Rolling Stone scion on investing in ‘Track Star’ and the anti-algorithmic future of music media

Max Tani: Hello and welcome to another episode of Mixed Signals from us here at Semafor Media where we are talking to all of the most interesting and important people shaping our new media age. I’m Max Tani. I’m the media editor here at Semafor, and with me as always is Semafor’s editor-in-chief, Ben Smith. Ben, did you ever, before you became editor-in-chief of Semafor, did you ever dream of being a different type of journalist other than politics and business and media, which you’ve mostly covered? Do you ever want to write about art or music or movies or sports, anything like that?

Ben Smith: I wish I could say I had broader interests, but I’ve always run pretty straight up the middle.

Max Tani: You’ve been locked in.

Ben Smith: Before that was something people said.

Max Tani: Yeah, exactly. So one person who has also been pretty locked into one particular media path, pretty much his whole life is our guest this week on the show. And that’s Gus Wenner. Gus is the chairman of Rolling Stone and the son of the magazine’s founder, Jann Wenner. Gus has been involved through a pretty notable time in the magazine’s transformation. He was there and led the charge for it to be sold to Penske Media in 2018, but has stuck around in a leadership capacity, trying to make sure that it still retains its heart and soul, while also pivoting the magazine to a time when most people are consuming music and music media digitally. And now Gus is striking out on his own. He’s got his own new media project called Wenner Media Ventures, whose first investment was in the popular music trivia show, Track Star. Ben, have you seen these videos on your feed, Track Star?

Ben Smith: Yeah, I don’t think I’ve ever sought to watch it on YouTube, but it’s pretty ubiquitous on TikTok and it is part of this new pretty professional internet show world that’s obviously ascendant.

Max Tani: You did see Vice President Kamala Harris during her run for the presidency make some time to do Track Star though, of course, right?

Ben Smith: Yeah. And it was actually one of her least awkward new media appearances, I think.

Max Tani: That is true. There were some hits and there were some misses for sure. But Ben, you also know Gus a little bit socially or professionally. You guys are both part of this elite media cabal, and you know him a little bit. You guys have had lunch. What do you think about Gus?

Ben Smith: I don’t think I know Gus socially. I fly at a somewhat lower altitude, but professionally, I think he was the reinvention of Rolling Stone from essentially a magazine that was going to age out with Bob Dylan fans into something that put Bad Bunny on the cover. It was pretty complicated, controversial music journalism in general in a very complicated place. I think he’s been navigating all that inside a brand so deeply associated with him, but a company he doesn’t run. But you’re the actual consumer here, Max. How are they doing over there?

Max Tani: Yeah, it’s a really interesting question because music media has changed so much over the last several decades, and I think it faces some real challenges, some existential challenges that we’ve seen play out across a lot of different parts of music media. Pitchfork, the iconic millennial media brand, the Rolling Stone of my generation, I guess recently went behind a paywall, which is a really big deal for a publication that’s more than two decades old and had resisted that. But it was an acknowledgement, I think, of a lot of changes that have been going on in music media, which used to serve really two types of functions. One function was just pure discovery. I remember going to the Barnes & Noble in Santa Ana, I’ve talked about this a little bit with Will Welch.

Ben Smith: We got to do a field trip to that place. This is like Max Tani lore.

Max Tani: I think it’s still open. It’s still open. That’s how influential it is and how successful of a branch. But I remember going there reading Rolling Stone and reading Spin to try to figure out what the cool new bands were. I would jot the names down and then I would go home and look them up or I’d go to the CD section and buy a copy. And then the second function-

Ben Smith: Wait, wait. You’re saying you didn’t buy the magazines or subscribe?

Max Tani: Of course not. No, wait, actually, I did have a Rolling Stone subscription though that my mom got for me. I remember that. So we did get those delivered to the house. So one function was discovery, which the internet and algorithms have really strongly disrupted. Spotify does most of the world’s music discovery at this point for them. And the other function of music media is learning more, getting deeper into fandom, learning more about the lives of a lot of musicians, many of whom don’t necessarily need a magazine or music media to put their image out there for them. They can do that themselves creatively on social media through other channels. So it’ll be really interesting, I think, to talk to Gus a little bit about how he’s tried to position Rolling Stone in an era where he’s facing these two twin challenges fundamentally to its existence.

Ben Smith: And is there still such a thing as music criticism?

