The 404 Media Podcast (Premium Feed)

Joseph: 00:06

Hello, and welcome to another edition of the subscribers show. I was gonna say comment show, but we're not really doing that this time. This is more we're right around the corner from our second anniversary from launching. So we're just gonna talk about and take account of what has happened over the past year, what it's like having run this company for two years. Because to be honest, I don't know if even we as a group have reflected upon it.

Joseph: 00:37

And, course, we'll also do that later. But, yeah, this is a great chance to tell all of you as paying four or four media subscribers, first of all, thank you so much, and to tell you how the company is going. Jason has written a very long document, which he's not just gonna read, but I appreciate he did that because I'm like, oh, I totally forgot about this.

Jason: 00:59

I did the document in the last five minutes in Slack just typing

Joseph: 01:02

It's just one big message, you know.

Jason: 01:04

Which is I think the the point here is that I think I don't remember what we did a year ago, but I believe we did something like this. And there was a couple concrete things that we could point to where it was like we had just launched the full text RSS feed, which was a huge deal and we're still very proud of that. I don't know what else. I like, I I think part of part of what I've been thinking a lot about lately is we've been, like, super, super busy, like, very busy in a good way. Like, we've been working on really high stakes stories.

Jason: 01:36

There's been so many of them. And I was talking to Sam earlier today being like, we should, like, talk about what we did in the last year. And Sam was like, I don't remember anything from five minutes ago or what we're gonna do five minutes in the future.

Sam: 01:51

If it didn't happen in the last, like, day or isn't happening tomorrow, I couldn't really tell you what we've done or what we're doing.

Joseph: 01:58

But what do

Sam: 01:59

busy we've been.

Jason: 01:59

What do you

Joseph: 02:00

mean by just right. Okay.

Jason: 02:02

Yeah. Yeah. I I wouldn't call it survival mode because we're surviving, but I think from a in terms of, like, a, hey. Like, what what are we doing over the next, like, year? I think, honestly, the the question number one is, like, what, like, really complicated good scoop are we trying to get out right now, which is, like, a good place to be.

Jason: 02:27

But, also, around it, there's, like, the infrastructure of the website and the, like, bigger picture, like, what what is four zero four media? What are we doing with it? Like, that sort of thing. And the the nice thing and the thing that I always tell people when they ask, like, how is it going? Is like, it's going really, really well, I think.

Jason: 02:50

Hopefully, you guys agree.

Joseph: 02:52

Agree.

Jason: 02:54

I'm I'm personally very happy and very fulfilled. Like, I think that we talked about this a lot, but, like, we have control over what the company does and is, and that gives us a lot of flexibility in terms of, honestly, like, life flexibility. Like, we took off for a week in July, and we just, like, shut the website down over the July 4, and and maybe we can talk more about that in a minute. But, like, was nice. That was cool that we were able to do that, and we were able to do that because of the subscribers that we have and because we felt like we needed the break, it was very much needed on on my end of things, and I think all of us enjoyed it.

Jason: 03:35

But then also, it's like well, like, I I don't know. I I I feel like this last year really flew by. And it's like if you take a moment to think back to a year ago, it's like the election wasn't even it hadn't even happened yet. Like, none of this Doge stuff had happened. We had not done any of I don't know.

Jason: 03:56

I, like, I I struggle to remember a year ago, I guess is what I'm saying.

Joseph: 04:00

You brought up survival. And, in that first year, and of course, especially the start, it was very much we just have to keep going to figure out whether this is actually gonna work. You know, we've just quit our full time jobs, whether we're gonna have enough subscribers to, you know, sustain and pay rent or all that sort of thing. Was very much survival mode, and we were we were busy in one way then. Now and I think you you hinted at this, Jason, because, you know, the dough stuff haven't happened, the ice stuff haven't haven't happened.

Joseph: 04:30

We're not surviving anymore. It has proven itself to be a sustainable model if we keep doing what we're doing. But I've I've I I I feel the company's never really felt busier than it does now probably because of the external stuff. Like, there's an ICE story every three days or something, and they're very complicated stories. Right?

Joseph: 04:56

And I'm exceptionally grateful that sources are willing to come to us and provide this information or we get public records and all of that. I'm definitely not complaining at all. Very much the opposite, But it feels nonstop because of everything happening around the company as well. But I'm so glad that we're we are able to do that sort of stuff. Yeah.

Jason: 05:18

Yeah. And I think it's like the the work feels really urgent. And as you said, there have been times where I'm like, oh, like, maybe we can take this day and, like, brainstorm on something and, you know, think think, like, a little bit longer term. And then we will get, like, a really time sensitive tip about a major thing that's happening in the world or in politics or, like, you know, in America. And we'll be like, oh, we have to drop everything and, like, work on this now.

Jason: 05:50

And I guess we don't have to drop everything and work on that thing, but it feels like we should or at least I feel like we should.

Joseph: 05:57

Yeah. This is almost bringing up some bad thoughts for from me, and I'm definitely on the same space. But historically, I used to link very strongly my identity with the work I was producing, and that's very bad. You shouldn't do that, and that causes you to burn out. And I used to do that, and then and I figured it out, that sort of thing.

Joseph: 06:21

And I don't have that anymore, but because of the urgency, when the source reaches out with something that's very important about surveillance or the administration or ICE or any of these very large macro stories happening, I feel we have to jump on it, and maybe that's part of the business as well. Again, not complaining. Just laying out, like, how it is and then how we get stuff done.

Emanuel: 06:44

I think that's part of what makes the company work well and what has made us successful. And I think that was also true at Motherboard, even though it was like at a a much different, bigger scale. And at motherboard, when you're working at a at a big company like Vice, there's, like, an editorial calendar and you can plan ahead and be like, oh, it's it's an election year, so we're gonna have this election package around the time of the election, or we're going to have this kind of coverage around Valentine's Day or or or whatever. And I think there is a benefit to that, and it's like, probably it would be useful for us to do stuff like that in the future. Like, we used to do theme weeks at Motherboard, and those kind of felt like homework in a way to prepare for them and think of them so far in advance.

