[dasil003]

Interesting that you use the word "impact", which I interpret as software engineer performance review jargon to quantify the larger results of engineering work, and the word "alpha" which I interpret as financial jargon to indicate some investment advantage. I think reading anything is at best just a starting point to moving the needle on any of those, and will provide nothing without further action. That said, I see two kinds of value:

If you are operating in a business-level capacity in tech where you have shallow but potentially valuable interactions with a lot of other people in the industry (eg, founder, operator, salesperson, marketer, etc), then there is significant value in reading the same things they do so you can anticipate their state of mind and have plenty of fodder for small talk. Your VC friends' comments notwithstanding, I think this is probably the biggest direct impact.

Secondarily, I think there is a good amount of passive value in reading good industry analysis if you ever want to run your own business or rise to a level of contributing strategic input within an established business. This is less of a straight line, but considering all the garbage put out by even reputable mainstream publications, and the sheer volume of zero-value entertainment options, I think reading expert analysis by well-informed, well-written and consistently committed individual authors is probably one of best ways to get quality information. That is no small thing in today's world.

All that said, I think you are right that focusing on your family and more local concerns will probably be higher ROI, but it depends what you're optimizing for.