Jun 6, 2022 · 1h 16m · how-i-built-this
Pitchfork: Ryan Schreiber
0:00 / 0:00
gold bands on the timeline = statements, start to end. Hover to read, click to jump. CC turns on captions
In this episode of 'How I Built This', Pitchfork founder Ryan Schreiber details how he transformed a DIY bedroom music blog into an iconic indie tastemaking powerhouse and festival brand before orchestrating its acquisition by Condé Nast.
How this conversation actually went
Every chapter scored 0–10 on four independent dynamics. Hover any point for the reasoning behind the score. Guy holds 33% of the talking time here. How this is scored →
Guy as informed peer 2.7 Guest teaching 1.4 Guest disagreement 0.1 Guy pushing back 0.1
speaking balance: gold is Guy, purple is the guest (3 minute bins)
Sharpest disagreement ▶ 28:35 Schreiber defends seeing the website as his real career
When Raz asks whether Pitchfork was just a side project and not a real business, Schreiber firmly clarifies that he fully saw it as his future while others didn't.
Hardest push from Guy ▶ 28:40 Raz challenges whether Pitchfork was ever viewed as a real businessRaz presses Schreiber on whether he truly considered a tiny, unmonetized bedroom website in the mid-1990s as a genuine career path.
Biggest teaching moment ▶ 1:00:35 Schreiber explains the low-margin realities of music festivalsSchreiber educates Raz on the harsh financial reality of music festivals, explaining that high overhead, weather dependency, and artist competition capped festival profits at roughly 10% of revenue.
Guy holds their own ▶ 23:43 Raz quotes Schreiber's original 1995 Amps reviewRaz demonstrates his detailed research by reading Schreiber's first review verbatim and contrasting its raw enthusiasm with classic rock critics like Robert Christgau and Jim DeRogatis.
the scores for every segment, with the reasoning behind each
| Chapter | Topic | Guy as informed peer | Guest teaching | Guest disagreement | Guy pushing back | Why |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Early Musical Obsession and High School Days | 3 | 1 | 0 | 0 | Guy Raz establishes a warm, biographical rapport, demonstrating familiarity with the Minneapolis music scene (referencing Husker Du, Prince, and The Replacements). Ryan shares his early ADHD struggles and obsession with making tapes from CD listening stations. | |
| Record Store Jobs and Zine Culture | 3 | 1 | 0 | 0 | Raz asks knowledgeable questions about UK music journalism (Melody Maker, NME) and zine production tools (PageMaker, QuarkXPress). Schreiber explains the polite nature of US indie zines and his desire to introduce UK-style biting critique. | |
| Launching Turntable and Receiving Promotional CDs | 2 | 2 | 0 | 0 | Schreiber describes calling Minneapolis librarians to track down record label phone numbers and discovering that music publicists send advance promotional CDs. Raz listens with amusement and asks conversational follow-up questions. | |
| Rebranding to Pitchfork and First Reviews | 4 | 0 | 0 | 0 | Raz demonstrates his music journalism knowledge by quoting Schreiber's original 1995 Amps review and contrasting its unpretentious tone with veteran critics like Robert Christgau and Jim DeRogatis. | |
| Establishing Daily Content and Telemarketing | 2 | 2 | 1 | 1 | Raz gently clarifies whether Pitchfork was initially just a hobby, prompting Schreiber to explain that he genuinely viewed the website as his viable future while funding his rent through telemarketing commissions. | |
| Moving to Chicago and Securing InSound Ads | 3 | 2 | 0 | 0 | Raz shows strong context around Chicago indie record labels (Touch and Go, Drag City). Schreiber explains securing Pitchfork's first $500/month advertiser, InSound, and utilizing unpaid writers eager for portfolio clips. | |
| The Kid A Turning Point and Minnesota Cabin Retreat | 3 | 2 | 0 | 0 | Raz recites Brent DiCrescenzo's infamous 10.0 review of Radiohead's Kid A, noting its huge impact. Schreiber describes gamifying site traffic by seeding fan forums before having to retreat temporarily to a Minnesota cabin when rent fell through. | |
| Hiring Business Leadership and the Travis Morrison Review | 3 | 2 | 0 | 0 | Raz brings up Pitchfork's notorious 0.0 rating of Travis Morrison's solo album. Schreiber admits the brutal review made them re-evaluate their cultural authority and handle reviews more responsibly going forward. | |
| Scaling Operations and Developing Leadership | 2 | 1 | 0 | 0 | Schreiber explains hiring Chris Caskey from The Onion, who formalized ad sales and co-led the business, allowing Pitchfork to remain profitable and independent without venture capital. | |
| Launching the Pitchfork Music Festival | 2 | 2 | 0 | 0 | Raz asks about the economics of running a music festival. Schreiber clarifies that live events are extremely high-risk with tight margins, contributing only about 10 percent of Pitchfork's total revenue. | |
