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Alex Mather

Founder and CEO, Eternal · 1 appearance on the record.

computed by AI from the episodes · how this works → · full disclaimer →

founderexecutiveoperator@amather ↗LinkedIn ↗eternal.co ↗

Alex Mather is the co-founder and former CEO of The Athletic, which was acquired by The New York Times Company in 2022. He previously served as VP of Product at Strava and currently serves as Founder and CEO of Eternal.

18statements → 6claims → 5claims resolved → 80%fully supported → 4.11/5average certainty → 2.11/5average debate potential → ≈4.5/5argument clarity, estimated → 1said about them ↓

4 supported 0 partly supported 1 contradicted 1 not checkable as stated how the 6 claims stand · each chip opens the sources

1 prediction · 5 assertions · 4 opinions · 5 insights · 2 disclosures · 1 what if · every statement was checked. The prediction and assertions are the 6 claims: statements the public record can support or contradict. 5 are resolved, and 1 names no date, number or outcome precise enough to check. Everything else (opinions, insights, what ifs, disclosures) can never be settled by the record, so it carries no assessment.

The record, in short

What the tape says about how Alex argues and how the claims held up. Everything they said, and everything said about them, is in the tabs below.

Their most notable supported claim

Assertion Supported
The Athletic surpassed 100,000 paying UK subscribers within one year
“And so, those advantages, they seem small on paper, but here we are a year later, and we're well north of a 100,000 paying subscribers in the UK, building a really great product for fans all over the world.”
Alex Mather Jul 10, 2020 ▶ 9:23 20VC: The Future of Subscription Media, Why Startups Need To Stop Blaming Facebook and Google & How Founders Should Think Through Customer Acquisition Channel Dependencies with Alex Mather, Founder & CEO @ The Athletic

Their most notable contradicted claim

Prediction Didn’t hold up
Mather: The Athletic headcount will reach thousands within years
“We'll be in the thousands of people, hopefully, over the next couple years, and sports is just one of those areas where the empire makes sense.”
Alex Mather Jul 10, 2020 ▶ 24:17 20VC: The Future of Subscription Media, Why Startups Need To Stop Blaming Facebook and Google & How Founders Should Think Through Customer Acquisition Channel Dependencies with Alex Mather, Founder & CEO @ The Athletic

Expressed certainty vs assessment result

none yet certainty 1
none yet certainty 2
0% certainty 3
100% certainty 4
100% certainty 5

weighted support: a fully supported claim counts one, a partly supported claim counts half. Each filled bar is clickable and opens exactly those claims; "none yet" means nothing said at that certainty level has resolved yet

How they sound: speaking style how? →

223 words/min while actually speaking · 0 um and uh per 1k words

No argument clarity score for Alex Mather: no usable question→answer exchanges on raw tape (a fair score needs 8+). We do not score a sample that small. Roundtable and news formats yield far fewer direct exchanges than interviews. Their coarse estimate from 26 exchanges on the produced feed is ≈4.5/5, shown at half point precision because the sample is small and produced tape scores higher.

Measured by listening to 4,858 words across 1 episode, but every recording we have of Alex Mather is the aired feed, and an editor cleaned that audio before release. Some of the hesitation was cut before we ever heard it, so read these as floors: the true rates are at least this high. These are measurements of speaking style, not scores. How it's measured →

How the interview went all their pushback → series average →

Across 1 rated episode:

host pushback ▾ 1/10
pushed back at the host ▾ 2/10
setup questions received 55%

Everything Alex Mather said on 20VC that made the record, most notable first. Filter by type, assessment or year in the ledger →

