Tyler Rogoway

One thing has stayed absolutely constant throughout Tyler’s life, from as early as he could remember until today, is his fascination with aviation and military technology. When other kids were reading Sports Illustrated and comics, Tyler was reading Airpower Journal and Jane’s. This passion for the subject matter never waned, but it did evolve. The nexus of where military technology collides with foreign policy and strategy became increasingly of interest to him. He found this to be a highly underserved area of discourse. It seemed people either knew about the nuts and bolts of the hardware or diplomacy and grander geopolitical strategy, nobody was working to bridge the two. He also saw an opportunity to fuse this unique editorial perspective with open source intelligence, which was, at the time, an obscure concept in the larger media space. 

In early 2011, Tyler launched his Aviationintel blog in hopes of filling this gap. It was never intended to be a career, just a place for him to provide his perspective and convey ideas in a more in-depth manner at a time when sites like Buzzfeed and the ‘soundbite’ short-format craze was burning through the media. In a way, his blog was also a rejection of that trend, looking to go deeper and offer detailed insights into the topics he covered.

Eventually Gizmodo Media Group, then the leader in online media publication, recruited Tyler to launch his own subsite, Foxtrot Alpha, on their network, one of dozens that were deployed as part of a new editorial expansion initiative. It quickly became incredibly successful, being one of a few of the subsites that survived and thrived. Clocking in millions of page views a month and exploding in popularity, while also grabbing attention across the defense industry and global national security community, Foxtrot Alpha became a totally unique and unlikely voice that was independent and forward thinking in a space dominated by insider trade publications that were not accessible to larger audiences. 

After two years with Gizmodo Media Group, Tyler got recruited by Time Inc. to start a new, better-resourced evolution of Foxtrot Alpha. Tyler made the choice that it was time to move on and accepted the offer. This gave birth to TWZ. Over the years, the site has exploded in readership and has acquired a passionate staff of journalists with highly specific knowledge sets to work under Tyler’s leadership. TWZ, with its massive and loyal daily readership and community, is now the most read defense technology website on earth and is in yet another period of expansion. 

Today Tyler oversees TWZ’s editorial operations and its budding YouTube channel, as well as supports all aspects of the business directly. The site remains a singular vision, but one that is reflected in content that is always changing due to TWZ’s experimental nature. Tyler also works across Recurrent Military wherever possible to help shepard its platforms to a shared success. 

“I take all the trust our readers place in us very seriously and have done everything possible to retain our independence and ‘outside looking in’ perspective on so many of these challenging defense topics. Building TWZ into what it is today has been extremely challenging, but also a dream come true. To have a team dedicated to reporting not just on what is happening today in the world of military technology and geopolitics, but also with a laser focus on what’s on the horizon is an incredibly rewarding mission for us. I hope our passion and deep knowledge on these topics spills out onto the page daily for our loyal readers to enjoy today and for years to come.” 

Tyler’s work has been cited repeatedly by CNN, Fox News, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, 60 Minutes, and many other outlets, including regularly across the defense industry trade press, as well as numerous Pentagon and Congressional briefings and documents.