The Exchanges

Q So from what I have read, you, you managed to get, find a scholarship, a grant to enable you to spend a year overseas, like, apprenticing in a bunch of different kitchens, and, um, and where was your first stop?

A My first stop was in Germany, uh, in a small town in the Black Forest called, uh, Weingarten, and I worked in a bread bakery there, and I worked there for a few months, and it was a very old-school bakery in the sense that, uh, in the front, the, the, the people who sold the bread were all women who wore these kind of, like, nice dresses, and everyone who worked in the bread bakery, uh, was, was a man, and so I- And I lived above the bakery in the bakery owners. He had a spare apartment up there that was filled with his, uh, taxidermy, uh, prizes from his trips to Africa. And so, yeah, and so I would sleep there with these kind of giant animal shadows, um, looming, and when the, the head baker would come in and turn on the oven, it, the whole building vibrated. And that was, that was my wake-up call to get downstairs. And, um, You know, it was, um, I would say it was not the most pleasant place to work, um, but it was, it was really, you know, I learned how to make, um, you know, pretzels and all sorts of different grain breads, and also it was such a weird place, you know, the, the owner had a very fierce temper, and if things didn't go the way he wanted them, he would often come in shouting, and sometimes he would hit people over the head with a loaf of bread, and, you know, it was, um, it was, um, These are the sort of beginnings where I feel like I was my, the sort of write…

AI assessment note: “My first stop was in Germany, uh, in a small town in the Black Forest”

Q And given that you didn't have budget for marketing, or you weren't spending money on marketing, were you able to get attention because you were Amanda Hesser of the New York Times?

A I, I think it helped in the beginning. We had a very lucky thing happen early on, actually before we launched. We had a splash page up, uh, where we could collect email addresses, and we did a video that was just a video tour of my, my kitchen, and because we wanted, that was, that was another element. We wanted people to, like, be able to upload their own videos, show us what they were doing, you know, show us their kitchens. Um, again, we were just trying to sort of Plant little seeds of the different things that we felt like, you know, could be done. We put that video up on Vimeo and didn't put a password on it because we were like, you know, nobody, nobody knows us. Nobody knows we're working on this. We just felt like food people aren't on Vimeo necessarily. Well, it turns out that somebody from Sirius Eats, which is another website, was on Vimeo and found it and published it. And that was and,, and it was essentially like, hey, you know, Amanda Hesser and Merrill Stubbs are up to this, on this, they're working on something new, and you know, we've got like the first scoop on it, and it was sort of this gift, because what happened was thousands of people signed up on our splash page, and so, which allowed us to do a closed beta where we could let like a couple hundred people in per day, so that when we finally launched, we already had, you know, like 10,000, I think, commu…

AI assessment note: “I, I think it helped in the beginning. We had a very lucky thing happen”

Q Oh, wow. And it was like a walled garden, right?

A It was a walled garden, um, And had been there actually, I think even longer than the chateau. It had, you know, there was a found, like the foundation of an old ice house. It just like was this, this whole place was like this museum of French life from hundreds of years ago. And he also seemed like this relic of the past. You know, he rolled his own cigarettes. He planted according to the moons. He was this very kind of cranky, grumbly gardener who had this tiny little dog named Pousse. Who would follow him around, and I just loved him. I just thought, well, this is the France that I've been looking for. These are the people who, like, I want to get to know. But at the same time, I was also really cognizant of the fact that even though I grew up with the, you know, upbringing I had where, you know, we cooked, my mom cooked seasonally, we, you know, we ate a huge variety of food, and everything was homemade, you know, made from scratch. I didn't understand fully the cycle of the seasons and like how it influenced like what you, you know, if you cooked seasonally, like genuinely seasonally, like what that really would look like. And so my idea was to write about getting to know, was, well, basically my idea was first just a project. You know, I asked Anne, like, can I stay another year and just follow Monsieur Malbert around and get to know him and what he does and continue cook…

AI assessment note: “It was a walled garden, um, And had been there actually”

Q So, I mean, so clearly you were setting out to build a different kind of media company, but, but, but what exactly would that be? I mean, we're, like, what were you imagining it It could be at that time.

