Two years of strong and slow boring of hard boards

Many thanks to our members — here's to more great years to come

Two years ago I launched this website with a lot of enthusiasm about the editorial mission of re-establishing a direct personal relationship with readers and declaring independence from algorithmic content distribution and media groupthink. At the same time, I must admit that I had a lot of trepidation about the business model. Would anyone read? Would anyone subscribe?

I felt comfortable taking the plunge thanks to a much-misunderstood financial offer from Substack that gave me a guaranteed minimum income in exchange for limiting my share of the upside if the site succeeded.

But it did succeed, enormously, to the point where that deal ended up being massively unfavorable to me. In our just-completed second year, Substack took only 10 percent of the gross revenue, which was nice for Kate and me but has also really expanded the range of things we’re able to do. I’m proud to say we have over 13,000 paid subscribers, and I owe a tremendous debt of gratitude to each and every one of you.

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