Episode 197
Building a post-scale media company
Defector is one of the clearest test cases of what comes after the scale era. Born out of the Deadspin walkout and structured as a worker cooperative, it has achieved something most digital media operations haven’t: five years of stability with zero staff turnover. I talk with Defector COO Jasper Wang about the upside of that model, the limits it imposes, hitting a subs ceiling, and why Defector is comfortable with the tradeoffs.
Transcript
Welcome to the Rebooting Show.
Speaker:I am Brian Morrisey.
Speaker:I'm joined by Jasper Wang.
Speaker:Jasper Jasper's official title is the Business Guy at Defector.
Speaker:At least that's what I, I've decided to
Speaker:That's fine.
Speaker:Everyone calls me that.
Speaker:I'm totally fine with that.
Speaker:if those of you do not know Defector, it's now five years old and it
Speaker:is a worker owned media company.
Speaker:it.
Speaker:Sprang out of Deadspin.
Speaker:the dearly departed, if it's not departed, it's basically departed, old Gawker media
Speaker:property that was then taken over as part of geo media, which is also departed.
Speaker:There's a lot of, there's a lot of departed in in
Speaker:Do these media brands ever die?
Speaker:It's hard to say.
Speaker:Who knows who owns them at this point?
Speaker:Well, you know, with seo, that's an interesting point you make.
Speaker:But like with SEO, being so much less, reliable, there is the possibility
Speaker:that media brands will go back to dying again because it is nearly
Speaker:impossible to kill a media brand because there's always, there's always.
Speaker:Some value to be rung out of it.
Speaker:And so you find a lot of these, these media brands whose, I like to
Speaker:say their corpse is being paraded around the town square, the SEO Town
Speaker:No, that's, that's fair.
Speaker:Maybe once, AI comes and goes in like 2045, we'll see Gawker 5.0 show back up.
Speaker:Well, yeah, I mean, look, Gawker got exhumed, by Brian Goldberg
Speaker:very briefly, but we won't go, we won't go too deep into that.
Speaker:that's for a different, that's for a different episode.
Speaker:One of the things that I really like about Def Defector Jasper is that you
Speaker:guys published these annual reports.
Speaker:I had you on, after one, last year.
Speaker:and ask the question about like whether you guys had like kind of hit
Speaker:a ceiling, because I mean, you're very transparent with this business and this
Speaker:business is, is structured differently.
Speaker:So let's start there because what I want to get at is the current state of the
Speaker:business within the context, obvious obviously of the overall market and the
Speaker:overall economy, but also the structural.
Speaker:I don't wanna say abnormalities, but unique aspects of the structure of
Speaker:Defector where I'm reading through it and I'm like thinking like I'm trying to
Speaker:play, I'm trying to coplay like financial analysts, and I'm like, Ooh, you've got
Speaker:a structural problem here that, that might, that is inhibiting your growth.
Speaker:If, if growth is the actual end goal, maybe it's not.
Speaker:I don't know.
Speaker:So let's, let's start there.
Speaker:For those who are unfamiliar, explain the peculiarities of the Defector model.
Speaker:Yeah, so Defector, we've been around for five years now.
Speaker:We were founded with 19 people, 18 writers and editors, all of whom formerly worked
Speaker:at Deadspin and myself, and we organized the company as a worker cooperative.
Speaker:So that group of 19 people owned a hundred percent of the company.
Speaker:We took no outside investment.
Speaker:We have no outside stakeholders.
Speaker:each, we're up to 27 people now.
Speaker:And each additional person that we hire does get some, additional,
Speaker:equity stake in the company.
Speaker:And we operate most things with one person, one vote.
Speaker:In some cases, decisions are simple majority.
Speaker:In some cases they're super majority with two thirds vote.
Speaker:In some cases things.
Speaker:Go out to committees.
Speaker:some well prescribed, number of decisions sit with me directly
Speaker:or the editor in chief directly.
Speaker:But largely we do not make, choices unilaterally and certainly not big
Speaker:strategic choices unilaterally.
Speaker:So, you know, Brian, you, you, you are sort of talking about
Speaker:the trajectory of this company.
Speaker:You know, we, we have been a subscription first business for this entire time.
Speaker:the first two years were like growth.
Speaker:We were, you know, just 2020 to 2022.
Speaker:It was just growing well, no secret sauce there.
Speaker:Just blocking and tackling, growing.
Speaker:Well, year three was a story of still, good.
Speaker:Acquisition, but much worse retention.
Speaker:That was a pretty high inflation year in the overall US macroclimate, so,
Speaker:we, we saw pretty high churn that year.
Speaker:And then year four and five have been stories of excellent.
Speaker:Retention.
Speaker:So the people who are with us are really with us for the long haul,
Speaker:but acquisition has been a struggle.
Speaker:and you know, part of that is just stuff that every media company's going through
Speaker:with, you know, Twitter falling apart and, AI taking over Google searches.
Speaker:So distribution is just this big question that everybody's going through.
Speaker:and you know, part of it could be structural.
Speaker:Like we just might be a company that is 40,000 paid subscribers, give
Speaker:or take a couple thousand depending on what part of the year we're in.
Speaker:And, you know, we like sort of build other revenue streams in other directions.
Speaker:But that just might be, you know, maybe we'll be 45,000 in a couple years.
Speaker:But, you know, I don't really think there's a version of this company.
Speaker:Run the way we wanna run it.
Speaker:That is shooting for, you know, whatever, 60, 80, a hundred thousand dollars.
Speaker:Not even 50, sorry, a hundred thousand subscribers, probably not even
Speaker:50,000 subscribers, in the near end.
Speaker:Like this is sort of what it is in the near term.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:So I mean, year one to year two, I think you had like 19% growth in the
Speaker:year two to year three, 18% growth.
Speaker:You're feeling good smelling yourself, you're, you're doing great.
Speaker:And then like the wall hit, it was like 2.2% and then this, this
Speaker:last year from year 40 to year five was about 1.1%, which is.
Speaker:I mean, when, when we're talking about like revenue, that's almost shrinking
Speaker:really when you think about it.
Speaker:And, um, the general way of like thinking about these things is, and it like, look,
Speaker:tech has infected all of business, right?
Speaker:And particularly you remember the media business when it was
Speaker:cosplay and tech companies.
Speaker:and the idea that there would be ho hockey stick growth because the near limitless
Speaker:tam of the internet, That didn't, that didn't really work out, so much.
Speaker:And so what I'm, I guess what I'm, what I'm wondering is, is this, is
Speaker:this sort of one, is it the trajectory that you guys had anticipated or is
Speaker:this like, you know, you just wanted to get it up and running and get, and
Speaker:be able to make this into a sustainable business and now this sort of ceiling.
Speaker:Looks like it's around the 5 million mark, at least for this model, unless
Speaker:you make major changes and it doesn't seem like there's an appetite for that.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:I guess there's a couple ways to answer that.