A Yeah, so we felt like the flaws of traditional media were very apparent, right? Like, like having a single revenue stream was not going to be lasting, have, which would, you know, in traditional media is just advertising. We also felt like traditional media was really just broadcasting at people, and that with the, with the digital age, people wanted something different. They wanted an interaction. And Separate from kind of, you know, technology and media, just in the food world itself, food had become, had really gone through the sea change from being this kind of niche area of interest for some people to becoming threaded throughout our culture, and really threaded into people's identities. And we felt like no one was really acknowledging that. Where you saw it was online, and there were all of these bloggers who were, you know, now these blogging platforms developed in the, in the mid to, you know, 2000, and people started all of a sudden out of the word work, you know, traditional media was like, kind of like, we are the gatekeepers, we, we are the experts, and you're just, you're kind of a home cook who follows us. Then all of a sudden, you saw all of these people who know a ton about food, and who are like lawyers by day, or, you know, who, who just do this on the side, or who, or who just, It's like their total life passion. They just don't, like, make money off of it, r…

AI assessment note: “We were like, ok, we want to give those people a platform”

Q But your mom, who was like, why are you, because, right, she was like, what's my daughter doing in life? Then you got this job with the New York Times, and she was so proud of you, and she must have been so concerned when you left that job.

A Yeah, she, she was. I mean, she, I think she was really frightened and unhappy that I left the times. My mom is just, you know, she, she's of a generation where women weren't encouraged, and my mom is a really, like, ambitious, smart, savvy person who, you know, unfortunately, like, hasn't gotten to pursue her dreams, and so I think, you know, she's been a great supporter. She, she definitely has, like, a tough love way about her, but But I also think that's been really inspiring for me, and I think that, like, yeah, a part, part of, of my goal is to, like, you know, prove that when, you know, women can, can do these things, right? And, you know, show my mom and, like, um, kind of take advantage of the fact that I, you know, like, of the opportunities that she didn't have, because I think that's what she would want, right? And so, um, I think that's why when I left the New York Times, she thought, like, what are you doing? Like, you, like, you have this amazing job. Why would you ever leave? Um, and so she, uh, in her, her way, um, she would refer to Food 52 as a, my project, um, even when we had 20 employees.

AI assessment note: “I think she was really frightened and unhappy that I left the times.”

Q kind of like, if you don't mess up, it's sort of like a tenured professorship. Like, it can, it can be a job for life. And going out and leaping out and starting something on your own can be scary. A lot of journalists are scared, and many of them end up staying in their organizations for that reason. What do you think gave you the courage to do it?

A I just was feeling frustrated, and I think I was at a point in my life, you know, where I was no longer the, like, young kid on, on staff. I, if I wanted to have the interesting career that I had yearned for, like, I needed to make it happen. You know, I, I love reading obituaries, and I always love the obituaries of people who have, you know, Done, like, multiple, like, distinct things in their career, because it takes that leap, it takes that, that, that bravery, and also that sort of belief in yourself, and yeah, I, I think there was just something inside of me that instinctively knew that I wasn't going to be happy if I stayed, and I didn't know what was going to happen on the outside, but it was worth taking that risk.

AI assessment note: “instinctively knew that I wasn't going to be happy if I stayed”

Q would, I would, I would ask you, and I hope, I hope this doesn't, like, reawaken traumatic experiences, or, or long buried bad experiences, but, but I would say, okay, well, how are you guys gonna make money, right? You, you've got a website, but, like, are you gonna, are you gonna do advertising? I mean, I mean, I'm assuming initially that at least that that was the plan, right?