Emanuel: 07:44

But then we would always get, like, really cool stories out of it. At the moment, that doesn't feel like something we can do yet. But, like, that ability and that willingness to jump on the most important thing and do it really fast is kind of what keeps us competitive. You know, it's just like we don't have the people to compete with, like, I don't know, the New York Times or the Verge or whatever it is. But we do have the ability to recognize, like, what is most urgent and come at it, like, with the ferocity that other publications don't.

Emanuel: 08:29

Maybe because they can't, like, rest on a staff that is big or because they are complying with an editorial calendar and it's just like, I don't know. They're not, like, in the moment plugged into like what people are really talking about and care about and like where they can have the most impact and we have to be that way, like that's what that's that's how we get subscribers. So, I mean, I hear you on like the I don't know, like not not identifying overly with your work, but that hustle I think is what what makes us good.

Jason: 09:05

Yeah. I mean, I identify very much with our work in the company, but at the same time, I feel like my work life balance is somehow better than it was before we started the company. And the reason for that, I think, is that our company is small. Vice was very big, and there were, like, a lot of externalities that we could not control that were happening at Vice. And that that goes beyond just the, like, headwinds of whatever, like, the whatever the CEO and CRO and stuff say in emails when they're laying people off.

Jason: 09:40

But, like, literally, there were, like, many self caused crises that where someone would change course within the company, and I would be on vacation and I would have no control over it and everyone would be mad, and it would just be like, woah, like and I think we would be be mad for, like, a good reason, but it's like we didn't have control over the decisions that Vice made or the decisions that led it to, like, be in a bankrupt situation. And so now it's like, I feel like I can go surfing for an hour and not check my phone, And while I'm in the water, we're not gonna, like, you know, there's not gonna be, like, 14 articles about something that, like, an executive did that was bad. You know? I don't know if y'all feel the same, but it's just like it's it's like more even though, like, the news is, like, not predictable at all, it's like, I know what y'all are doing. I trust you.

Jason: 10:42

And and, like, you have the ability to, like, handle crises without it have having to, like, spiral, I guess.

Emanuel: 10:49

For sure. There's a category of things we don't have to deal with anymore, which I agree also. This is probably the best work life balance I've had in, I don't know, a decade. And that's because of that category of things of like, oh, somebody in Australia published something and now it's my problem, you know.

Joseph: 11:08

And that's such that's such an amazing thing to say as, like, a new father that you can say that because a lot of people will be a media job, and then they'll they'll have a kids, which is great, but that might make the work life balance more difficult. You see what I mean?

Jason: 11:25

It's because it's because your child is doing all the writing and work for you.

Emanuel: 11:30

It does I would I mean, whatever. We don't have to get into this, but it does help in terms of the balance because, you know, like, oh, I'm just gonna stay on for another ten minutes and work, and then it ends up being an hour just like I have to be with a baby.

Joseph: 11:41

I'm off.

Emanuel: 11:42

And then and then you're in your life. You know what I mean? You have to.

Joseph: 11:44

Sam, how do you feel about work life balance in year two?

Sam: 11:48

I mean, it's definitely there's something very comforting and horrifying, and I'm sure I've said this before, to the notion of if this thing crashes and burns and goes bankrupt, it's because we did it and no one else. I find that to be very scary, but also very, I don't know, like you guys said, like, comforting and rewarding ultimately. It won't be out of my control or our control if some stupid decision gets made and it ruins the company, like, that stupid decision is our decision, and then we get to own that. And we have never made a stupid decision in our whole lives, so it will never happen. And it hasn't happened in two years.

Sam: 12:32

So so far, so good. Yeah. I mean, I was just thinking about, like, the media industry in general. It is hot garbage trash still. Like, that is one constant in the last year that continues is that the industry is in a real crisis.

Sam: 12:52

And I feel very aware of that. And sometimes when I'm talking to people about, like, work or the industry in general, something they'll say is like, oh, you're very lucky, and I feel extremely, extremely lucky. I feel nothing but, like, extreme luck. But I also feel like we to Emmanuel's point, we're doing the job of every department in a big media company right now, which is a lot. We have help, obviously.

Sam: 13:26

We have ad sales people helping us, but we're also involved in that process. We have a social media person, which is fantastic, and he's been doing amazing. Create Case Hearts, if you haven't seen him around the blog, but it's like that's a department that, like, normally, wouldn't be involved in at a big media company, and that's something that we're very intimately involved in now. The editorial calendar, it's like that's not something that I would ever have any real say over at motherboard picking, like, a theme week. It's something that, like, someone two heads above us would say, we have to sell a theme to this sponsor, and you guys have to write around that.

Sam: 14:09

It's like, you know, that's not something that I would ever have to decide before, but now maybe eventually we'll get to, which is, like, a lot. I don't know. My work life balance feels good, but it also feels like we're working our asses off in a way that's not burnout inducing. It's because it's, like, purposeful and intentional and, like, has ownership and isn't just, like, for something larger that's gonna can me tomorrow. So

Joseph: 14:40

Yeah. Jason, were you gonna talk about how we've grown? Like, Sam mentioned it there with Case. Like, I feel like you were gonna talk a little bit about that according to the Slack message.

Jason: 14:50

Yeah. I mean, so so a year ago, it was the four of us and Jules Roscoe, who was our fellow for the summer. And since then, we've, like, added we've added a little bit, and we've added Case Hartz who's working part time doing our socials. You know, Rosie Thomas is our fellow this summer. We have Alyssa who is our podcast producer through a company called Kaleidoscope that we have a partnership with, and that may have predated the last year.