Max Tani: It’s a great question. We should ask that to him. And of course we’ll also ask him too about why he’s striking out on his own and what it says that his first investment is in a short-form TikTok music quiz show. But Gus is actually waiting for us, so why don’t we bring him in right after this quick break?
Gus, thank you so much for joining us. We’re really excited and interested to talk to you about this because you have done what we love to see from guests, which is you’ve made some news very recently and you’ve decided as one of your first moves to come on and talk with us, which that’s getting started on the right foot in my view, so we appreciate that. So you just launched a new fund to invest in media, which I think is great. Not necessarily a thing that everybody else is doing. Many people are running away from media. Why is now the time to invest in your view?

Gus Wenner: Well, I wouldn’t necessarily classify it as a fund, more of like a holding company or an operating company. I think for starters, it’s what I know how to do. So I don’t know really what else I would do, and it’s what I love. I think media is, as you guys know, the most powerful media. I mean maybe music and which could be classified as media, but this idea of telling a story, it’s a very powerful tool and the world needs it. And I think media is at a inflection point, not to sound cliché, but it really is. And both just personally in my own arc and journey, it was great timing to do it. But also I think in the moment we’re in, it is perfect timing to try to build something new that I don’t think too many media companies are really doing at the moment.

Max Tani: Why was it a good time in your personal journey?

Gus Wenner: Well, my journey has been an interesting one and a long one, and I’m happy to talk about it. But obviously I graduated school, graduated from Brown and started working the family business right away. And at that moment it was 2012 and I knew very little, but I stepped into a situation where the media industry was turning on its head. And Wenner Media as it was, was a company that had three magazines, Rolling Stone, Men’s Journal, and Us Weekly. And probably 80% of the revenues of the company were coming from print. And the mindset of the company was very magazine-oriented. And my initial job and focus was working for the chief digital officer at the time who was a really smart guy. He had been a professor at Harvard Business School and was really, really talented. I learned a ton from him, but I was able to work with him to accomplish a lot in a little amount of time because I had a direct line to my dad who had founded the company.
He had a lot of smart ideas that weren’t necessarily being listened to because it wasn’t the instincts of the business at the time. And that was great. And there’s a long version of the story and a shorter version of the story, but eventually he left to go work at Apple and I took over his role a couple years later running digital across the company and we accomplished a ton of growth and soon enough we had to sell the businesses, sell the different magazines. There was a debt on the company from a deal with Disney around Us Weekly and print revenues were disintegrating. And my dad also had a heart attack, so he was in the hospital out of the mix. And it was really on my shoulders at a young age to tell these things and run this process. And I had super smart people around me while also managing the company itself.

Ben Smith: That sounds incredibly stressful, honestly. I’ve never heard you tell it that way.

Gus Wenner: It was. It was unbelievably stressful and I learned a tremendous amount. And the stakes were extremely high. It was a hundred percent family-owned business. So if things went wrong or we didn’t meet certain hurdles, it was going to be big bill for my family. It wasn’t like a bankruptcy situation. There were liabilities and tax bills and all this stuff. And-

Ben Smith: And you were what, like 28?

