Okay, so we're doing this
As I write these words, it's fewer than 24 hours since I left Twitter. I'm sad about it. I loved Twitter. Different people like Twitter for different reasons. I liked Twitter as a source for news, as a place to see funny and insightful posts from friends and strangers, and — and this is important — to be heard. I can own this. I’m Lex Friedman, and I love an audience.
I promised my focus in this quick post would be to do three things: Explain who I am, what I’m doing here, and why you should care. So let’s start with the easiest one:
Who am I?
I’m Lex Friedman. I’m a dad in New Jersey. I’m a startup entrepreneur. I’m a podcasting executive. I’m an improviser. I’m a writer. And I host a few podcasts, including Your Daily Lex, which is five minutes a day of whatever I’m thinking about.
My career includes a job at MySpace, where I had a cubicle next to Tom for a bit. I was hired there as the company’s first full-time PHP developer, and I quickly realized I wanted the job of the people who told me what the website should do, versus being the codemonkey to do it. So I switched to the product side.
After NewsCorp bought MySpace, I knew I didn’t want to work for Rupert Murdoch, so I cofounded a diet-tracking startup called The Daily Plate. This was still pre-iPhone era. We got acquired by a company called Demand Media, which went public. With three startup successes under my belt, I took a passion job — cutting my salary by more than half! — as a full-time writer for Macworld, writing about Macs and iPhones and iPads and Steve Jobs.
When a friend asked if I wanted to cohost a podcast, I said yes. That led to my eventually selling podcast ads for my show, and then the network I was on, and then for friends’ podcasts, and then for friends of friends. I eventually started my own podcasting business, which got acquired by Midroll, where I became a cofounder. There, I was the Chief Revenue Officer (and later, Chief Business Development Officer), leading first our sales and later our partnerships teams, selling podcast ads and bringing in massive partners (Marc Maron, Conan O’Brien, My Favorite Murder, Bill Simmons). I worked with many great folks there, including my friend Korri Kolesa, — now the CRO at Veritonic — whom I’d first met when we worked together back at Intermix, then the parent of MySpace.
Midroll was acquired by Scripps and eventually renamed Stitcher. After a total of seven years there, in 2019, Korri and I joined ART19 — a podcasting technology company — with me as its Chief Revenue Officer and Korri as its COO. We were brought in to introduce multiple brand new products there, which we did successfully. Amazon acquired ART19 in June of 2021. Amazon also owns Wondery, where I’m now the head of podcast strategy.
So what am I doing here?
Well, like I said, I love writing. I loved Twitter. I’m of course on Mastodon (at @lexfri@mastodon.social). I want an audience, and I’m building one on Mastodon and saying goodbye to one on Twitter. At least until some serious changes there.
My friend Liz just launched her Substack , and I loved her first post. I don't want another email newsletter, but I recently learned you can subscribe to Substacks via RSS by attaching /feed to the end of the URL, so now I can read Liz’s posts in my favorite newsreader. That’s awesome.
And I’m going to launch a secret thing soon. I mean, it won’t be a secret when I launch it. But I’m going to launch a thing, and I’d like a place to talk about it, so it might as well be here. I mean, you could also argue that it shouldn’t be here; it’s often significantly better to own your publishing than to use a third-party service. But this is easy, and popular, and I’m enjoying typing in this window, so I’m going for it.
What I’m doing here is specifically this: Sharing thoughts. Reaching an audience. Writing about whatever is on my mind that feels worth sharing.
Why should you read it?
I mean, no pressure. I have a few things to share! Jokes to make! Wisdom to impart, if we’re lucky. (It’s funny to me that I’m more confident I can be funny than wise, but that’s for me to figure out.)
But this will be where thoughts that are too long for Mastodon or Twitter go. You’re welcome to ask me to write about certain topics, and if I feel like I have something to say about them, I will. But over the next couple months I hope to write about various topics I’ve gotten pretty smart on: podcasts, growing businesses, sales, revenue, improv, why billionaires keep proving that they’re actually not smarter than the rest of us, why puns are great, etc. The important stuff.
Anyway, you’re great. You read 800 words that I composed on a Sunday whim. I appreciate it. Have a good one. Be my audience. Love me. Is that too much to ask?