Jason: 15:24

I'm not sure. We've been working with them for a while. And then Matt Gault has been covering the military industrial complex. And I think, crucially, like, soon after our first year anniversary, we launched a Saturday newsletter called The Abstract that, you know, we've talked about. You are surely aware of it if you're listening to this podcast.

Jason: 15:45

And Emanuel really, like, took the lead in in sort of getting that going, but that's Becky Ferreira. And I think it's like these are really these are, like, small steps toward us experimenting with being more than just the four of us. And and, you know, they've done all of them have done really important work that you've surely seen. And so now four zero four Media is not just the four of us. But, like, the the so far, it's been, like, pretty cautious in terms of how we are doing that because I think that we're a little bit it's like, what what does it look like for us to do more in a more concerted way?

Jason: 16:27

Like, what does that look like? Because it becomes it then becomes a question of, like, is it a website website that where the four of us primarily are publishing everything, or is it, like, a larger media company that is doing, like, a lot of different things and and is on every platform and so on and so forth? And it's like, I think we've talked a lot about what does it mean to be, or I've had at least internal dialogue about what does it mean to be, like, more than just, a newsletter or a substack or a website. Like, what is what is the media in April? And it's like, we are on every platform.

Jason: 17:02

Like, we're publishing to every platform. We're recording our little vertical videos. We have been working on, like, how do we turn our stories into some into, like, narrative series and bigger things. And it's like a lot of that is slow going, but we've had those conversations. You know, Sam has done narrative podcasts with the CBC.

Jason: 17:20

We have, like, a partnership with Wired. There's, like, all sorts of things that we are doing that that are, like, incremental steps toward forming a larger company. And I swear there's a point to this, but, like, I was listening to, the Dylan Byers podcast the other day who is a media reporter at Puck, and he was interviewing our former boss, Katie Drummond, who is the editor in chief of Wired. And he asked the question, like, how do you make sure that your reporters don't go work at four zero four Media or The Verge? And I was like, okay.

Jason: 17:53

Okay. Like, he he basically was like, Wired, The Verge, and four zero four Media. And it's like, we have a ton of respect for these publications, but they're huge publications. Wired has been around for decades. The Verge has been around for decades at this point or, you know, more than ten years and has dozens of people who work at it.

Jason: 18:10

And it's like we're I'm still mailing hats to people. You know? Like, Emmanuel is the one who when you can't log in is, like, responding to those emails. And so

Joseph: 18:20

We produce most of the articles as well. The overwhelming majority are still the four of us even though Matt is doing great work as well and the very, very occasional freelancer. It's still us, you know? Like, we're still putting the vast majority of stuff on the website every single day as well.

Emanuel: 18:36

Yeah. I guess the observation I wanted to make is that there were a lot of things that didn't go as I expected. Most of them went better than I expected before we started the company. But if you were to ask me August 2023 what the plan was when we kind of vaguely discussed, like, we want to grow responsibly, what that looked like, I guess in my head, was thinking if we get enough backers, you kind of slowly rebuild something that looks like motherboard. And I think the two unexpected things are it is harder than I thought in terms of logistics and legality and it's just like, it's very, very complicated to grow.

Emanuel: 19:29

It's like much harder than I thought to do it in the right way. Like, can be shitheads about it and have like an army of freelancers run through and just like, you know, try to grow that way. But it's like, how do we do it in a way that is sustainable? And then the other thing is that, just in terms of what we want it to be, like what Jason was talking about, I guess what we're finding out is that like, no, we're not it's like, we're not going to get into a situation or it wouldn't work, I think, if we kind of planned towards building motherboard again, and like Jason became EIC and I became managing editor, and like, we would just get the same number of staff. It's like that's not what we should do and I don't think that's what our audience wants, and I don't think that would be like the best business plan.

Emanuel: 20:15

We're building something that's different and I hope, I think is better. But since it's new, it's kinda like we're figuring it out as we go, and it's challenging and it's fun and everything, but I think it will take longer than than I thought.

Jason: 20:35

Well, it's also like I don't think either of us wanna be like editors in that way again at the moment. It's like I'm having a

Emanuel: 20:43

really August 2023, I would have been like, yeah. Sure. It's like I'll write for a little bit, and then I'll go back to editing, and now I'm like, not with a gun to my head. What what would I Just

Joseph: 20:51

because that that was like a different role then and now it's like, wow, I get to run a company, make decisions, and I get to publish my own investigations basically. It's almost like that sweet spot. Is is is that I

Emanuel: 21:04

mean, it's that and also I think like the dynamic of like the four of us and like the articles we produce and like that's the recipe, you know what I mean? And like, maybe we can make something else work. I suppose like I can I can assign articles, that's a lot of what I was doing at Motherboard and that worked? But I guess I don't I I like, yeah. It's a you know, you started as a writer, you take on editing jobs because it pays more, and then you you become an editor and a manager.

Emanuel: 21:34

And now that I went back to writing, I'm like, oh, right. It's like, this is why this is why I got I gotten into this business in the first place, and it'll be pretty painful to hang that up again.

Jason: 21:45

Yeah. I mean, it's like I like writing again. And so and it's just like the the it's very, very, very fulfilling to be an editor and to, like, watch someone, you know, crush a story and and sort of, like, develop a beat and, like, all of that, but it's, like, extremely time consuming. It's impo it's kind of impossible to do both at the same time where where, like, I would be doing, like, investigations and reporting while also, like, doing other stuff. And it goes for anyone here, you know, where it's just like it when when you start adding things, the company becomes a little bit more complicated, which is good, but there's, like, a little bit of a trade off in attention in terms of, like, well, then that that thing that you're adding needs attention.