Gus Wenner: I was like 26 when this all started properly. And then on the flip side of the coin, there was a lot going on. I mean, we were storied, we had El Chapo coming out. We had more controversial things like UVA and the Boston Bomber. We had General McChrystal. I mean stories that were shaking the world and the staff that was so unbelievably dedicated to the mission of Rolling Stone. And that was at times stressful, at times super exciting. But then over here, rumblings about the future of the company and people worrying what does this mean not only for themselves but for the prospects of Rolling Stone, which is a life mantra and mission that people came from all over the world to be a part of.
So it was a very, very intense time, which I loved and I thrived in that environment, but it was super high pressure and I was learning a lot, balancing a lot, but also figuring out what I was up for and instinctively could do and capable of. And that was an amazing period. And I did three deals to sell those things and they all went really well. They weren’t without their ups and downs and at the 11th hour falling apart and then resuscitating it over here with someone else, all sorts of twists and turns.
But they all ended up as well as we could have hoped for and could have asked for. And I think set a little bit of a mold and template for a lot of the transactions that happened around that time afterwards, like New York Magazine being sold to other similar kinds of properties. I think we were the first to really move and do deals that set the tone and I think valuations to a certain degree and we did really well. So that was like, again, I could talk a lot more about that period. But that was chapter one I would say. Then there’s a lot to say there.
And I would just underscore there, there were so many smart people around him being so young, taking on that role and responsibility, I learned quickly what I knew, but also what I didn’t know. And the value of finding good people and figuring out who to listen to and how to put them in a position to really be empowered was, I would say extra important for me at that age and is something I’ve carried through and still feel. And then the final piece of the puzzle was selling Rolling Stone. In terms of the financial picture, selling Us Weekly was the most, from a numbers perspective, valuable asset that we really had to get rid of to satisfy a lot of these liabilities. And that went really well. And then Men’s Journal.
And then with Rolling Stone, I was prepared in that moment that we would potentially sell it to someone that wanted to do what they wanted to do with it and wouldn’t want me or anyone involved that had been involved. But it was the thing that I just believed in tremendously and had a deep passion and love for. So regardless of what was going to happen with me, I wanted it to be in good hands. I wanted to know beyond just meeting some kind of financial hurdle in the sale, I wanted to know it was going to be in someone’s hands that understood that and that was able to keep it going and fund it and felt like a smart home, strategically.
I sold it to Penske Media and that was a pretty wide ranging process with a ton of interested parties. Jay Penske, who founded and runs Penske Media, we got along really well and had a very similar vision for what this could be, and he wanted me to stay on running it. So I did. So that was the start of chapter two. At that time I think I was president of Rolling Stone and we really worked together to transform the business.
I had already started to put the pieces in place to evolve it from a magazine into something much more and something built for the digital age, but he gave the infrastructure and firepower for me to really run with that. And we worked very closely to really diversify the business, build up a big digital presence, built a films business with Rolling Stone Films where we were producing documentaries and podcasts and television. We expanded our global presence to over 20 global licensees around the world. We built an e-commerce business. I think we did a really good job of making it a multimedia property and leveraging the power of the brand. And we were really successful. The business grew a lot and I became CEO under Jay actually, and we acquired a music festival. So we folded that into Rolling Stone’s operations and it was a great run and I did it for seven years.
And this kind of feeling that I had had from honestly day one before we ever sold anything of this is amazing and this family legacy. And you could spend billions of dollars and countless hours trying to recreate a brand like Rolling Stone and you might not succeed is really like lightening in a bottle in a lot of ways and obviously a testament to my dad. So that felt like this unbelievable opportunity, but I always had this inkling of wanting to build something myself and outside of it. And this ride was so exciting and important to me that it just went where it went. But there just reached a point where I was looking around like, all right, well now’s probably a pretty good moment to do that and I think I’ve learned enough to do it the right way. So now starts chapter three.

Max Tani: Yeah, so you recently invested in a company that makes Track Star, which Ben and I are both familiar with. It’s one of them, it’s part of this-

Ben Smith: Even I’m familiar with it.

Max Tani: Even Ben. Yeah, I didn’t want to say that even Ben is familiar with it, but they’ve gotten enough notable guests of all varieties that we’re pretty familiar with. Actually David Remnick said of in promoting the New Yorker documentary that he was only doing our show and Track Star and the Criterion Closet, which it was nice to be in that category. But you’ve invested in this show, which is already pretty popular. What do you want to do with it? What is that investment going to go towards?

Gus Wenner: Yeah. No, so you said it well. First of all, Jack Coyne, who started the company with his brother Kieran and their friend Henry, he and I went to high school together in New York. So I knew Jack then and I had been aware that he was doing interesting stuff. I knew he was working for Casey Neistat, who’s really talented, and I knew they had sold a company to CNN. So I been keeping a loose tab on him. And then when he started making the show, Track Star, just as soon as I saw it a couple years ago, I was like, that’s really interesting. And it obviously coincided with a moment where at Rolling Stone, we had a video team and we were trying to figure out how to be successful in that space, not only in terms of video production, but in terms of creating shows and content that would work online and in social media.
So I called him and he came in and we met and I was just struck with his energy and his thoughts about it. And I started to think about, well, maybe I should bring Jack on to run our video team and think about a acqui-hire type situation. And then the show started to really explode. And as you pointed out, I mean the level of guests that they were booking became super high. But also I was hearing from friends of mine who were going on the show, musicians and whatnot, who were like, “Doing that show moved the needle more for me than anything else I did in this promotional cycle.” And I was like, “That’s wild.” I was like, there even came a point where we were pitching for some big brand campaign and they won it. And I was like, “What the...?”

Max Tani: Wow.