Speaker:The, the sort of five year horizon, right?
Speaker:If you had told me in 2020 that in five years we would be roughly this size, I
Speaker:would've said, oh, that's incredible.
Speaker:Like that is, you know, while done in the media environment where you
Speaker:didn't take outside money, But I would not have guessed that this was, the
Speaker:trajectory would've been like the first two years were just up and up.
Speaker:And in fact, you know, we got 10,000 subscribers in
Speaker:our first basically 24 hours.
Speaker:And so, that like.
Speaker:That's not linear, right?
Speaker:Immediately you're like, oh, okay, great.
Speaker:We've got, a really safe and stable, level of support.
Speaker:So I'm, I'm grateful for that.
Speaker:But, that's not necessarily, you know, the day before we launched,
Speaker:if you had told me we would end the day with like 500 subscribers,
Speaker:I would've been like, oh, great.
Speaker:Like, that's good.
Speaker:That's good momentum.
Speaker:So the fact that it was like two years of really high growth and
Speaker:then sort of leveling off, I guess I would've been surprised in 2020.
Speaker:If you, you know, the last time we did a, a big forecast, we reforecast basically
Speaker:every six months, but, you know, sort of in a real meaningful way every 12 months.
Speaker:And I think we, we plugged in, we were hoping to do something more like, you
Speaker:know, 5% revenue growth, year over year.
Speaker:So sort of, we've already built it in such a way that okay, that's like, that's okay.
Speaker:Like it doesn't change anything really compared to what, where
Speaker:we were at 12 months ago.
Speaker:I would say some of that is like.
Speaker:Some of that is just like a timing matter of the p and l where, for example, we
Speaker:move the normal gossip is our big podcast.
Speaker:Our big live tour usually happens this spring.
Speaker:We moved it into the fall.
Speaker:So that's something like $150,000 of revenue that, you know, it's,
Speaker:it's not that it's not there, it's just not reflected in the exact, you
Speaker:know, revenues that we shared here.
Speaker:So whatever that hit the, in the spring, we'd be talking about more
Speaker:like a couple percent of of growth.
Speaker:But you know, the broader point is still right.
Speaker:Our retention, you know, we model retention and acquisition separately,
Speaker:and retention has actually outperformed.
Speaker:Like, we're just, the people who are into us remain into us month to month.
Speaker:They come to the website, they come to the homepage day after day.
Speaker:but new acquisition has just been slower and it's been lumpy.
Speaker:And, you know, I, I, I think I mentioned this in the annual report a little bit.
Speaker:like we, we had a bunch of government.
Speaker:worker subscribers who we had to comp, once they got laid
Speaker:off during the Doge efforts.
Speaker:you know, we were just talking off mic before about sort of the vibe of a
Speaker:recession, even if the economic indicators are not saying it's a recession,
Speaker:you know, that sort of comes out of, retail spending, first and foremost.
Speaker:So on the subscriber front, you know, I think what I would say, if
Speaker:I think about the next year or two, we're still fighting a good fight.
Speaker:We still wanna reach.
Speaker:New people who don't know Defectors deal.
Speaker:We want to convert people who know Defectors deal and maybe might
Speaker:consider, subscribing, but that business line is just not gonna
Speaker:be 10% growth year over year.
Speaker:I think the other stuff, we're still pretty nascent as.
Speaker:As a matter of, you know, like what is our ad product?
Speaker:we still have space to be doing more in the podcast space.
Speaker:you know, we won this grant, so you sort of add a consulting
Speaker:line item to the work that we do.
Speaker:So, you know, I think the overall revenue picture is rosier.
Speaker:but yeah, on the subscription side, we're very, we're very realistic about this.
Speaker:You know, if I could get three to 5% subscription growth year to year from
Speaker:this year to next year, I'd be thrilled.
Speaker:So you, you keep subscribers, right?
Speaker:But you, but acquiring subscribers has proven to be more difficult, right?
Speaker:So un unpack that because I mean, obviously you, you had mentioned
Speaker:in the annual report that.
Speaker:Defector started with a whole bunch of things in its advantage,
Speaker:basically in its favor.
Speaker:Excuse me.
Speaker:just the reputations, the, the, the sort of pr value of the
Speaker:walkout, from, from Deadspin Absolutely helped, you know, there.
Speaker:I think the, that time was one of, A lot of changes going on.
Speaker:And, we saw like a big increase in, in subscription Substack
Speaker:is like, you know, taking off.
Speaker:It became, you know, subscribing to writers who, who you like and
Speaker:support became a normal thing, right?
Speaker:you know, those things, those, you know, those things fade over time, right.
Speaker:For sure.
Speaker:I think, you know, there's a, there's a piece here that is, I mean, I, I bet every
Speaker:company wonders this of just like, one of this is just secular trends of like, we.
Speaker:And you
Speaker:You never know, right?
Speaker:You never know.
Speaker:I'm not the one to say, there's some amount of subscription fatigue.
Speaker:We've heard about the worst phrase, subscription fatigue for years and
Speaker:years, and I, I am sure that's true.
Speaker:but, you know, like defector is a, a particular thing of how we wanna cover
Speaker:sports and culture from a pretty, you know, progressive labor friendly lens.
Speaker:It just, it might be the case that this is sort of a moment in the trajectory
Speaker:of the country, or you know, how people understand sports and understand culture
Speaker:that like we are pretty much operating at.
Speaker:more or less the, the ceiling today.
Speaker:And that might be true too, and like that's, I mean, I don't know.
Speaker:I, I, I think that's okay.
Speaker:Like, ideally we would do more, we could create more jobs, we could
Speaker:bring more people on, we could, you know, do more ambitious reporting.
Speaker:We could increase the freelance budget and the travel budget and all these things.
Speaker:but.
Speaker:If this is what it is for at least the foreseeable future, I think
Speaker:that's, that's decent enough.
Speaker:and you know, again, our subscribers are really, really loyal.
Speaker:And so I think, if this is, if this is what it is that works until.
Speaker:You know, people on staff say it doesn't work anymore, right?
Speaker:Like until we, we have too many divergent theories of what this company should be
Speaker:and what each person's role should be.
Speaker:but for now, I think people are mostly grateful to just, you know, have a pretty
Speaker:safe job in, in media where you can be reasonably well read and, you know,
Speaker:wake up tomorrow knowing that you have a say in the direction of your company
Speaker:and you're not gonna get laid off, which is more than most people can say.
Speaker:Yeah, that's true.
Speaker:when you look back, like, so do you think that the, the unique ownership structure,
Speaker:I mean, 'cause you're, you're, you're very candid, like in, in the report and,
Speaker:Look, the unique ownership structure has a ton of benefits to it, right?
Speaker:Clearly, I mean, you're talking about taking votes on all these kinds of things.