Jason: 22:33

And that that thing can be, like, a new feature, a new, like, thing that you are, like, offering to the audience, etcetera. And I I think a good way of of even looking at this is, like, merch and support where we have grown enough where there's, like, people pretty regularly ordering stuff from us and also where people pretty regularly are, like, having trouble with their account or, like, need something from manual from support or whatever. And we are, like, at the point right now where, like, theoretically, it would be nice to be able to just, like, hand that off to someone who's doing that for us. But it's not like there's so many orders that it makes sense to, like, hire someone to to put hats in an envelope. You know?

Jason: 23:22

It wouldn't, like, be it wouldn't be financially responsible. It wouldn't make any sense to do that. It would save me some time. But then there's also the the, like, well, if you did that, then I would have to train the person how I how I put the hats in the envelope or whatever. And, like, that that's a really easy thing to do, but there's, like, a lot of little things like that where it's, like, well, like, maybe it would be good to, like, have a slightly different process on this thing, but that then becomes, like, a you have to train the person or, like, get a new type of software to, like, you know, handle a different back end.

Jason: 24:04

Like, I don't know. Like, there's all sorts of anytime you, like, add complexity in any way, it's like there's a learning curve to it, and there's a cop like, a a money cost to it, but a time cost to it. And it's like I think if someone were like, hey. Here's a here's many millions of dollars turn four zero four media into a 40 person company, like, we could figure out how to do that. Like, we could we could, as in we could all be like, okay.

Jason: 24:27

We're gonna hire people to, like, manage this and this and this and, like, an HR person and, like, all that sort of thing. But does that business work then? Like, is that business gonna, like, make money in return on whoever gave us $40,000,000, like, investment or whatever? Like, I have no idea because then it's fundamentally a totally different thing.

Joseph: 24:48

Yeah. Just to take one step back, doing that trade off between training somebody to do the envelopes or whatever, we have done that for certain tasks, I think probably because the training was very low to nonexistent. This is very in the weeds, but for a while, Alissa has been editing the podcast, doing an amazing job. They would then upload it. I would then download it.

Joseph: 25:17

I would then upload it again to various podcasting platforms, megaphone, Transistor, YouTube, and we did that for a while just because it was like, well, of course, it would be great if somebody else could handle that, but then we have to explain how to do it and all of that sort of thing, which we eventually did because Alyssa's a pro, so I just wrote in the Google Doc like, hey, please do it this way. Please set it this time, that sort of thing. And now that allows us to we finished recording the podcast and rather than me having to wait around sort of in this purgatory state where I'm like waiting for the podcast so then I can upload it as quickly as possible, I can then shut off that part mentally and be like, well, now I'm gonna do something else. And like I've gained, I mean, time wise, it's probably like an hour. Mentally, it feels way more than that because, you know, I'll sit down and do a task.

Joseph: 26:18

I say it'll be an hour, then I'm digging into an issue or something or a contract, and I'll just go into the evening because it's fun or whatever or a little bit a little bit into the evening. It gives me that mental space to just do something which is much more efficient with my time by doing investigating or whatever.

Emanuel: 26:36

I feel like this is turning into a work meeting a little bit, but in a good way, but it just to, like, to identify something is like, that's a totally good thing to do, but in order to do that, like you said, you have to invest time in order to, like, offload that task. And I think that is like a big challenge that we're running up against where we need to do that exact same process on like 10 different things or like 20 different things, but we're so like, there's just not a ton of slack in the system, right? It's like we're all hustling all the time in a way that I'm happy to and I think is good and healthy, but it's like, no it's so painful to take like three hours out of your day that you could be working on a story and usually there is like a breaking news story or a scoop that we're chasing and be like, no, I'm not going to do the news, I'm not going do the journalism, I'm going to do some managerial thing and invest three hours in it because, you know, down the line it's going to save us like a hundred hours over the week.

Emanuel: 27:37

It's really hard to find the time to like optimize all those workflows. I hate how that just sounded coming out of my mouth, but it's true.

Sam: 27:48

I think the fact that we don't have, like, optimized workflows is probably a big part of why we have survived and why it works. Like, maybe that's a little bit of the the juice too. I don't know if you guys ever had the experience of, like, trying to explain to someone outside of the company how we work and, like, how we do things. Like, it'll come up and it'll be like, oh, like, some like, student or someone will be like, what are your editorial meetings like? It's like, I don't know.

Sam: 28:15

Like, we have, like, one hour a week after the podcast where we talk about everything that might have come up in the last week. We don't really sit down every morning and plan the day, and I don't think we could. And we don't have, like, KPIs to hit or, like, numbers that we're trying to reach or metrics because those were a lot of things that really felt felt like they bogged things down at a big media company. Like, every big media company I ever worked at had, like, traffic numbers that they expected people to hit or some kind of, like, metric that they were really stressed about all the time that they needed to, like, manipulate their editorial strategy in order to hit. All that was coming from above.

Sam: 28:56

And I think even just, like, looking at, like, the strategies that we are talking about for growth, it's like a lot of it is based on the vibes of the moment. And I think that's would be a frustrating work environment for a lot of people. And I think because we have, like, trust in each other and trust in the process, and we really give a shit about what we're doing, it works out, and we trust that it'll work out. Yeah. I

Jason: 29:27

don't it's funny what like, how do you do what you do? It's like, well, have you ever heard of telekinesis and brain to brain mind melds that happen silently over thousands of miles.

Sam: 29:39

That meme that's like dumbass to dumbass. It's just vibes. That's all it is. KPIs the Spider Man meme.

Emanuel: 29:47

The KPIs are like, am I letting the gang down? Like, are the homies proud of me today? That's the KPIs. It's just like

Sam: 29:54

Did you do good work today?

Emanuel: 29:56

Yeah.

Sam: 29:56

Just put that on your

Jason: 29:57

Mhmm.

Sam: 29:58

Do you ever have the experience with support? Sometimes people email Weibo support, and it's really funny. They'll email me directly after, like, getting something they didn't like at the newsletter, or they'll they think that they're emailing a rando or a bot Yeah.