Gus Wenner: So I met with Jack again and it again coincided with this timing of me thinking about what I wanted to do and this next chapter for myself, and I was playing around with this idea of restarting Wenner Media and it was clear to me how valuable the show was and not just as an individual creator, which he has an incredible talent. And that’s true and that’s really appealing to me. And there’s a lot to do with that, not just with Jack, but with putting other people like that under this umbrella. But it was clear he was building a brand with Track Star that I thought could become like a new MTV of sorts.

Ben Smith: Can I ask you a little about just the economics of that kind of investment? Because I think so many people, investors are circling this creator economy and then there’s this challenge of are you investing in a company or is this just a guy? And if it’s just this talented guy with this show, what do you really own if you’re an investor? And I think there’s a lot of nervousness about that. If he resigns, you’re really in trouble, right?

Gus Wenner: Well, I mean it’s not even necessarily resigns. I mean, yeah, key man in any deal to that degree is scary. And-

Ben Smith: Yeah, I didn’t want to float the possibility of him getting hit by a bus, but that kind of thing. How do you invest in something that’s one guy’s show?

Gus Wenner: Okay, let me answer that question in two parts. Number one, I think there’s an insight here, which is just true. And in my opinion, in order to exceed in this space, in this era, you have to have strong personalities that work on camera. And to me it is not dissimilar from how my dad thought about Rolling Stone when it started. I mean, when people think about Rolling Stone, they think about Hunter Thompson, they think about Amy Leibowitz, they think about Cameron Crowe and Tom Wolfe and Ben Fong-Torros. So it was always about talent and I think a lot of people would be hard pressed to name star writers today, and those days are over. And I think though thematically it’s still the same. I mean the way Lorne Michaels casts SNL, that is the approach-

Ben Smith: So you’re saying Hunter S. Thompson should have ask for equity when he had the chance?

Gus Wenner: Well, that equity I think is the last thing on Hunter’s mind. But I think that talent is the key, and I think that’s always been true in media businesses and a lot of traditional publishing companies I think have lost sight of that. So in Track Star, I saw something that was bigger than just Jack. I saw something that could be an umbrella brand to put together a stable of 10 more people like Jack. And Jack is brilliant and sets a really high-

Ben Smith: And did you buy the whole company or-

Gus Wenner: No. No.

Ben Smith: ... majority of the company? What kind of an investment is it?

Gus Wenner: A significant investment and we’re partners for the long haul, but I’ll stop short of-

Ben Smith: You don’t want to tell us the valuation?

Gus Wenner: No, we’re going to keep that close for now. Yeah.

Ben Smith: All right.

Gus Wenner: But it was meaningful. It was a meaningful dollar amount and it was-

Ben Smith: So somebody once told me what the difference was between meaningful, significant, and major. Each is one zero, but I can’t remember the dichotomy. I’ll go ask Liz after this.

Gus Wenner: I don’t know that rubric, but if you did them... Now you’ve lost me. But it was significant.

Max Tani: I think one out of every 10 guests takes Ben’s bait and gives us a number, but we’ll leave it at that today.

Gus Wenner: That sounds like a meaningful number of guests.

Max Tani: Yeah. Yeah. Kara Swisher and Scott Galloway are the only ones who enthusiastically took Ben’s bait to tell everybody how much money they make and spend. But to go back to the original question though, you made a big investment here. What’s the plan? What do you want to do? How do you see it growing beyond what it’s doing right now? Right now, awesome, cool, interesting show. You got major figures going on there. It’s a key part of the promotional cycle. How do you see it growing?

Gus Wenner: I think there’s three phases, and it’s something we’ll talk more about in a couple months, but we’ve spent a ton of time and it’s been super exciting. In the peak of the snowstorm that weekend, we were meeting all day whiteboarding and strategies. And we’d been talking about a lot of these ideas for months, but really putting pen to paper and getting into it. I think the first thing is just establishing the foundation. And the business has been super successful, it’s exploded in its popularity and revenue has been doubling every year, but there’s no business infrastructure. So first thing is building out a bit of an infrastructure, and that’s part of the opportunity here is I think you have creator businesses that have a real audience, and as I said, are moving the needle in this big way, but don’t have the tools and resources to actually build a real media company around it.
And I think the flip could be said in a way for a lot of traditional media companies that have all these people and infrastructure and resources, but they’ve lost the audience and lost the core skill of making shows or franchises that resonate. So step one is really solidifying that element. Step two is going to be expanding the content. Like you said, Ben, right now there’s four shows. Jack hosts pretty much all of them, and we want to put together a stable of the best, most compelling on-screen talent like Jack, but in different areas that exist. So that’s going to be a huge focus for us. And then just to finish the question, step three is then to expand and really build out the brand from there and build other kinds of businesses around it, like events, businesses, and so on.