Speaker:Like I'm just like, oh my God, this must take forever
Speaker:to make some kind of decision.
Speaker:And like getting anyone on board.
Speaker:I don't care if everyone like gets along the best.
Speaker:Like, is is almost impossible.
Speaker:I, at least in my experience, maybe I'm like, I, I've had different
Speaker:experiences with groups of people.
Speaker:But how much is, is the ownership structure now just a structural impediment
Speaker:or just a reality to the fact that it, it would be easier, I'm sure, to
Speaker:grow this business without, without this kind of ownership structure.
Speaker:Yeah, I mean.
Speaker:I'm not gonna say it's an impediment, it's a feature, not a
Speaker:bug of, uh, how we've been set up.
Speaker:is there a version of this company that is not set up this way
Speaker:that has an easier growth path?
Speaker:Maybe, but you know, like risk equals reward.
Speaker:That's the first thing you learn in corporate finance 1 0 1.
Speaker:And so, it'd be if it were higher growth, you'd also be taking on a
Speaker:certain more, amount of risk, right?
Speaker:And so.
Speaker:It's just kind of like what is the first principles of what a company is for?
Speaker:And a worker-owned cooperative, the company is for keeping
Speaker:jobs for the workers, right?
Speaker:And so, these 27 people like keeping their jobs stable is sort of the most important
Speaker:thing for me as the business leader here.
Speaker:and I work around the margins there.
Speaker:and, you know, that is additional revenue streams and, doing the best with
Speaker:what we can on the subscription side.
Speaker:And, you know, I, I should say for us, it is not just a labor side.
Speaker:Principle of, you know, how we want to organize it is also marketing.
Speaker:Like if tomorrow we announced, hey, we are, you know, taking outside
Speaker:shareholder money and you know, we're gonna streamline this organization.
Speaker:So we stop making it so everyone is a worker owner and
Speaker:has a vote, we'd lose a bunch
Speaker:our new partners at TPG,
Speaker:exactly.
Speaker:We, you know, we'd lose a big chunk of people who are giving us money,
Speaker:in part because they, they like the, the cut of our jib, even if they're
Speaker:not reading the site every day.
Speaker:So, you know, I don't take that, I don't take that lightly.
Speaker:The idea that, you know, this is like, this is what it is.
Speaker:Like, I am not sitting here dreaming about, what if I ran a different sort
Speaker:of company, like, yeah, you know, what's the thing, you know, if my
Speaker:grandma had wheels, she'd be a bicycle.
Speaker:Like this is just the company I run.
Speaker:That's a great point.
Speaker:well deployed line.
Speaker:so subscriptions is, you know, like, look, when you hit, when you hit a wall
Speaker:with subscriptions, you can optimize and you can like eke out some, some more.
Speaker:And, and obviously paid acquisition is an area that reading through
Speaker:the port, I mean, you guys are just under, I guess they would
Speaker:call it under leveraged in that.
Speaker:for a bunch of different reasons.
Speaker:I mean, some of which are, are simply, I mean, I, I would call them ideological.
Speaker:Like, I mean, you don't use like Facebook meta as like a acquisition platform.
Speaker:I mean, it's pretty effective.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:You could call that ideological.
Speaker:You know, we've, we've explored here and there of like, how do we plug into.
Speaker:it's making, business decision is not based on business.
Speaker:That to me is
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:No, I mean, I don't, I don't shy away from that at all.
Speaker:You know, being organized as a worker cooperative is, is ideological.
Speaker:And we have plenty of other things that are, you know, some, some
Speaker:amount of ideological and some amount of, you know, marketing.
Speaker:yeah, we, we, we are under, under invested in paid, I think there
Speaker:is, there is an argument that even if we were, did not want to plug
Speaker:into the meta ecosystem, there were ways to, do more paid acquisition.
Speaker:The other piece of this is we are just very, we are.
Speaker:Very lightly staffed on the business side of things, right?
Speaker:So part of it is just like, what is my personal capacity to do
Speaker:that and expertise at doing that?
Speaker:you know, I think there is a version of this that says, Hey, next year we
Speaker:are, contracting with some sort of a firm that knows how to do this and we
Speaker:are dedicating real budget to doing it.
Speaker:And, you know, trying to see if that is a, a, a thing that is worthwhile.
Speaker:you know, if I had to describe how.
Speaker:My time is being allocated going forward.
Speaker:It is more on other revenue streams and, you know, making sure those
Speaker:have a, a fair chance here, whether that's the ads or, or the podcast or
Speaker:the consulting side of the business.
Speaker:so yeah, you know, it's all about bandwidth.
Speaker:I like don't, I can't, I can't deny that like we're under, under
Speaker:resourced or under invested there.
Speaker:right?
Speaker:So talk to me about then the other, business.
Speaker:Lines are much more likely for, for growth, right?
Speaker:Like, and ads, obviously we talked about ads like, like last year, but again, it's
Speaker:like one of those chicken and egg thing.
Speaker:It's like you need, you need to, you need to be out there in the markets.
Speaker:I mean, ads are not bought, they're sold.
Speaker:That was something that I was told early on that I've always remembered and.
Speaker:You don't have like an ad sales team.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:So you've got, so tell me about like where you see the growth prospects between, you
Speaker:know, ads you're gonna be putting them in for, I think logged out users, right.
Speaker:but like there's also, the podcast.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:Like, so normal gossip has, you know, you've, you've got a franchise there
Speaker:on your hands and I'm sure that there are, there are a lot of different
Speaker:growth opportunities when you have, when you have those kinds of franchises.
Speaker:But tell me where you see the growth,
Speaker:Yeah, so on the, on the ad side, onsite ad side, we, are,
Speaker:are working with buy sell ads.
Speaker:I will be totally honest that our first year of direct sold with them
Speaker:has not been particularly strong.
Speaker:you know, we, we've like picked up sponsors here and there, but,
Speaker:it's not a repeatable pipeline.
Speaker:Now, we are.
Speaker:in a non-exclusive relationship with buy sell ads.
Speaker:So if anybody's hearing this and wants to, you know, pitch me on doing,
Speaker:more direct ad sales, I would be gladly, you know, give you the market
Speaker:chunk of whatever you, you bring
Speaker:Yeah, and it's just a 10% finder's fee to the rebooting
Speaker:that's right.
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:Make sure you're CCing Brian there too.
Speaker:it took us a while to get the programmatic, solution on buy,
Speaker:sell ads running on the site.
Speaker:Part of that is technical.
Speaker:Part of it is just like experimenting to make sure the quality of the ads
Speaker:aren't so low that you know, it, it's, it's, you know, hard to defend.
Speaker:So, you know, we do have programmatic
Speaker:That's holding you back right there
Speaker:in the marketplace.
Speaker:Japer.
Speaker:so I think, you know, right now our monthly run on, on that combined
Speaker:does add up to a six digit number over the course of the year.