Emanuel: 30:10

For

Sam: 30:10

sure. Probably, and they come in really hot and sassy. And they'll be like, jeez. I unsubscribed 40 times. It's like, I get their email, and I look.

Sam: 30:20

I'm like, no. Actually, you didn't. And I reply, and they're shocked. They're like, oh.

Joseph: 30:27

Replied saying, by the way, because I've had some people come very hot at me, and I've replied saying, by the way, you're not talking to a bot right now. Hi. It's me, Joseph. Yeah. And then it's like, can we just have a normal conversation?

Joseph: 30:38

Is that okay? Like, I'm trying to help you out. Yeah. And and everything gets resolved. It's fine.

Joseph: 30:43

But, yeah, are some automated emails like, hey. Please update your card information, and that's just an automated system. But, yeah, it's us.

Sam: 30:50

But still, you get that email. You know? Yes. You get the reply people reply and they're replying to us, and I don't think they realize that. And I I mean, I like that.

Sam: 31:00

So it's not something I'm in a rush to get rid of, but, like, I know support is definitely something that we need to figure out how to not be doing every single day because more we go,

Jason: 31:11

more we come. We had a conversation yesterday about, well, our our second anniversary is coming up, and, like, the way that any subscription business works is that, you know, when you launch, like, a lot of people subscribe at the launch. And so, you know, the begin like, when you're hearing this, it's like, it's important to us that you resubscribe, that you have, like, had a good experience consuming our content, interacting with us, etcetera. Feel like you're getting your money's worth from your subscription and wanna continue supporting us. And we hope that, you know, we've we've tried our best.

Jason: 31:50

So I feel like we have really, really, really tried our best to to make the a subscription worth it and to do, like, really good work. But, like, the way that subscription businesses work, like, the metrics behind the scenes are what is your churn rate? And your churn rate is, like, the number of people who subscribe but then unsubscribe and and don't, you know, re up for another month or re up for another year. And that's, like, a critical number for, like, Netflix, for Hulu, for, like, any subscription business. And we have a low churn rate, which is good, but we also don't really know how to calculate our churn rate, perhaps shamefully, or or even super what it means.

Sam: 32:39

That's what I was thinking of, but I didn't wanna say it as far as vice versa. Know how

Jason: 32:44

to calculate it. We don't super know what it means.

Sam: 32:46

I googled it yesterday.

Jason: 32:48

Yeah. And so, therefore, we were like, maybe we should, like, figure out our churn rate so that we can, like, have some idea of, like, what our finances will be, like, next month, this month, three months from now, whatever. Because you can, like, guess. Like, if your churn rate's really low, it's like, this is predictable revenue, blah blah blah. And Emmanuel just goes like, what would you do with that information?

Jason: 33:14

Like, what would we do with that information? And I was like, I don't know. Like, feel bad or good. Feel bad and or good depending on it. And I thought about it some more, and I guess, like, the answer honestly is, like, what, like, what would we do with that information?

Jason: 33:30

I have no idea. But this is, like, a critical part of, like, a a big subscription businesses where they try to minimize their churn rate and that sort of thing. But, like, we are doing everything that we can. We're trying our best. There's no there's no, like, more hard that we can try, I guess.

Jason: 33:48

Is do you wanna elaborate on on you owning me in this way, Emmanuel, or no?

Emanuel: 33:54

No. I mean, I think the the thing you would do with the information is be able to project and, like, plan ahead, which is something that we should do or get to the point that we would be able to do it. But we're very much like, I don't know, moment to moment right now, day to day. And I would say more importantly, like, in terms of things that would make the business better, there's there's just, like, lower hanging fruit, you know what I mean? Like, there's bigger stories to do, there's, like, we want to make the podcast better, We want to make the newsletter better.

Emanuel: 34:36

We want to you know what I mean? And it's just like and those are things that we understand a lot better, just like professionally. And it's like when we get to the point where it's like, all that stuff feels really good and optimized, we can get some, you know, some some bean counter in here to be like, yeah, we're looking at like a 2% decline in in revenue for the fourth quarter, so we should buy like the cheaper soda for the office freezer. You know what I mean? It's like, we're just not there.

Emanuel: 35:04

We're like, how do we make a really good podcast? How do we how do we sell a movie based on our journalism? Like, that stuff feels more more more urgent, I think.

Joseph: 35:13

As long as we don't end up like Vice did, where you would go to the fridge and they seemingly didn't have any money, so it was just milk, and you could only get milk from the fridge. That's when you know you had

Jason: 35:26

to had a really good contract with the milk supplier. Apparently.

Joseph: 35:30

Or a really bad one. They got locked into it. Don't know. Right. They were like, we can't get out of this milk contract.

Sam: 35:35

I should have left when they got rid of the Diet Coke. I should have left

Jason: 35:39

that day. True.

Sam: 35:40

But, like, oh, yeah. I think that's I think first, like, point one, Harvard Business School should have us in to study our brains. And it scared Goodbye. Just buy. Scared that shit out of them what they found.

Sam: 35:53

And two, I think the ant like, the answer to what we would do with that information is, like Emmanuel said, figure out like, be able to project a little bit better about what we can invest in because we have a laundry list of things that we want to, like, invest in and get bigger at and do more of and bring people on and, like, be able to pay for these bigger and cooler things. But we're just so like like these guys already said, so focused on the day to day that it feels almost like getting ahead of ourselves to try to do some big thing down the road that'll cost a bunch of money. We don't even really have a good grasp of, like, what that thing is gonna be yet. So, yeah, we're trying to be smart about, like, how we spend subscribers money, but it goes back into the company in some form or another just to keep it going. So

Joseph: 36:44

Right now, it's probably the events. That's, like, the only thing we've semi had time to to think about. Like, last year's Jason says in this Slack note, like we were building the RSS feed for subscribers and that sort of thing. And I feel like now it's been we just threw the LA event. We're about to throw the New York one, and, you know, that costs money.