| Media Landscape Shifts and Condé Nast Acquisition | 3 | 1 | 0 | 0 | Raz tracks the mid-2010s digital media shift and the rise of social platforms. Schreiber details why selling to Condé Nast in 2015 made strategic sense as digital ad models shifted toward luxury networks and paywalls. | |
| Integrating into Condé Nast Corporate Culture | 2 | 2 | 0 | 0 | Raz asks about adapting to the corporate environment at One World Trade Center alongside figures like Anna Wintour and David Remnick. Schreiber discusses the benefits of editorial peer access alongside corporate cuts to print and video side projects. | |
| Departing Pitchfork and Looking Forward | 2 | 1 | 0 | 0 | Raz asks Schreiber to reflect on leaving the company in 2019 and whether his 1995 self would be surprised. Schreiber shares pride in Pitchfork's lasting human curation amidst modern algorithmic discovery. | |
| Ryan Schreiber's Top Five Favorite Albums | 4 | 0 | 0 | 1 | Raz quickly trades rapid-fire album recommendations with Schreiber, interjecting with favorites like 'What's Going On' and Prince's 'Sign o' the Times' before Schreiber declares 'Purple Rain' his definitive all-time favorite. |
Statements from this episode (16)
UK music press inspired Pitchfork's vicious early editorial tone
“And that, I think that, that kind of UK sensibility of me, of the UK music press, was one of the things that really influenced me to kind of be cattier or more vicious early on.”
Schreiber scaled early Pitchfork by mailing advance promotional CDs to volunteer writers
“Once that started to happen, I started to go, I have so much music here that I can't cover myself. Maybe if I put out, like, you know, a post on the website, I can find other people I can send these CDs to, they can write about it, and maybe we can, like, real…”
Pitchfork faced zero online competition for indie music coverage in the mid-1990s
“I was very fortunate to be able to establish Pitchfork at a time when there was zero competition. There was nothing on the web for these artists.”
Pitchfork was not officially incorporated as a business until 2004
“I don't think we were even incorporated officially until, like, 2004.”
Schreiber funded his move to Chicago by selling CDs on eBay
“I just started selling the stuff that I already had in my collection, kind of like whittling it down and what can I get rid of and what's worth a lot. And through doing that, I made, I don't know, Probably five grand, but I moved to Chicago with that much mone…”
Pitchfork secured its first advertiser, InSound, for $500 a month
“They asked me to name a price and I, so I went, oh my God, I wonder how much. So I just pulled out the biggest number that I could think of, which was 500 dollars a month.”
Pitchfork broke 5,000 daily readers after publishing its viral Kid A review
“It brought in a staggering amount of traffic. We handily broke that 5000 mark in the day that review came out”
Pitchfork gained mainstream attention precisely because of its hyperbolic editorial style
“If that had just been, you know, a pretty straight face, you know, if it had read like any other music journalism, I don't think people would have even really necessarily noticed us.”
Pitchfork's infamous 0.0 Travis Morrison review forced it to wield authority responsibly
“And unfortunately that was also the point at which I realized when I realized that pitch work could break careers, could like break artists in the bad way.
I was like, yeah, that really gave me pause because the reaction to that, I did not, I mean, I didn't,
E…”
Pitchfork reached six employees and over $200,000 annual revenue by 2005
“Yeah, it would have been something like that because by 2005, yeah, we probably had something like six employees at that point.”
Live music festivals are incredibly high-risk businesses vulnerable to single-point failures
“There is so much overhead that it's also like kind of a delicate dance where all of these things have to just happen just right. You know, you have to have a reasonable artist budget with which you can attract talent that's not going to the competing festivals…”
Pitchfork kept its music festival profitable by deliberately refusing to scale
“By staying mid-sized and not trying to scale up and not trying to compete with the Lollapalooza's and Coachella's and Bonnaroo's we were able to manage to make it profitable, break even. So no, it wasn't a big, it was probably, it might've been 10% of our over…”
Modern digital media publications struggle to survive without a subscription paywall
“If you don't have a paywall, You're struggling.”
Pitchfork had approximately 50 employees when acquired by Condé Nast in 2015
“By that time we had. 50 some employees.”