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Some more details: "Substack laid off 13 of its 90 employees on Wednesday, part of an effort to conserve cash amid an industrywide funding crunch for start-ups.
by andreyk 4y ago
Some more details:
"Substack laid off 13 of its 90 employees on Wednesday, part of an effort to conserve cash amid an industrywide funding crunch for start-ups.
Substack’s chief executive, Chris Best, told employees that the cuts affected staff members responsible for human resources and writer support functions, among others, according to a person familiar with the discussion.
Mr. Best told employees on Wednesday that Substack had decided to cut jobs so it could fund its operations from its own revenue without raising additional financing in a difficult market, according to the person with knowledge of the discussion."
So to be fair to Substack, while their valuation is crazy it's not like they are burning through VC money with wild abandon. Nice to see some restraint instead of a CEO feeding delusional hype.
- rchaud 4y agoThe newsletter hype cycle is over anyway. Substack was the name on everyone's lips when they were buying off big-name writers like Andrew Sullivan. That's faded, they have yet to land any big hitters organically. People are having to tighten budgets and cut gym memberships, newspapers, Netflix and Spotify subscriptions. Substack isn't even in the mix there.
- jonny_eh 4y agoI'm kinda surprised that a 13 employee layoff at a 90 employee company is newsworthy enough for the NYTimes.
- de_keyboard 4y agoDirect competition for labour. If writers can earn more on Substack then NYT input costs rise.
- Negitivefrags 4y agoJournalists at the NYT are probably feeling some schadenfreude about it because substack is often positioned as a kind of anti-mainstream-media website.
- jsemrau 4y agoThank you for pointing that out. The US economy is still excepted to grow at 2.5% in 2022. So I am not understand the narrative here. While everyone who is relying on cheap funding to grow their business will be suffering, companies that have solid unit economics should thrive. [1]https://www.oecd.org/economy/united-states-economic-snapshot/ https://www.oecd.org/economy/united-states-economic-snapshot...
- deeptote 4y agoThe narrative is the elite are angry that it now actually costs something to borrow money.
- pessimizer 4y agoThe NYT editorial line despises Substack and prays for it to fail. It's certainly important news for people who are interested in Substack that they're failing to make money, though.
- ab_testing 4y agoWhy do they despise substack? Did Substack do something to piss them off ?
- droptablemain 4y agoSubstack is an existential threat to the NYTimes business model and ultimate existence.
- ibeckermayer 4y agoThe internal woke mob at the NYT bullied Bari Weiss out of the organization, now she’s making way more money writing over at Substack. Glenn Greenwald was also strong armed out of the media company he founded, retreated to Substack, and is prospering. Beyond being a direct competitor to aspects of the NYT’s business, their platform and pro-free-speech ethos are an existential threat to the corporate media (like NYT) monopoly on the Overton window.
- overaton 4y ago
- wbsss4412 4y agoClaiming Weiss left because she was bullied out of the organization papers over leaves out the fact that there was obviously a significant pull factor to get her to jump ship, as you point out, leaving led her to make significantly more money. But yes, there’s clearly a resentment from within elite media (WaPo/NYTimes) that people they don’t like have an avenue for editorial independence that is beyond their reach.
- 4y ago
- davidweatherall 4y ago> 13 employee layoff at a 90 employee Let's rephrase that to 14% to sound more impactful
- sshine 4y agoHow about: Substack fires every 7th employee!
- pessimizer 4y agoSeptimated.
- nonrandomstring 4y ago> 14% to sound more impactful What makes you say that? I don't understand why the percentage figure would carry more weight. I look at 13/90 my brain says "roughly twenty percent", which is too much. Perhaps some people, equally innumerate as I, misjudge the other way. Either way, the facts remain the same. Do you think numbers expressed as percentages have a different psychological effect? Maybe they sound more authoritative or clever?
- codyjones 4y agoIt would carry more weight to someone who has never heard of Substack or doesn't know how big a company it is. They'd assume it was a large company because of who was reporting about it.
- nonrandomstring 4y agoAh yes, they're hiding the body count. Makes sense now.
- dghlsakjg 4y agoI know what substack is and I fell for it. 13 people losing their jobs isn’t national news and they know it.
- 4y ago
- __derek__ 4y agoNote that it's in the Media Business section, and Substack has been an important Media story the last few years. This seems like a normal story for someone on the Media beat to write.
- lmm 4y agoThey're a lot more culturally relevant than "90 employees" would suggest. And, sure, NYT is probably happy to report on their rival's misfortune.
- setgree 4y agoWhen 20 people quit Basecamp, that got a Times article too [0] -- though also a lot of chatter on HN [1]. FWIW I agree with a different comment on this thread that Substack gets disproportionate attention in traditional media because its business model is a financial threat. [0] https://www.nytimes.com/live/2021/04/30/business/stock-market-today https://www.nytimes.com/live/2021/04/30/business/stock-marke... [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26998127 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26998127