Joseph: 37:05

So, you know, the money goes into that, and then we we're giving back to subscribers and hope people will enjoy it, that sort of thing. That feels like the sort of the the main thing that isn't about the core journalism, the core subscriber business, and, like, that's the extra thing which is happening right now. But we're getting better at it, but that that's all I can think of right now that we've sort of had the time to to do.

Jason: 37:29

Yeah. Jason? I think an interesting thing there is that a lot of media companies have, like, a quote, unquote events business where they make a lot of money by throwing events. Like, Semaphore, for example, makes a lot of money throwing events.

Joseph: 37:45

TechCrunch. Yeah.

Jason: 37:46

TechCrunch, etcetera. The New York New York Times makes a lot of money doing it, whatever. And they have, like, you know, entire staffs that are throwing events and sales teams that are selling sponsorships to those events and so on and so forth. And it's like, we are 1,000,000 losing money on our parties. However, they're really fun.

Jason: 38:08

I like to do them. And so there's definitely, like, a positive vibes, like, aspect to it that probably has some financial value to it, especially, like, if you're a subscriber and you have a good time and you tell your friends about it and maybe they subscribe or or something like that. But, like, on a how much it costs to throw event versus how much money we get from event, it's like we're losing money on it, and we're doing it for, like, good vibes also because we like doing it. It's fun. Sam does, like, the really heavy lifting on this.

Jason: 38:46

It's, like, not easy. It's a big time investment as well. However, like, other companies make money doing this. So, like, question mark question mark question mark profit, like, how how to how to do that? And the answer is, like, sponsors and selling, like, tickets to, like, clients where it costs, like, $2,000 to attend your event so that you can get in front of, like, decision makers and blah blah blah.

Jason: 39:11

And it's like, we don't want to do that, I don't think. Like, I don't know. I don't wanna have, like Yeah.

Joseph: 39:16

We're we're throwing an event for Bezos and the and the AI CEOs, that sort of thing. Yeah. I think Yeah. With this pivot to that for sure.

Jason: 39:24

Exactly. Exactly. But, like, you know, theoretically, like, there is some some mechanism of, like, breaking even on these or whatever, but but how?

Joseph: 39:36

I feel feel we did that with the last year anniversary, but maybe I'm wrong. Like, I feel

Jason: 39:41

like Oh, we had a sponsor last year and that that Sam sold that sponsorship and it was really fun and great, but we're also not salespeople. So

Joseph: 39:50

Right. It's another thing to have to do as well. Yeah. Jason, anything else on your on your list? Think Well,

Jason: 40:01

we we that didn't much about, like, what we did this year as in we sent an impact email a few months ago, but, like, our journalism has been very impactful impactful this year. I don't have the list in front of me, but, like, you know, first of all, we I think we can say this. If not, then maybe we can cut it. But, like, we got subpoenaed by the state of Texas, and we fought that subpoena off and, like, are no longer being subpoenaed. Like, that's a pretty big and interesting and and, like, good thing that we did in terms of just, like, standing up to Ken Paxton and and that sort of thing through our lawyer.

Jason: 40:45

That that was not that was journalism that we did that we, you know, were then challenged over, and, like, that that happened.

Sam: 40:52

Which is also something we did with subscriber money, just to be clear. It's like, these are all things that we did with money that you guys have given us. So the lawyer is not cheap.

Joseph: 41:01

No.

Sam: 41:01

And the insurance is not cheap. So just to put a note in that because I don't I don't want people to think that we're just, like, goofballs spending money. It's like, that's how it happens is we hire a lawyer.

Jason: 41:13

Well, and we extremely need the lawyer. Yeah. We really because

Sam: 41:16

of shit like this.

Jason: 41:17

Need it in order to do the journalism. Yeah. So, I mean, that that happened. I think, you know, we have done articles that have, like, changed company policies, like various company policies. You know, we have talked about the flock reporting a lot, but it spurred a congressional investigation that's ongoing.

Jason: 41:36

It spurred a Chicago or an Illinois secretary of state investigation that's ongoing. Numerous, like, towns have dropped this surveillance system from from what they're doing. I'm biasing towards, like, stories that I actually worked on because I feel like they're in my brain.

Joseph: 41:53

But Well, I have I have a so if you go to not you. I'm I'm telling I'm telling the listeners. You can go to forward slash tag forward slash impact, and that's just like, I try to put an impact tag on every article that's about this so they're all in one place. And just very, very quickly, t, the app, turned off DMs after we reported that a bunch have been exposed there. Senator demanded investigation into the Trump admins signal clone after we found it was hacked, public library ebook service to call l a l I AI slop, senator Bush's Zuckerberg on Nudify ads, Nvidia sued for scraping YouTube after four zero four media investigation.

Joseph: 42:37

It's funny. That is literally gonna be a year in like three days. August 16 is when we published that Nvidia impact. So, yeah, there's been a ton over the past year, and I'm exceptionally happy with the impact that we've all generated.

Emanuel: 42:53

For sure. I'll say a word about Fox so Jason and Jill don't have to do it themselves and, like, hype themselves up. But it's like, the Fox thing has been huge. And I think in terms of impact, it's really amazing because it is actually starting to change, like, the surveillance infrastructure across the country. And that is I mean, that's just wild, you know, and and I think very positive.

Emanuel: 43:22

It's all very new and it's all fluid and and moving and things are changing, but it's like town after town are turning off access. Local and federal government are demanding answers. It's like, this is like a big thing. This is it's a it's defining feature of surveillance in America that impacts not just people who are suspected of crimes. It's it's normal people, women seeking abortion, undocumented people.