Speaker:Although we haven't, didn't have programmatic running
Speaker:until, fully until June.
Speaker:So it's not really reflected in the annual report.
Speaker:So I think there's just part of that, of just like better monetizing the couple
Speaker:of million page views of, you know, not logged in or not subscribed users.
Speaker:you know, also by the way, we, we made the choice not to show.
Speaker:Ads to subscribers.
Speaker:We have had subscribers be like, show me some ads.
Speaker:It's fine.
Speaker:So, or you know, you can imagine a world in which, hey, we rethink our subscription
Speaker:tiers and like one of the lower tiers is yes, you get unlimited access and x
Speaker:and y benefits, but you are seeing ads.
Speaker:So there's sort of just like fine tuning that balance between ads and
Speaker:subscriptions, to make that all work.
Speaker:So.
Speaker:What is your, what is your conversion rate for to paid?
Speaker:it's always a tough number to quote because we effectively.
Speaker:Brought in the first 10,000 subscribers on zero conversion, right?
Speaker:Like, or like a hundred percent conversion.
Speaker:So, you know, our email list right now is like 250,000 and
Speaker:our subscriber list is 40,000.
Speaker:And then, you know, the month to month of page views is just however
Speaker:million we can get to, you know, it's sort of a hits business, right?
Speaker:so whatever you want, your, I think most people quote the numerator to
Speaker:denominator as unpaid, but people gave you their email address, so the 40 over
Speaker:to the 25 or the 40 over the two 50.
Speaker:but even then again, that's a little bit of a, a false comparison.
Speaker:When the first 10,000 people gave us their email address and
Speaker:their money at the same time.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:so you, you wrote about all of the, the sort of advantages, that defector
Speaker:had on, on launching and, and you also.
Speaker:Mentioned, you know, starting a consulting practice, you've, you've informally,
Speaker:I'm sure fielded a lot of, inquiries from those who are interested in going
Speaker:down this path because like, I think anyone who has operated as a journalist
Speaker:within this insane media ecosystem of the last couple decades, probably pines
Speaker:for a different model, like, and that.
Speaker:The idea that the people who were in charge of this industry for the
Speaker:last 20 years leading it, leading it out of this ditch is, is seems like
Speaker:maybe not the, the best approach.
Speaker:So why don't we try something different?
Speaker:And I think, you know, DEFACTOR has been, has been part of that.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:so what, what do you explain a little bit about what you're gonna be doing
Speaker:because, and, and also just about worker collectives and whether this model.
Speaker:Extensible considering all of the advantages that
Speaker:Defector had out of the gate.
Speaker:I think the best way to tell this story is starting from shortly after Defector
Speaker:launched, my colleagues and I would field, requests to have conversations
Speaker:with groups of other journalists who are like, how do we do what you do?
Speaker:And that has been consistent over the years.
Speaker:sort of tied to.
Speaker:Frankly tied to layoff cycles of, you know, people showing up in our
Speaker:inboxes and asking for advice on how they might think about doing this.
Speaker:And, we generally say, yes, we're glad to talk to you.
Speaker:We generally caveat that with, you know, we had a lot of advantages and
Speaker:we also caveat it with, we only did it the one way we did it, and that's not.
Speaker:Necessarily how you should do it.
Speaker:and that is true on like how you think about your public facing go-to-market
Speaker:strategy is even true on the basis of like, we are a New York LLC owned by a
Speaker:Delaware corporation, which is stupid.
Speaker:And like I wouldn't set it up that way, right?
Speaker:So, but I don't, it's not like I talked to a bunch of lawyers and
Speaker:accountants and, you know, worker cooperative experts to tell me, you
Speaker:know what I should recommend so.
Speaker:It's been a couple years now where I've been talking to foundations
Speaker:about, Hey, what if we just, um, built this out a little bit, you know, a
Speaker:little bit of money to just research it and just say like, here are some
Speaker:legitimately, Good answers, well researched answers that we can sit behind.
Speaker:templatize some of the, you know, operating agreements.
Speaker:Like, hey, here's the logic tree of like the type of business you wanna run and
Speaker:therefore you should organize like this.
Speaker:Hey, you don't even have a co-founder that, you know, like, here's the
Speaker:checklist of like, how to figure out if you guys would work well together.
Speaker:Because frankly, in the early going of some of these work
Speaker:cooperatives, it's basically, it's basically like couples therapy.
Speaker:just, you know, getting people on the same page and, and, there's just a lot
Speaker:of moving pieces here where there could just be some central infrastructure.
Speaker:Some of that is worker owned specific.
Speaker:Some of that is applicable to any emerging journalistic endeavor.
Speaker:and yeah, you know, we would love to, to be a clearinghouse
Speaker:for, for some of that work.
Speaker:And I should say I am new to the idea of looking across all the journal
Speaker:journalism support organizations.
Speaker:If anybody is listening to this and saying like, oh, we offer something
Speaker:like that, and I would say, wonderful.
Speaker:Reach out.
Speaker:Would love to partner.
Speaker:I don't wanna reinvent the wheel.
Speaker:Even some of these places, it's just like, Hey, here's the resources and
Speaker:the resources live somewhere else.
Speaker:That's great.
Speaker:but I would also say if you're offering these things, you gotta do a better
Speaker:job of, you know, being out there and being visible because people have been
Speaker:coming to us for years asking for this.
Speaker:And so a little bit of this is just us saying, okay, well let's, let's do it.
Speaker:There's clearly a demand for it, and, and we're gonna, you
Speaker:know, help out what we can.
Speaker:But no offense to the, the, these, these organizations, and I'm sure
Speaker:they're wonderful, but the reason people come to you is because you have
Speaker:literal experience doing this, right?
Speaker:Like, it's not some sort of theoretical study where they got a
Speaker:grant from the Pritzkers or someone to, you know, to come up with these
Speaker:things in a lab at a J school.
Speaker:you've been in it, right?
Speaker:And so when you look back, like what are the, what are, what have
Speaker:been like, say the three big.
Speaker:Advantages of the worker collective and what you know in candidness
Speaker:ha have been the trade-offs.
Speaker:Yeah, I mean the, the benefits here are I am just a person who believes that, and
Speaker:this gets back to the first 10 minutes of our conversation of like a strategy
Speaker:that is a hundred percent correct.
Speaker:Quote unquote, theoretically correct, but that people are not on board for.
Speaker:Is a useless strategy.
Speaker:So in some ways I'm like, okay, look, the, the compromise position that
Speaker:everybody is on the same page at, on, and all running towards together.
Speaker:I would pick that strategy every single time.
Speaker:And so.
Speaker:Ultimately everyone is bought in and everybody feels ownership
Speaker:because they in fact have ownership.
