Substack co-founder Hamish McKenzie contrasts the workplace culture of messaging startup Kik with his prior experience working at Tesla.
Opinion
McKenzie: Billions spent on social media content moderation failed to fix trust
“They've invested billions of dollars on this. They come up with these policy documents that are hundreds of pages long. And it doesn't appear to us like it has actually helped misinformation problems, or it's helped Reduce the level of harassment, or it's help…”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
McKenzie: Musk offered to buy Substack and make Chris Best Twitter CEO
“And he responded by getting Chris on a call and saying to him, well, how about Twitter acquire Substack, and you, I'm looking for a CEO to run the company.”
Insight
McKenzie: Media succeeds when readers replace advertisers as paying customers
“The core insight he had was that you should make readers the customers instead of advertisers the customers. And if you change that core dynamic, especially if you monetize the relationship over time through enough subscription, then different things are possi…”
Assertion Not publicly verifiable
McKenzie: Ben Thompson was earning over $1M annually from Stratechery in 2017
“We figured out, you know, through napkin math and guessing, basically, that he was already making more than a million dollars a year from that.”
Opinion
McKenzie: Patreon proved audiences will pay directly for creators they love
“Yeah, Patreon, I think, is a hugely important company because it changed the culture. It showed not only that people will be willing to pay for content online, they'll be willing to pay for the artist or creator who they most love or trust.”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
McKenzie: Tech sector believed a billion-dollar company for writers was impossible
“2017, writers were not the sexiest customer base in the world. No one thought they were going to build a billion dollar tech company by serving writers. In fact, people were forsaking writers, forsaking the media, turning their back on that, they'd given up on…”