Emanuel: 43:55

It's it's a really it's and and, you know, we talked about this on the podcast yesterday, but it's it's not only like a really scary huge system that is used to do surveillance legally, we are learning that a lot of the access is, I don't know if I could say illegal, but it's not according to procedure. So the fact that we're limiting that in any way or putting a spotlight on it and getting lawmakers to look at it, I think is is huge, huge, huge. Yeah.

Jason: 44:38

I I guess, like, maybe everyone should say, like, a thing that, like, pipe pipe dream, not pipe dream, but, like, what do you wanna do in the next year beside, like, besides what we are already doing, which is gonna be the vast majority of what we're doing. But I think, like, I'm very, very, very, very curious, interested in physical media and in, like, zines, magazines, things like that. I think that we definitely could make a magazine. I think it would be good. I think, again, the logistics of, like, mailing them out and, like, planning and executing it and that sort of thing is, like, quite daunting, and I I'm not promising anything.

Jason: 45:26

Not promising. But, like, that's something that I'm, like, very interested in, and I know that the rest of you are interested in it as well. So I'll say that one for mine.

Joseph: 45:41

Mine is is is funny because I'm only thinking about it now that you mentioned it. At motherboard, whenever we wanted to do something like fancy with the website, you see all these beautiful I mean, they call it is it snowfall or whatever it is? There's like this famous New York Times interactive piece where it was like one of the first ones that didn't just shove an article on the website. It had like this beautiful flowing imagery and you as you scroll through all that sort of thing, and these are very, very normal now with Bloomberg Businessweek features or Wired or something like that. And I'm not saying I want a massive website redesign or anything like that, but for the right story and I don't know what the story is.

Joseph: 46:25

For the right story, I would really like to be able to produce something finally after ten years of being in this industry that could look like that. You know, you scroll down and I don't know, there's aerial footage of an ice facility or something like that. Laser why are laughing?

Jason: 46:42

At you. Just because, just because I'm just imagining, like, all the zooming in and out that's gonna happen, It's gonna be like It's gonna be sick. It's gonna it's

Joseph: 46:52

gonna be like, what will it enemy of the state or whatever when he looks up at the satellite and it's just gonna zoom into him. That's what it's oh, I can't remember what the film's called. But, yes, it's gonna be that and it's gonna be fucking awesome. But that that's like a nuts amount of work, and it would have to be for the right story. And if you were gonna go for all of that work, you'd be like, well, we don't just wanna do it for one story, so why don't we build a framework in the CMS where now we can do these stories whenever we want?

Joseph: 47:19

It's like, oh my god. That's a way bigger project. But I don't know. Maybe not this year. Maybe not.

Joseph: 47:23

But really, really blue sky thinking. I I would love something like that one day for our features or something.

Emanuel: 47:30

Yeah. Sam, you go.

Sam: 47:34

No. You go.

Emanuel: 47:36

I'll try to buy time, but I'll I'll go.

Sam: 47:39

I can go. I'll go. I'll I'll go. Don't know. I feel like mine is, like, more boring than that.

Sam: 47:43

It's like I want both of those things as part of the mind meld of it all, but I think I would like to have us show up in more and bigger places as far as, like, in real in real life events that we're not throwing necessarily. It's like, want us on, like, huge, like, panels. I want us winning, like, big awards. I just want four zero four media to not just be, like, something that, like, Puck says is that the level of verge. I want to be at that level for, like, in most people's minds.

Sam: 48:17

I also just want boring shit, like, someone to help us do, like, administrative stuff. Like, I want to figure out if that's even, like, something that's possible that would free us up to do the journalism that people pay for full time to have that kind of support so that we're not doing all of the nitpicky stuff that I think we do like learning about and like doing, but does slow us down a little bit. So, yeah, just adding more people to the team that could make it better, I think, would be sick in the next I don't know if I don't even know if that's a year three thing. I think it might be, a year five thing maybe, but, like yeah. Having more of that kind of, like, nitty gritty type of support would be cool.

Emanuel: 49:13

I think if I look at how I consume the news or, I don't know, media more broadly, the main things I do is read articles or not even articles, I read text on the Internet and then I listen to podcasts. And I think we got the text thing down perfect. I think we're killing it in written form. But I think even though I find it very challenging and it's not my favorite thing to do, I just feel like there's so much room for our podcast to grow and I think the podcast is great. We have talked about doing like an interview series and even doing it like weekly and that makes a lot of sense to me.

Emanuel: 50:00

I love interview podcasts. I think we talk to really interesting people all the time. And sometimes I get off on interview and I was like, you know, I I I'm like, oh, that could have been that could have been a a podcast. We could have just released that. And I kind of want to get to a place where we're just doing more of that because I know I'm always shocked when someone says, I heard on the podcast or I only listen to the podcast and I'm like, wow, dude.

Emanuel: 50:29

That's like, you're missing a lot. Like, a lot of what we do is just not in the podcast and I'd like to get it there. And especially because I myself, you know, a lot of what I get from the New York Times, I get in podcast form. You know what I mean?

Joseph: 50:47

Really? I

Jason: 50:48

also and also, like, on YouTube. I mean, we're obviously, like, on YouTube, but

Emanuel: 50:54

I'd love YouTube. That that just seems like orders of magnitude harder

Jason: 50:57

to do. I mean, the podcast, though? No? No. I mean just like visuals popping up.

Jason: 51:03

If if you're watching the podcast on YouTube, I mean, like, would you like to see the article that we're talking about?

Joseph: 51:12

And I think kind of related to what Emmanuel is saying that I also would really, really like the podcast to grow and that sort of thing. And there's this nagging bit at the back of my mind, which is we're gonna we we will increase production. We'll do the visuals, all of that. I mean, to really do it, you need an in person studio and you need to be sound sofas. And it's like, that can't be true.

Joseph: 51:35

Like, I don't want that to be true, but it's like a nagging thing. It's like, dude, do we all have to move to Austin and, like, open the studio next to, like, Joe Rogan and it's like with, like, with the Joe Rogan at the left?