A Yeah, we were absolutely focused on that as our, our initial primary revenue stream, and that Commerce would come later. And, you know, there would be cookbooks, and there would be events, and there would be other things. Um, we didn't have, like, a big track record to prove this, and we were also, I think most, more importantly, we were, uh, two editors coming from traditional media, and media was just not, like, it was in 2009, 2010, Like, nobody wanted to invest in media. You know, there's just the, there are these shifting winds in venture capital, and I think that, like, every time we went out to raise, we were always at the, like, bad side of the shifting wind. Um, but I think that in, in, you know, in retrospect, you end up kind of with the right investors, right? Because you get a lot of no's, but you push, you know, if, if you can, if you can push through, you know, you, you end up with the, with the real believers.

AI assessment note: “we were absolutely focused on that as our, our initial primary revenue stream”

Q When did it become clear to you that advertising was not going to, advertising alone was not going to be able to, to, to sustain it?

A I think that was clear very early, and I, I think that there are a lot of, a lot of people actually still say to me, they're like, oh, right, so you, you know, you added a shop so that you could, you know, have, like, a different revenue stream, and it's like, well, no, no, that's not, that's not why we did it. We really were focused on, like, what, like, if we're gonna say this as a hub, we're creating a real hub, we have to be able to serve people in a lot of different ways, so we focused on how we wanted to serve them, and then we figure out how to monetize them. In the beginning, it's just, like, advertising was in this, Very established mechanism for funding media, right, online, and it, it was, of course, we needed to develop that as a core revenue stream, but if we were only going to build our business around that, we were just going to be a media company, and that wasn't our goal.

AI assessment note: “I think that was clear very early”

Q Wow. Um, what, what were you like as, as a teenager? Um, were you a good student? Were you, were you well behaved? Like to tell me, tell me what you remember about what, what you were like.

A So I, I was a good student, and I, uh, you know, I was a very, like, you know, involved in a lot of school activities. I played basketball. I, you know, ran track. I played tennis. I was, uh, very active. But I, you know, I think that a couple of things, like, heavily influenced, um, certainly my teenage years. When I was 11, you know, my dad, he had, um, A massive heart attack, and from, from, he, you know, he survived this heart attack, um, but it severely diminished his health, and it was a pretty intense period of my life, and I think that, you know, at that age, I was, I just had a very different feeling about my parents than most teenagers, you know. I think, uh, you know, I had a real appreciation for the fact that they were alive, and it was very clear that to me that, like, You know, life was precious, and this was, um, we were lucky.

AI assessment note: “I was a good student, and I, uh, you know, I was a very”

Q And just to be clear, Amanda, your, I guess your initial idea was to do a website where you would crowdsource ideas for recipes, and, and as I understand it, um, in order to help you launch this as a business, you wanted to start, start it by writing a, a cookbook?

A Yeah. And one of the things that I knew how to do was to sell a book. Yeah. Because I felt like there was a, a kind of clean way to test the concept of a new, a new kind of business and a new kind of meat food media company by using the construct of a cookbook, you know, and that you could, you know, create a cookbook through a website, have it be crowdsourced, test out ways of curating it, and really see if people, if it resonates with people, um, And I felt like even if the idea did not resonate as a business, and we did not see the other opportunities that we were hoping to see, I knew that we could come out with a good quality cookbook. But I really, you know, we were betting on it becoming a business, and, but we didn't want to, um, have to try to raise money, and so that's where we use the advance money, which is what you usually use to pay yourself as an author.

AI assessment note: “Yeah. And one of the things that I knew how to do was to sell a book.”

Q And now you've got to write the book. But around that time, I guess you somehow kind of got on the radar screen of the New York Times. How did, how did that happen?

A Yeah, so, you know, while I was working on the book, and I think even leading up to the proposal, I had started pitching newspapers and magazines, you know, and I think that what I was imagining was going to happen after I finished my book was that I would then become a freelance writer, and I actually moved home to Pennsylvania, and I lived in my mom's house for a year and wrote my book, and towards the end of that, I decided I was going to move to Los Angeles because I had a boyfriend who lived there, and I felt like that would That would be a boost to my freelance opportunities, because the woods of Pennsylvania was not going to do much for me. So, um, I started making a plan to leave, and four days before I left, um, I got a phone call from the New York Times, from an editor at the New York Times, um, you know, saying that he was, he had heard about me and was interested in talking with me, which was quite a shock.