Speaker:And I think that just, creates this virtuous cycle of like, yeah, people
Speaker:are out there, they're, they're both doing the journalism for themselves
Speaker:and, and reaping the benefits and they're thinking about the business.
Speaker:And, it's not so, combative between, oh, the business side and the editorial side.
Speaker:Not that it is combative at every other.
Speaker:publication, but you know, it's not them and us and, you know, we're the sort of
Speaker:like pure journalists and they're the, you know, dirty money people like we,
Speaker:I mean, it's pretty adversarial.
Speaker:Have you seen what's going on at Con Nast?
Speaker:I mean, it's, it, it can get pretty
Speaker:it can get pretty
Speaker:the like, post-it wars and, you know, business Insider, they were
Speaker:putting, the union was putting flyers up around, you know, people's
Speaker:neighborhoods in Brooklyn Heights and.
Speaker:Doing, you know, running up on, on their editor in chief, on a city bike
Speaker:with the cameras out and whatnot, like this is hardly like the recipe
Speaker:for a collegial working environment.
Speaker:So at Def Factor, we are, we are all those things.
Speaker:We wear all of those hats.
Speaker:We are the employees, we are the owners, we are the, the shareholders.
Speaker:we are the coworkers, we are the friends.
Speaker:And so, sometimes it's complicated to wear all those hats, but ultimately it's
Speaker:actually better to trust each other to be able to balance those hats, you know?
Speaker:And I think that's reflect.
Speaker:Not just in the editorial product, but like your internal processes.
Speaker:Like you, you, everyone is committed to following the, the, you, you
Speaker:have a disagreement, you go through a restorative justice process
Speaker:because that's what we've agreed.
Speaker:That is what we do, and everyone has been trained on it.
Speaker:And you know, like that is holding up your commitment as a
Speaker:co-owner in this, in this company.
Speaker:So, you know, the, like on there, there you go.
Speaker:Right?
Speaker:Like, I, I think everything sort of ties into the fact that everybody.
Speaker:Everybody has that.
Speaker:And you have the transparency, right?
Speaker:Like you, you tell me you don't want to take that revenue opportunity.
Speaker:That's great.
Speaker:Well, we gotta work together then to plug the hole in the budget,
Speaker:that, that was supposed to take on.
Speaker:And so, I, I think our, our journalists are, are just, you know, better
Speaker:business thinkers about the world of journalism than your average
Speaker:American journalist right now.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:So what did the trade offs spin?
Speaker:Obviously you move slower.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Uh, you know, we, we do move slow and, there is an element here.
Speaker:Again, this is a, this is a feature, not a bug.
Speaker:It is not a command and control leadership.
Speaker:So if you have an idea, you wanna nudge the direction of the ship,
Speaker:you have to be out there building a quorum of support for that.
Speaker:Right?
Speaker:and I think.
Speaker:It is a, you have to be a political animal, I think, in a way that you
Speaker:don't otherwise have to be in your workplace necessarily, and sort of be
Speaker:okay that these things take a while and you're, you know, like for me adds
Speaker:the, just to talk about an example for myself, every year I have said, Hey,
Speaker:we gotta get some ads on the page.
Speaker:And the first couple years when the subscription business was growing.
Speaker:You know, buku, well, nobody wanted to listen to me, but I'm like,
Speaker:all right, I'm biting my time and you know, I get to year three.
Speaker:I get to year four.
Speaker:I'm like, Hey, I've been, I've been saying it.
Speaker:I've been making the case.
Speaker:Now is my moment, but I have been doing that work of having you hear
Speaker:that message and now people have, you know, come around to the idea that this
Speaker:is a, a revenue stream that we need.
Speaker:And, you know, there's a version of that in just like everything that we do on the
Speaker:editorial structure side, on the revenue side, on, you know, operational processes.
Speaker:These things.
Speaker:Just, they, they just, take a while.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:One of the other things that you mentioned, I wanna get into like
Speaker:the, I think this can be both, like a trade off of good and a bad right?
Speaker:Is, you know, you have a hundred percent retention of, of, of,
Speaker:of employee owners, I guess.
Speaker:I mean that's like the sort of advantage is like, you know, most.
Speaker:Media companies see like a revolving door of, of people and, it's
Speaker:really hard to have continuity and you're trying to build a brand.
Speaker:You're also trying to build like collegiality, as I said.
Speaker:and so that's great.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:And obviously the people who started Defector really wanted to work together.
Speaker:It wasn't like they just sort of like randomly ended up there through
Speaker:responding to a LinkedIn job post.
Speaker:And, and that I'm sure has a ton of Ben benefits, but you flick that a little bit.
Speaker:the downside in your, in your annual report in that, you know, when you have,
Speaker:when you, when you keep a hundred percent, you know, the risk is, and I don't mean
Speaker:this necessarily in a bad way, it's like.
Speaker:The product doesn't evolve as much.
Speaker:I mean, I would always think it's like having new people come in means new
Speaker:energy and new ideas from the outside.
Speaker:Yes, it's disruptive to lose people.
Speaker:You never, you know, love to lose people, et cetera.
Speaker:But the reality is anyone who's like running an organization knows you kind of
Speaker:need, you need like new blood sometimes.
Speaker:And I went to like a Catholic grade school.
Speaker:We didn't, like, I went to school with people like in the first grade
Speaker:and it was like seventh grade.
Speaker:It was the same kids.
Speaker:It was like weird.
Speaker:Then some other school closed down and, and their kids, came to and
Speaker:they were like, that was like, wow, that's a real big change.
Speaker:Talk to me about how that, about both sides of, of the
Speaker:a hundred percent retention.
Speaker:Yeah, I mean, I think you've basically nailed it like a, a
Speaker:company that is always has turnover.
Speaker:It just, you're constantly relearning and you're, you're constantly in flux
Speaker:and you know, I don't think anyone really does their best work when,
Speaker:there's too much employee turnover.
Speaker:And then on the other side, it's exactly what you said.
Speaker:You know, new voices are important and, bringing in new blood, you know, is,
Speaker:is what keeps organizations lively.
Speaker:You know, we have grown, so we've grown from 19 people to 27 people.
Speaker:So, you know, we've, we've whatever added 50% heads and, and that's adjusted
Speaker:the culture in ways that are, are good.
Speaker:but yeah, I mean, just like strategically, right?
Speaker:If tomorrow.
Speaker:an organization of a similar size but not the same structure, said, Hey,
Speaker:we're gonna start investing in, I don't know, our WNBA coverage, let's say.
Speaker:Right?
Speaker:You would just say, okay, the next time we lose two staff writers, we
Speaker:will just hire two new people who know how to write about the WNBA.
Speaker:And for us, like that just doesn't come around that often.
Speaker:And so what do you do about that?
Speaker:Well, you have people on staff who are willing to add that to their beats.
Speaker:But, you know, inevitably they do have to drop something from their
Speaker:beat in order to, to make that work.