Jason: 51:45

Ever heard of Horizon World's Mark Zuckerberg's metaverse?

Joseph: 51:52

Yeah. Dude, we should definitely do a a part in the metaverse.

Jason: 51:56

It's just like being with your friends. It's just like that.

Joseph: 52:00

But you see what I'm getting at. Right? It's like there's literally sometimes, like, a production barrier where doing a pod in person together is, like, part of that. And maybe we just don't do that because we just literally can't do that. You do you see what I'm getting at?

Emanuel: 52:17

I feel like we'll slide into, like, work meeting territory again, but it's like Good. I think Ezra Klein, who is a huge podcast and is an interview podcast, he does, like, 90% of his interviews remote, and they're very high quality and, like, you don't feel them when you listen or watch And it's on YouTube as well. I don't now.

Joseph: 52:33

Yeah. Right. But recently. Yes.

Emanuel: 52:36

Recently. Right.

Joseph: 52:38

I mean, I'll watch that because I'm curious. Yeah.

Sam: 52:40

Yeah. Emmanuel won't even turn on his ring light when I ask him to, so I don't have confidence in this.

Joseph: 52:44

Dude, he does. Boom. There you go. Boom.

Emanuel: 52:46

There it is.

Sam: 52:48

We're doing it next week. We're doing a live podcast next week.

Jason: 52:50

We're doing a live podcast next week. Easy. Done. I'm gonna be rude and and give my give my 404 me get coffee shop pitch in case anyone is a coffee shop

Emanuel: 52:59

player. Dude,

Jason: 53:02

okay. So imagine, it's a four zero four media coffee shop, first call.

Joseph: 53:05

Oh, okay.

Jason: 53:07

Discounted coffee for subscribers, first and foremost, has events like a podcasting space, you know, where we talk talk about technology, etcetera. So, you know, there's an events space that is being filmed so that we can put it on YouTube. There is a merch, like a screen printer there so we can print our merch there. And there's also critically a risograph printer and or some other type of printer. So every week, maybe every two weeks or three weeks to start, we're producing a four zero four media newspaper inside this coffee shop that you can obtain at the coffee shop that you can is probably free but has our articles in it.

Jason: 53:52

So we're in, you know, meat space. And so therefore, people can subscribe to four zero four Media just if they, like, want free coffee. Not free coffee, but discounted. We can't afford free. And so you get that those people, and they start learning about journalism through our cool newspaper that they're reading at the coffee shop.

Jason: 54:10

And, also, there's ads on the cups possibly and in the newspaper.

Emanuel: 54:15

For us or for for for products?

Jason: 54:19

Yeah. And we're selling products there too. Like what like like four zero four Media Coffee imported from our artisanal farm.

Joseph: 54:30

Emmanuel, I keep thinking this. We never spoke about it. One day and this is actually all that stuff I said about making the website, Bella, fuck that. Forget that. I don't mean that.

Joseph: 54:38

One day, we have to make a four zero four media beer. We have to make a hazy double IPA.

Sam: 54:43

You guys are trying to redo ice.

Joseph: 54:44

It's a coffee

Sam: 54:45

shop. I totally

Joseph: 54:47

forgot about that.

Jason: 54:48

It's a coffee shop and brewery. It sells smashed burgers.

Joseph: 54:51

Oh, no. Knows. I I was I was gonna joke as soon as you were doing the coffee thing and then the free magazine. I was like, oh, it's it's like reverse Vice. And I didn't even realize when I was saying the thing about make our own beer.

Joseph: 55:03

Oh, shit. Vice did that as well.

Sam: 55:05

You know what's never lost money is brick and mortar beverage and food business. So let's add print media to it.

Jason: 55:12

It's it's notoriously easy to do. And oh, but also the newspaper is obviously goes out to our subscribers. So we have a I looked it up. You can buy a machine that puts newspapers into a little envelope. Only $9,000.

Jason: 55:29

Very expensive machine.

Sam: 55:30

If we don't get you a rizograph printer, you're gonna make it everyone's problem, Barry.

Emanuel: 55:33

I was watching some

Sam: 55:35

That's your birthday present this year.

Jason: 55:36

Journalism. Some of them fold on their own and have stapler machines.

Emanuel: 55:40

The machine does it?

Jason: 55:42

The machine does the staples. So you can automate it. It's it's kinda like AI but for printing. Perfect. This was, like, invented by, Gutenberg, for example.

Jason: 55:53

You don't have to handwrite the newspaper anymore. It does it doesn't a machine does it.

Emanuel: 55:58

I thought you said it was artisanal.

Jason: 56:02

Okay. So we'll start out. I'll handwrite the newspapers.

Joseph: 56:06

Sorry. A source just sent me a really, really crazy tip. That's why I'm really, really distracted. Should we wrap it up there? Are we going for, like, nearly an hour?

Jason: 56:15

That's good. Yeah.

Joseph: 56:17

Okay. Well, look. Thank you all for listening. If you're hearing this, you are paying for a four media subscriber. So, you know, we literally can't do this without you.

Joseph: 56:27

I mean, we mentioned ads and event sponsorship. I just wanna stress, the vast, vast, vast majority of, you know, the financial engine of this, the revenue comes from subscribers. I mean, if I had to put a number, it'd be like 85, 90%, something like that. I'm probably I probably thought that up, and that's wrong, but that sounds right to me. Somebody will say it.

Joseph: 56:48

But, again, thank you so much for listening. I didn't get to play a sound effect, so I'm gonna do one quickly now.

Emanuel: 57:02

With everyone now.

Joseph: 57:03

Anyway, okay. I'm gonna play the music now if I can find the right one. Oh my god. I'm scrolling. Wait.

Joseph: 57:07

Wait. Okay. Here we go.