AI assessment note: “I had started pitching newspapers and magazines... I got a phone call from the New York Times”

Q Did it feel super competitive? Did it feel like, oh my god, all these other writers are, like, Ivy League kids, and here I am from Scranton, and I don't know, did you, did you feel any of that?

A I think people were interested in the fact that I had an unconventional background, and so I was, I didn't, I didn't mind. I actually don't think of the Times as a, as a particularly, like, snobby place about, like, your resume. It's really about the work you're doing. They're really focused on, like, what you're producing. It is incredibly competitive. It's not warm and fuzzy, and that was a little bit, um, that was challenging, because not only was I not, Like, there was, everyone was, like, much older and had, like, you know, kids and, um, just different, you know, they were in a different stage of life, and so it was hard to feel like you were really fitting in, but on top of it, no one was really mentoring you. Um, you know, I, like, we never had team meetings. I can't think of, like, a formal one-on-one that I had with anyone. It was, it was very much like sink or swim. It was a little bit of a tough love culture, and, um, you were You were pushed to raise your game, right? So there, there were good things, too, and I think, I guess I'm a, I'm a fan of, of some struggle, but I think for me, like, what I found over time was that, you know, when you are writing about other people, you are, ultimately, you're an observer, and then, actually, over time, what happened was I became more of an editor. I moved to the magazine. I, I, I started editing there, and, you know, an edit…

AI assessment note: “It is incredibly competitive. It's not warm and fuzzy, and that was a little bit”

Q But did you, did you in your mind think, what's wrong with that?

A Well, exactly, and I, but I, I think it goes back to, you know, things that I picked up very early on in my life, which were that where I grew up, you know, and I don't say where I grew up, it's really like in my, I would say my family, it wasn't, women were not necessarily celebrated, and there was a lot of sexism, and I picked up on it really early and felt like I'm not going to I'm not going to let this hold me back. And so, you know, I just, just very quickly, you know, as a child, I didn't want to play softball, because girls played softball, so I played hardball with the boys, and I, you know, I just was, I felt very determined from a very early age that I was going to prove them wrong. So when it came time for my career, I guess it was just ingrained in me that I felt like it was ok to be ambitious. Um, And, you know, I've, I've done it, I've done a fair amount of therapy, um, and so what, actually, when I saw that comment, and, you know, and I, I, I really like, like Ruth, and I think that, like, you know, people make these kinds of, um, you know, have this sort of subtext in what they're saying often, but, you know, I felt like frightening, frighteningly ambitious. Well, maybe, maybe it is frightening to, um, Older, who sees someone come along, who's doing things differently, and who isn't, you know, isn't conforming to the kind of norms of how they express themselves …

AI assessment note: “Well, exactly... ingrained in me that I felt like it was ok to be ambitious”

Q So it takes a while. It's a, it, I mean, you know, and, and to stay with it, For 11 years until you get, become profitable. That also takes a lot of grit. I mean, right? Because, you know, it, it can't, that I, that idea can be stressful.

A Yeah, I, I think, again, though, I, I really am focused on the long game, and I, I think it's important to, I don't, we, we, the way we've run the business is really, like, focused on, like, writing, running it as lean as possible, but really staying focused on the long game, because there are going to be years, you know, even if you're profitable, you might decide, well, in order for us to get, grow to that next stage, we're going to intentionally spend and invest, um, Um, in that growth, and that means the next year we're not going to be profitable. Um, companies do that all the time, and I, it's just, so I think that I'm, I'm, I'm focused on the health of the business and not overly obsessed on profitability yet.

AI assessment note: “focused on the health of the business and not overly obsessed on profitability yet.”