Opinion
Mather: Media companies should pay Facebook and Google, not demand payouts
“We should be paying Facebook and Google as media companies, not the other way around. If you can't make your business thrive in this world where Facebook and Google exist, that's on you.”
Alex Mather Jul 10, 2020 ▶ 27:57 20VC: The Future of Subscription Media, Why Startups Need To Stop Blaming Facebook and Google & How Founders Should Think Through Customer Acquisition Channel Dependencies with Alex Mather, Founder & CEO @ The Athletic
Disclosure
Mather: Paid Facebook acquisition works for subscription media, not ad models
“Frankly, the CAC has been very workable. When you're a subscription business, you know, you're generating revenue off your subscribers. And so it works for us. It may not work if you're an advertising driven business, but absolutely works for us.”
Alex Mather Jul 10, 2020 ▶ 30:41 20VC: The Future of Subscription Media, Why Startups Need To Stop Blaming Facebook and Google & How Founders Should Think Through Customer Acquisition Channel Dependencies with Alex Mather, Founder & CEO @ The Athletic
Opinion
Mather: Social media platforms are an unbelievable negative for news consumption
“I think these platforms are a unbelievable negative for how people consume news for all the obvious reasons”
Alex Mather Jul 10, 2020 ▶ 34:49 20VC: The Future of Subscription Media, Why Startups Need To Stop Blaming Facebook and Google & How Founders Should Think Through Customer Acquisition Channel Dependencies with Alex Mather, Founder & CEO @ The Athletic
Insight
Mather: Few media categories achieve both scale and margin like sports
“Most categories can't get margin or scale like sports, and so the rebel model, to me, makes a ton of sense.”
Alex Mather Jul 10, 2020 ▶ 24:07 20VC: The Future of Subscription Media, Why Startups Need To Stop Blaming Facebook and Google & How Founders Should Think Through Customer Acquisition Channel Dependencies with Alex Mather, Founder & CEO @ The Athletic
Opinion
Mather: Substack is capturing the opportunity Medium had and missed
“I think if you look at what happened with Substack, to just take a second to look at that business, and it's a wonderful product, a wonderful founding team, and they're much more competitive with, say, Medium. And we don't necessarily look at them as competito…”
Alex Mather Jul 10, 2020 ▶ 26:24 20VC: The Future of Subscription Media, Why Startups Need To Stop Blaming Facebook and Google & How Founders Should Think Through Customer Acquisition Channel Dependencies with Alex Mather, Founder & CEO @ The Athletic
Opinion
Mather: Silicon Valley culture needs pragmatism and nuance over rigid principles
“I'd love to see more pragmatism over principles a little bit, which is like, Thought is becoming too much of a religion right now, and I really love just, we talk to our newsroom about this a lot, like, add nuance. Don't take nuance away, and how can we solve …”
Alex Mather Jul 10, 2020 ▶ 32:20 20VC: The Future of Subscription Media, Why Startups Need To Stop Blaming Facebook and Google & How Founders Should Think Through Customer Acquisition Channel Dependencies with Alex Mather, Founder & CEO @ The Athletic
Insight
Mather: Subscription business models force direct alignment with consumers
“Subscription is just one of these things that allows you to focus directly on the consumer”
Alex Mather Jul 10, 2020 ▶ 4:46 20VC: The Future of Subscription Media, Why Startups Need To Stop Blaming Facebook and Google & How Founders Should Think Through Customer Acquisition Channel Dependencies with Alex Mather, Founder & CEO @ The Athletic
What-if
Mather: Strava should have targeted casual cyclists sooner
“And at some moments in the company's history, we were probably a little too exclusive. We should have talked to more of the weekend warriors versus the folks already riding 200 miles a week.”
Alex Mather Jul 10, 2020 ▶ 7:20 20VC: The Future of Subscription Media, Why Startups Need To Stop Blaming Facebook and Google & How Founders Should Think Through Customer Acquisition Channel Dependencies with Alex Mather, Founder & CEO @ The Athletic
Assertion Supported
The Athletic surpassed 100,000 paying UK subscribers within one year
“And so, those advantages, they seem small on paper, but here we are a year later, and we're well north of a 100,000 paying subscribers in the UK, building a really great product for fans all over the world.”
Alex Mather Jul 10, 2020 ▶ 9:23 20VC: The Future of Subscription Media, Why Startups Need To Stop Blaming Facebook and Google & How Founders Should Think Through Customer Acquisition Channel Dependencies with Alex Mather, Founder & CEO @ The Athletic
Insight
Mather: Founders must prepare for press like VC pitches
“I would just give any entrepreneur the advice of investing in comms. Someone who's wonderful on the comm side, and Taylor Patterson on our team, is just amazing. Keeps me honest. Keeps me trained, and dealing with the press is a job, and you have to have a str…”
Alex Mather Jul 10, 2020 ▶ 15:51 20VC: The Future of Subscription Media, Why Startups Need To Stop Blaming Facebook and Google & How Founders Should Think Through Customer Acquisition Channel Dependencies with Alex Mather, Founder & CEO @ The Athletic