Speaker:and, you know, you just, you're not moving as fast.
Speaker:Like we, even if we know where the ball's going, we can't
Speaker:chase it that aggressively.
Speaker:so, you know, yeah.
Speaker:It's, it's two sides of the same coin.
Speaker:That's just how it goes.
Speaker:are there other trade offs that we didn't get to?
Speaker:I think those are, those are just about it.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:So, I'm, I'm interested in like, are you surprised there aren't more
Speaker:examples of many defectors out there?
Speaker:There are, right.
Speaker:Like, I mean, there's.
Speaker:It's like discourse, blog racket, HELLGATE 4 0 4 media.
Speaker:I mean, so there are, there are people, you know, going down this path.
Speaker:And to me, like, you know, the, the defining is like, are you
Speaker:worker, or in this case journalist owned, like, right, to a degree.
Speaker:to a large degree.
Speaker:That's my, definition of it.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:yeah.
Speaker:So, you know, part of our, our work right now in winning this grant and
Speaker:building these shared services is just touching base with a lot of these folks.
Speaker:So, you know, Hellgate Rack, um, range out in Spokane, coyote Media out in the
Speaker:Bay Area 4 0 4 media, the 51st in dc.
Speaker:Aftermath is video game coverage, hearing things as music coverage.
Speaker:You know, there's, there's a handful more out there.
Speaker:and so, you know, I, these were, many of these folks I was previously in touch
Speaker:with were sort of, you know, formally interviewing them and seeing, how they're
Speaker:doing and, you know, what needs they have.
Speaker:and yeah, I mean, I think as I said in the, in the, annual report.
Speaker:Being a worker cooperative is an operating model, and it's a governance
Speaker:model, but it is not a revenue model.
Speaker:And so all of these folks have to find that balance, right, of like,
Speaker:yes, we're, we're work, we're living our ideals as a matter of governing.
Speaker:But you know, ultimately you just gotta get blogs on the page and
Speaker:you gotta get, you know, find one way to monetize it or another.
Speaker:and to some extent what we're saying here is like, let us help you figure out like.
Speaker:Let us worry about some of those things you've been thinking about and you
Speaker:try to free up more time to just blog.
Speaker:Like we, we will offer you the bookkeeping can be help or the,
Speaker:you know, forecasting help.
Speaker:We'll offer you the HR support, we'll, we'll do some of the
Speaker:vetting of tech providers.
Speaker:you know, some of that is like just general business admin.
Speaker:Some of that is more worker.
Speaker:Cooperative.
Speaker:and you know, hopefully that gives you more time to just blog, which is the
Speaker:thing that you actually like doing.
Speaker:Yeah, I feel like this is part of, you know, we talk all the time about
Speaker:this like shift from institutions to individuals and there's tons of examples
Speaker:of people who have successful newsletter businesses or podcast businesses or
Speaker:YouTube businesses, creators, et cetera.
Speaker:and then there's, you know, obviously legacy business models, right?
Speaker:And, you know, the question always ends up becoming what does a rebundling look like?
Speaker:And we see a lot of, We see some like media companies trying to like dabble
Speaker:in that, but they dabble, right?
Speaker:It's like I think about Puck, right?
Speaker:And like Puck makes a big deal about their model being totally different.
Speaker:And like Matt, Bella's, like their number one star and the New
Speaker:York Times is like, he owns like.
Speaker:About 1% of the company.
Speaker:and that's a different model.
Speaker:That's, that's, you know, basically just, it's, it's regular compensation
Speaker:with, with, with, with some upside.
Speaker:There's nothing wrong with that, of course.
Speaker:I think, I think what the question ends up being is what does a smart, and it's
Speaker:not gonna be one thing, but is this, seems like it would be one option for what.
Speaker:A rebundling sort of looks like, because a lot of the people who I talk to who are,
Speaker:you know, in that sort of independent cam, you know, it's not just about the money.
Speaker:Like it's, it's, and a lot of times it's, I think, I feel like the, the money people
Speaker:always always think it's about the money.
Speaker:Because they're money.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:go figure and then they like come in contact with people have
Speaker:like, you know, who optimize, for lack of a better word, to like.
Speaker:Other things, a broader set and they're like, I do not, I do not compute.
Speaker:but it's about more than money.
Speaker:It's like, it's, it's about, it's about autonomy.
Speaker:I've been watching like pluribus and I think it's a good exploration.
Speaker:You could kind of like
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:bit to, to the current media, landscape.
Speaker:But the question ends up being what does that kind of rebundling look like?
Speaker:That gets the right balance between the autonomy Yes.
Speaker:Being, having ownership of your work.
Speaker:And I think, you know, what happened at Deadspin, and overall really,
Speaker:I think in the aftermath of, of Gawker to Gawker media left a, a bad
Speaker:taste in, in a lot of the sort of.
Speaker:Creators, if you will, for lack of a better word, mouth.
Speaker:Like it just this model, particularly around like private equity or
Speaker:private equity, like ownership, ringing, ringing the val, the last
Speaker:drips of value out of of brands.
Speaker:Is distasteful to many.
Speaker:I think.
Speaker:I think, you know, I celebrate capitalism, but I, I fully recognize,
Speaker:you know, that it's rough spots and the question ends up being like, what, what
Speaker:do these models look like that have, everyone wants the best of both worlds.
Speaker:They want the sort of stability, of a. A more institutional media model.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:At least historically it was, but they want the autonomy of,
Speaker:you know, to be independent.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:I mean, I should say here that.
Speaker:We won this grant from Press Forward, and by we, I mean
Speaker:Defector and Start Co-Op Start.
Speaker:Co-op is a Boston-based nonprofit that focuses on accelerating
Speaker:worker ownership in the economy, so they are very much about worker
Speaker:cooperatives as well, however.
Speaker:The grant is for quote unquote labor friendly independent media, and
Speaker:there's a specific reason why we didn't say, you know, we're cooperatives.
Speaker:One is if you were going by strict definition of we're cooperatives, we're
Speaker:not even getting that much scale in terms of like making the shared services work.
Speaker:Like you can't have shared, like ideally shared services,
Speaker:purchasing, co-ops, et cetera.
Speaker:Like you would have a, a big enough scale where you can say like, Hey, we're.
Speaker:We actually get some leverage on this and we can, you know, negotiate
Speaker:prices or, or, or whatever.
Speaker:And then there's a second piece here that is many, there are people
Speaker:operating out there who would not describe themselves as a worker, co-op.
Speaker:Maybe they want to move in that direction.
Speaker:maybe they're operating effectively as a worker co-op, or, you know,
Speaker:it could be the case in 24 months.
Speaker:And they're, they're not using that language.
Speaker:And, you know, the, the word further reasons I think about are
Speaker:the, the independent newsletter writers, who, you know, you see
Speaker:people have this conversation all the time where they're like.
