executives and combed academic research to identify the qualities and characteristics that women bring to the table and why businesses benefit from their leadership.

💬 In this episode, we explore:

Why having a grateful attitude can be beneficial for leaders
The future of Artificial Intelligence / AI in business and everyday life, and why Julia believes people should engage with it, rather than fear it
The strategies Julia employed in her first job in order to be taken seriously as a young woman, plus her advice for young job-seekers today
How Julia and her film producer husband manage their household with two busy careers and two young sons
The ways Julia found to grow her career, even though working out of Los Angeles, may have taken Julia off an obvious “anchor track” at CNBC.

Resources:

Web: https://juliaboorstin.com/

Instagram: @juliaboorstin

Threads: @juliaboorstin

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/juliaboorstin/

Julia Boorstin's Book: When Women Lead

CNBC Changemakers

CNBC Disruptor 50

Coming Soon: CNBC Changemakers & Power Players Podcast with Julia Boorston

Follow How She Does It on Instagram: @HSDIpodcast

💬 Enjoying the show? Follow How She Does It and leave us a review. And don’t forget to subscribe so you never miss an episode.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices