Something I think about a lot: All Things D had the right model. It was early to the idea that journalists could be “influencers” and the need for business models beyond ads, particularly events. will see publishers look to build around top talent even as they make cuts overall. I map out how organizations will need to adapt to this new reality in this week’s member-only content.
Plust: avoiding the productivity trap while still being productive.
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On productivity
We are trying a different type of episode with PvA this week. Instead of being tied to news development, we went deep on an issue we all grapple with: productivity. An excerpt from the PvA Weekender newsletter that comes out each Friday. Sign up to get it.
For the full discussion, watch PvA on YouTube | Apple | Spotify | other podcast platforms. New episodes are released every Friday morning.
Economic growth requires productivity. Labor productivity – more outputs for similar inputs – is both critical not just to the overall economy but to raising wages. It’s lagged since the productivity boom as companies digitized from 1995 to 2005. Labor productivity grew during that period 3.2% annually, only to drop in subsequent years to 1.3%. And that’s with the advent of the smartphone, cloud computing and all the rest that were supposed productivity boons.
AI is now held out as the latest savior to productivity. One study found that AI has already made developers 26% more productive. The quest for productivity is bigger than AI, it’s become something of a secular religion. Silicon Valley is discovering its masculine energy of martial sports and extremely hard core performance cultures. YouTube is filled with productivity creators like Ali Abdal, and the 4-Hour Workweek guy moved on to the 4-Hour Body and the 4-Hour Chef. Now, he’s arrived at counseling people that they need to say No. Imagine.
Modern productivity culture is an outgrowth of optimization obsession. We can measure more than ever, so we gravitate to squeezing out incremental gains and sometimes lose sight of the direction we want to go. My still-evolving approach to productivity:
Measuring only outputs is problematic. Ask the Soviets. Instead focus on inputs in the form of good habits that over time lead to superior results.
Paul O’Neill’s unorthodox approach to improving productivity at Alcoa is worth examining. He focused on the keystone habit of worker safety.
Resist the productivity treadmill. You’ll never feel truly productive, so better accept that this is mike any other religious belief: aspiration of reaching an ideal.
It’s important to “sit in your chamber” and focus on deep work, but do not discount the power of daydreaming if you’re in some kind of creative or creative-adjacent field. If your work involves ideas, you likely won’t get many at your desk. I’ve had very productive time at the beach, looking at cumulus clouds.
There are Notion People. They’re often product managers. You want to find these people if you’re not a Notion person.
Nobody is coming to save you. No AI app or YouTube goon has the secret code.
Batch work types to avoid context switching. I divide my days between content in the morning and business in the afternoon.
Productivity is an economic measurement, not a moral judgment. Your labor productivity isnot your self worth.
Get all of our approaches to productivity in the PvA Weekender. Send me your thoughts on productivity by hitting reply or emailing [email protected].
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Talent, system players, glue guys, JAGs
Media businesses are talent businesses. There are no factories, little in the way of proprietary methodologies. The most successful media companies attract and retain the best talent, and critically provide them an environment and platform to succeed beyond what they’d be able to accomplish elsewhere.
What’s changed is the leverage has shifted from the institution to the individual. Mainstream media’s painful retooling of their business models has led to a hemorrhaging of top talent. It is now nearly four years since Ben Smith kicked off his New York Times media column by examining the unease at the Times to encroachment of Substack. The column holds up, as the years since has seen not a flood by a constant leak of talent, only not just to Substack, but to Beehiiv, YouTube and beyond. Substack was just a proxy for an independent path top talent can take.
Just since the start of the year, we’ve seen Ashlee Vance depart Bloomberg Media to start his own outlet, Core Memory, which will have a home on Substack, YouTube and beyond.The Washington Post has lost plenty of top journalists as it goes through an extended identity crisis, including Jen Rubin and Norm Eisen creating a new publication. Piers Morgan is hanging his own shingle on YouTube after decamping from News UK. You could see Chuck Todd taking this.
The challenge for institutional media is that the economics can be better with a lean operation. Beyond that, media sinecures are few and far between.
That said, this year will invariably be marked by publications elevating star talent. The model will be to build franchises around influential journalists, including subscriptions and events. And crucially that will change the economics. Talent will share in the upside. They have the leverage now to demand deals that are more common in entertainment.
Barstool is something of a model. Dave Portnoy is unsurprisingly in another tiff, this time with Grace O’Malley who said she left Barstool for Alex Cooper’s Unwell Network because she felt underpaid. Portnoy responded with details of her deal: a $175,000 salary and 70% of ad deals sold on her social media accounts.
These kinds of arrangements will inevitably move throughout the information space. It will put pressure on organizations to adapt to new economics and become focused on talent development and acquisition. It’s not a surprise that The Washington Post is developing a talent unit.
This will need to be done at a time of cutbacks to do more with less. That will create an awkwardness in union shops and strain the journalistic impulse that this a team game. That is true, but teams have players who play different positions and get compensated far differently.
The division I see happening is something like this:
Talent. The top people are ambidextrous. They can write, podcast, host events, and command something approaching a parasocial relationship with an audience.
System players. The people who excel within an editorial system. These are the unsung heroes in newsrooms. You always need system players.
Glue people. This is a group of people that’s at risk, particularly as AI makes coordination work more automated. Moving data between systems and summarizing it will be done by machines. Tech companies have shown that many developer roles can be replaced. Every organization has many people who play some version of traffic cop and translator.
JAGs. Bill Parcells described replaceable players as “Just a Guy.” Most companies are filled with JAGs, and a lot of the previous generation of scaled publishers were stuffed with them.
The painful transition many publishers will need to make is to slim down their ranks of JAGs and glue people. New entrants won’t be built the same way.
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