Speaker:You know, I, I'm grateful that I have paid subscribers.
Speaker:I also feel trapped that I have to get two newsletter out every single week.
Speaker:I don't know how to get health insurance and I can't go on vacation.
Speaker:Right?
Speaker:Like,
Speaker:I, it's funny, I had this exact conversation with, with, a guy in
Speaker:Europe who's considering going down this path and his first question
Speaker:was very European question.
Speaker:He was like, can I take two weeks vacation?
Speaker:Which I loved.
Speaker:I was like, maybe this path isn't
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:And you know, there are people who, you know, have, that have the, have the, the
Speaker:leeway with their audience and, and, you know, are established well enough that
Speaker:they can say like, yes, I take these couple weeks off around the holidays and a
Speaker:couple weeks off, around or in the summer.
Speaker:and, you know, their business is fine, but, you know, people
Speaker:feel more precarious than that.
Speaker:And so, you know, what can we do here to make it more attractive to people
Speaker:to say, Hey, we're gonna join forces.
Speaker:I I've been joking saying that like some of these things, if they are
Speaker:profitable, will be figured out by Substack in the next 18 months.
Speaker:Like, they have to grow into their valuation, right?
Speaker:So if there's a way to, figure out ad sales for, you know, small, independent
Speaker:publishers, they're gonna figure it out.
Speaker:If there's a way to do bundling profitably on a product basis,
Speaker:like they gotta figure it out.
Speaker:I mean, I don't know anybody at Substack, I'm just talking outta my ass.
Speaker:But I'm just sort of saying like, you know, these are just the, the
Speaker:opportunities out there that, now that we are sort of matured, that
Speaker:people understand what it means to be a solo, media operator.
Speaker:you know, what are the next opportunities?
Speaker:And I think the version that I am working on.
Speaker:Is, like a little bit more whatever, worker forward ideological
Speaker:on how to make that work.
Speaker:But I think there's a capitalism forward version of that.
Speaker:That also is the same thing, right?
Speaker:If you can convince more people to take this jump because they feel like they
Speaker:have the resources to, have a little bit of a safety net, or, you know, they know
Speaker:that there are the products out there that can help them do this, then, you know,
Speaker:we're basically saying the same thing.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:And I think that there are different, like there's different people who are doing.
Speaker:It's more like the centralized services, sort of approach.
Speaker:Like there's like collective media, which to me is like funny 'cause I was telling
Speaker:the founder, like there was an old ad network called Collective, but I'm the
Speaker:only person who probably remembers it.
Speaker:But, you know, and it's like a journalist first.
Speaker:Centralized services, model that has a, a, a lot of flexibility
Speaker:around the types of relationship.
Speaker:I think it's gonna, to me like this is not like a technology challenge, obviously
Speaker:it's a business model innovation.
Speaker:Like there has the business model.
Speaker:That's why I was Web3 curious for like half of
Speaker:I remember.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:because it was not the most becoming phase.
Speaker:It was like my goth phase.
Speaker:But mostly because like, you know, when like the precepts,
Speaker:I'm like, yeah, this is good.
Speaker:Like there should be some kind of like kibbutz, slight like model in media.
Speaker:and, you know, but then, you know, you get into the details
Speaker:and the details, get very messy.
Speaker:I think one of the challenges that I find with a lot of these shared services
Speaker:models is they operate from a, and I'm not saying this about collective media
Speaker:necessarily, but like they operate from a mindset where the centralized like
Speaker:service comes first and the nodes come.
Speaker:Second in some ways that like they still haven't gotten the, the right balance.
Speaker:Where, I mean, like in, in, in this model, the, the power is, you know,
Speaker:by definition with the journalists, the workers, they own everything.
Speaker:Right?
Speaker:When, when you're talking about a shared services model, you know, the
Speaker:question ends up being who, who ends up being, you know, sort of in control?
Speaker:Is it the centralized, platform?
Speaker:And or, or is it the, is it the individuals who operate, on the platform?
Speaker:And I think that is the, the challenge.
Speaker:It, it, I think, you know, oftentimes people talk about this from a data
Speaker:perspective of like who owns the data.
Speaker:the version of this that I've been wrestling with and our, our working
Speaker:team has been wrestling with is around revenue of like, if we're offering you
Speaker:revenue services and we're saying, Hey, leave it, leave it to us, you know,
Speaker:we will build your subscriber base.
Speaker:Like that is, I think two things.
Speaker:One is now you're telling them.
Speaker:You're gonna do the hardest part of their business is like figuring out how to reach
Speaker:the audience and then get them to pay.
Speaker:So are they really the entrepreneurs here that own this business?
Speaker:And then two is that's the, that is a place where you're
Speaker:gonna fail more often than not.
Speaker:And so if you present yourself as the, the person who's offering that
Speaker:service and then you fail, then your bundle of services has failed.
Speaker:Versus if what I'm offering you is.
Speaker:bookkeeping and HR and legal templates, right?
Speaker:Like there's no failure there like that.
Speaker:Just like I did the, like, I, I gave it to you and, and you know, you,
Speaker:you did the best with what you could.
Speaker:That's, but that's necessary but insufficient, isn't it, Jasper?
Speaker:I mean, like, ultimately what, what people need is like, media's a simple business.
Speaker:It's like you make the product, you distribute the product,
Speaker:and you sell the product.
Speaker:And like any anybody who's on like the independent path, like
Speaker:what they, what they always, what they always want is revenue.
Speaker:And they want, they want audience growth distribution, right.
Speaker:And I, I'll be honest to say that I think that's a place where
Speaker:there are lots of people out there trying to sell those services.
Speaker:So, that may very well be a place where we choose to partner more.
Speaker:You know, I, I, I don't wanna shout out anybody in particular, but
Speaker:certainly they're in my inbox, you know, prior to starting this project
Speaker:of trying to sell those services to me.
Speaker:and.
Speaker:it may very well be the case that that's a place where we can partner.
Speaker:you know, I would, there are lots of, as we've been doing these interviews,
Speaker:there are lots of places where people need help, where they are.
Speaker:It's not that they, we would do a better job than what they're doing,
Speaker:it's that they're not doing it at all.
Speaker:You know, the version of this is like, if you are doing well enough
Speaker:that you might hire somebody new.
Speaker:That is a huge undertaking.
Speaker:To go from your founding team of worker owners and then
Speaker:bringing anybody else in, right?
Speaker:Like when it's just the founding team, that's basically a blood oath.
Speaker:Like maybe you have worked together previously at a previous place.
Speaker:You have all, you know, signed the owner agreement and like you just
Speaker:go and everyone is on the same page.
Speaker:You know how to work together.
Speaker:You do everything.
Speaker:You just go The moment you add somebody else in here, well now you have to
Speaker:start thinking about onboarding.
Speaker:You have to start thinking about what happens if there's a disagreement.