Insight
Overcoming VC disinterest creates a strong pioneer moat for startups
“If few investors are interested, if you can cross that hurdle, it creates an incredible moat for you, because you can be the pioneer.”
Alex Mather Jul 10, 2020 ▶ 18:42 20VC: The Future of Subscription Media, Why Startups Need To Stop Blaming Facebook and Google & How Founders Should Think Through Customer Acquisition Channel Dependencies with Alex Mather, Founder & CEO @ The Athletic
Insight
Mather: Board members showing genuine care matters most to founders
“One of the most valuable things on a personal level is you can tell so quickly when the board member cares about the company, About you as a founder, about the journey, and the difference between someone who cares and someone who doesn't is so meaningful to th…”
Alex Mather Jul 10, 2020 ▶ 22:10 20VC: The Future of Subscription Media, Why Startups Need To Stop Blaming Facebook and Google & How Founders Should Think Through Customer Acquisition Channel Dependencies with Alex Mather, Founder & CEO @ The Athletic
Prediction Didn’t hold up
Mather: The Athletic headcount will reach thousands within years
“We'll be in the thousands of people, hopefully, over the next couple years, and sports is just one of those areas where the empire makes sense.”
Alex Mather Jul 10, 2020 ▶ 24:17 20VC: The Future of Subscription Media, Why Startups Need To Stop Blaming Facebook and Google & How Founders Should Think Through Customer Acquisition Channel Dependencies with Alex Mather, Founder & CEO @ The Athletic
Assertion Supported
The Athletic launched in the UK with 55 employees within 119 days
“And a 119 days later, we had 55 full-time employees in the UK, and we were launching.”
Alex Mather Jul 10, 2020 ▶ 9:00 20VC: The Future of Subscription Media, Why Startups Need To Stop Blaming Facebook and Google & How Founders Should Think Through Customer Acquisition Channel Dependencies with Alex Mather, Founder & CEO @ The Athletic
Assertion Supported
The Athletic scaled its headcount to 550 employees
“Going from zero to 550 employees is used to write code, and thankfully they don't let me anymore, but now my job is communication, and all day long I must focus on communicating, and that is absolutely a full-time job.”
Alex Mather Jul 10, 2020 ▶ 12:10 20VC: The Future of Subscription Media, Why Startups Need To Stop Blaming Facebook and Google & How Founders Should Think Through Customer Acquisition Channel Dependencies with Alex Mather, Founder & CEO @ The Athletic
Disclosure
Strava's founder and Charles Hudson wrote the first Athletic angel checks
“Michael Horvath, the founder of Strava, was our first check, but it was a smaller check, and then the next check was Charles Hudson at Precursor”
Alex Mather Jul 10, 2020 ▶ 19:28 20VC: The Future of Subscription Media, Why Startups Need To Stop Blaming Facebook and Google & How Founders Should Think Through Customer Acquisition Channel Dependencies with Alex Mather, Founder & CEO @ The Athletic
Assertion Supported
Mather helped scale Strava from 1,500 to over 10 million users
“I was lucky enough to be employee number seven there, the first sort of design and product hire, and built out those teams over the years at Strava, and helped grow that company from 1500 users to over ten million”
Alex Mather Jul 10, 2020 ▶ 4:31 20VC: The Future of Subscription Media, Why Startups Need To Stop Blaming Facebook and Google & How Founders Should Think Through Customer Acquisition Channel Dependencies with Alex Mather, Founder & CEO @ The Athletic
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Mather: Early Strava overexpanded features into nutrition and route planning
“And so there were definitely a few years there at Strava where we were running around trying to build so many things at once. Whether it be nutrition or finding a route to ride or things like that.”
Alex Mather Jul 10, 2020 ▶ 6:27 20VC: The Future of Subscription Media, Why Startups Need To Stop Blaming Facebook and Google & How Founders Should Think Through Customer Acquisition Channel Dependencies with Alex Mather, Founder & CEO @ The Athletic

The other half of the tape: Alex Mather's own voice is left out of every number here. 1 statement on the record names them. every mention, with the transcript →

Statements about Alex Mather, by other people (1)

Assertion Supported
Alex Mather raised over $139M for The Athletic
“To date, Alex has raised over one hundred and thirty nine million dollars with The Athletic from some of the best in the business, including Founders Fund, Bedrock, Y Combinator and Emerson Collective, to name a few.”
Harry Stebbings Jul 10, 2020 ▶ 0:21 20VC: The Future of Subscription Media, Why Startups Need To Stop Blaming Facebook and Google & How Founders Should Think Through Customer Acquisition Channel Dependencies with Alex Mather, Founder & CEO @ The Athletic

Appearances (1)

EpisodeDateSpeaking time
20VC: The Future of Subscription Media, Why Startups Need To Stop Blaming Facebook and Goo Jul 10, 2020 24m
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