Speaker:You don't have a employee handbook, you don't have, employee insurance.
Speaker:You don't have any number of things that make it so that you can
Speaker:actually bolt somebody on and have pretty good confidence that they
Speaker:know what they're supposed to do.
Speaker:and that's just the place where, you know, we talked to a bunch of people who
Speaker:were like, yeah, we'd consider hiring.
Speaker:We don't know how to hire, we don't even have a, you know, HRIS.
Speaker:We don't have a PEO, because we just, you know, basically transfer
Speaker:money from the, checking account into our own bank accounts.
Speaker:Like, that is how we operate right now.
Speaker:Like, we don't have any sort of this infrastructure.
Speaker:and so that's just to give a shout out to the back office stuff, right?
Speaker:Like
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:for sure.
Speaker:most people need help is on the revenue side, but what I'm saying
Speaker:is there's, there's a class of work cooperatives out there that, you
Speaker:know, they're not being served, on the, on the true back office side.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Was the, what was the term you used for, like, if someone has like a
Speaker:dispute or something that, that they have to, it sounded kind of dystopian.
Speaker:I, I liked it.
Speaker:well, we use restorative justice at defector.
Speaker:What is restorative justice?
Speaker:Sounds like someone really got injured.
Speaker:It wasn't like, you know, I don't wanna put the auto
Speaker:play video ad on the page,
Speaker:although some auto play video ads, you would need restorative
Speaker:The, the, it's in opposition to like the retributive justice, which is
Speaker:what our criminal justice system is, which is just like there's
Speaker:a rule and you broke the rule.
Speaker:And you know, as part of the rule, we know what the punishment is.
Speaker:Restorative justice is like.
Speaker:Much more.
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:Like you have been harmed and what are you looking for?
Speaker:And maybe all you're looking for is for somebody to say, sorry,
Speaker:you're looking for somebody to just explain what they were thinking.
Speaker:You're looking for someone to say, Hey, I'm, it's just not
Speaker:gonna happen again that way.
Speaker:and so, you know, the, in sort of lefty orgs, low hierarchy orgs,
Speaker:we, we, we talk about a lot about restorative justice, but you know.
Speaker:In addition to restorative justice, we have an outside HR partner.
Speaker:So if you're saying there's a discrimination complaint or
Speaker:harassment complaint, there's a place for that to land.
Speaker:It doesn't just tear apart the company because, you know, we're all
Speaker:now threatening to sue each other.
Speaker:So, you know, like you gotta have a little bit of foresight on this.
Speaker:So especially if you're gonna bring in additional people
Speaker:beyond the founding team.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Do you remember the like holacracy period?
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:you're with a few people I could mention holacracy too, that would
Speaker:actually be like, oh yeah, sure.
Speaker:yeah, I, I'm like kind of reminded of that where, you know, there's a
Speaker:lot I, and you know, I want to be like very optimistic about a lot of
Speaker:these model like newfangled models.
Speaker:Like as I said, I mean, I even for half a summer was Web3 curious.
Speaker:But I wonder like, you know, holacracy sort of, you know, in
Speaker:most cases that I read about, like Zappos and whatnot, it did just did
Speaker:not, it did not take, take hold.
Speaker:I think it's really difficult to do those things in larger organizations.
Speaker:versus, and that's, you know, basically I think anyone who's worked in a company
Speaker:has, unless they're at the top of it, has completely chafed at the hierarchy of it.
Speaker:Like it's completely arbitrary and it's like.
Speaker:It's belittling to like, just to operate as a human being.
Speaker:Like to ask someone for like permission to like spend a week
Speaker:with your family is just weird.
Speaker:what is the, like, what are you, like, what are your thoughts about like how
Speaker:realistic, just that like wrap it up like these kinds of models are, and then also
Speaker:like what are some examples out there?
Speaker:Maybe they're not like, you know, specifically worker owned or
Speaker:journalist owned that you think are.
Speaker:In trying to get this balance correct.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:so I think I, I wanna be really eyes wide open about this.
Speaker:Like, I'm not going around saying the worker, the future
Speaker:of media is worker owned.
Speaker:Like I am.
Speaker:I am not.
Speaker:I don't wanna get too high on my own supply here.
Speaker:You know, I wrote in the annual report, it's like the extent to which the amount
Speaker:of jobs that are being lost in journalism every year is thousands and thousands.
Speaker:And defector is, a 27 person shop here.
Speaker:you know, a lot of these worker cooperators are like three
Speaker:or four or five person shops.
Speaker:You have to.
Speaker:Add up a lot of five person shops in order to make up for a
Speaker:thousand, lost jobs in the, you know, corporate media environment.
Speaker:So I'm not saying this is the future, I'm saying it is one model I think that is
Speaker:replicable in a lot of different local news deserts, especially, you know, you,
Speaker:you need a couple of people to figure out how to sustain a couple of jobs
Speaker:and they gotta figure out how to work together without being, you know, rolled
Speaker:up by the, the next hedge fund that wants to get into the newspaper business.
Speaker:So, you know, it is one solution.
Speaker:I'm hopeful it is a meaningful solution.
Speaker:It's one of many solutions that could be out there.
Speaker:again, I am very open about defector.
Speaker:Had a lot of special advantages.
Speaker:and people shouldn't just assume they're gonna get subscription revenue.
Speaker:I, I sit on the board of Hellgate and I always point to them, I always say,
Speaker:Hey, that's actually the version that people should be talking about because
Speaker:they were, they started with four.
Speaker:They're now seven journalists.
Speaker:They knew each other a little bit from being around in New York, but
Speaker:it's not like they all got laid off at the same time and, you know, sort
Speaker:of had some, unifying experience there that they could pull audience for.
Speaker:but then they launched.
Speaker:And all it is is just good journalism.
Speaker:Like those are guys who are just breaking news.
Speaker:New York City obviously so huge.
Speaker:You can find news stories everywhere.
Speaker:You know, found the coverage areas that really resonated with the people
Speaker:who felt like they couldn't read it.
Speaker:Anywhere else.
Speaker:And, you know, three years later they're interviewing the new mayor on stage.
Speaker:You know, they're running a, a, a live stream, on election nights.
Speaker:and that's just, that's seven people, mostly subscription driven.
Speaker:A couple of rich people wrote them some checks at the beginning.
Speaker:And like that works.
Speaker:And not every media environment is New York, but you know, not every place
Speaker:has the cost of living in New York.
Speaker:not every place has the, you know, sort of like bureaucratic, the
Speaker:stuff of getting a business off ground that new New York state has.
Speaker:And so, yeah, I'm always pointing at Hellgate when people ask me, you
Speaker:know, who they should be talking to.
Speaker:Yeah, that's a great point.
Speaker:Awesome.
Speaker:Jasper, thank you so much.
Speaker:Really appreciate you
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Always, always a pleasure to talk to Brian.