Ben Smith: Is it basically a music business and the parallel verticals or other genres or something? Or does it have permission to go elsewhere? How do you think about that?

Gus Wenner: I think music is at its core, but it’s got permission to go elsewhere. The company is called Public Opinion and there’s a longer form news program called Public Opinion, which does really well and they’re really well done and they’re these human stories. And even the show, even Track Star is about human connection and curiosity, which is very much what I think music is, like, its place in the world, it’s this last common ground and it’s so disarming. So I think we want to keep that thread as we launch new shows. I think a lot of them might be music forward, but there’s going to be a much broader scope in terms of different subject matters and beats for sure, outside of music.

Max Tani: Gus, I’m really curious as I’m a longtime consumer of music media, it’s probably some of the first media that I consumed, but it strikes me that-

Ben Smith: You were a child Rolling Stone subscriber.

Max Tani: Yeah, my mom bought me the Rolling Stone subscription that used to be able to get-

Ben Smith: The last millennial.

Max Tani: Yeah, no, that is true. But I have a question. So music media has changed really pretty significantly throughout the course of my lifetime. I feel like I was a music media consumer primarily for two reasons, which is I used it to discover new music, CDs to buy, artists to know about that people were talking about. And so there was this discoverability piece that was a utility. And then on the other side there was this fandom piece, like reading more about these artists that I was interested in. And it strikes me that the internet has really disrupted both of those functions, right? Discoverability, most people just use algorithms to find music nowadays. And on the other side, artists can really control what the narratives are about them. And if someone likes an artist, they can just follow them on social media and get most of what they need. What do you think is the future of music media and the value that it serves when technology platforms have basically taken those two key pillars of what music media used to do?

Gus Wenner: Look, as I said before, I think there is a big opening to centralize some of that for a new kind of voice to both storytelling, but also curation, performances, I mean something that feels really important. Again, for me, my big reference point is Rolling Stone, and I think one of the most powerful things about Rolling Stone was the idea that if an artist was there, they made it. There was this stamp of approval. And I don’t really know where... I mean it exists and I think Rolling Stone still has some of that, but I do think it is wide open. Within your question is almost the answer in terms of how I’m seeing it to build something new that fills that void.
And I think it can’t be done the same way. I think that this openness and curiosity and real human experience is a really core piece of what is going to continue to resonate as we build this thing. As that space has been fragmented and broken down, I don’t think anyone’s stepped in and built something new in its place with a different kind of thinking. And that’s what we’re going to try to do. That’s what we’re trying to do.

Ben Smith: Do you think people are unsatisfied with algorithmic recommendations?

Gus Wenner: A hundred percent. Yeah. Are you? I am.

Ben Smith: Why? I mean it seems like they’re perfect. I’m satisfied.

Gus Wenner: Yeah, the algorithm is smart, but I think it just draws you down this path that often can get to the lowest common denominator and create this group think mentality based on what your feed or bubble is bent towards. And I do think people are frustrated with that. And another reason I think Track Star is really interesting, it started as just asking people questions on the street and just having a really high bar of respect for the audience. And that resonated. And I think algorithms just inherently don’t respect you. They’re just telling you what you might like because they’re smarter than you. So to me it’s wonky, and especially with AI, I think the value of really high level, well done storytelling is going to become greater. Ben, are you agreeing with me or disagreeing? I cannot tell.

Ben Smith: I don’t know. Both at the same time. I’m a pretty pure algorithmic consumer at this point in my life.

Max Tani: Don’t worry. The person who Ben has offended the most on this show with the pro-algorithmic messaging is Alison Roman, who Ben said that he’s using ChatGPT to figure out some recipes, which I think slightly horrified her when he said that somewhat jokingly.

Gus Wenner: But Ben, you’re basically saying you think the algorithm is super effective.

Ben Smith: No, I mean, I actually think, I agree with you that people are desperate for human... I mean, it’s certainly our bet at Semafor that at the top level people actually want human intelligence and taste making in some sense that there’s a human with ideas and intentions behind the thing. But it just strikes me that obviously most people, in fact, in reality seem satisfied with algorithms and are leaning on them for most of their music.

Gus Wenner: Yeah. And look, what else is there at the moment, to a certain extent? I don’t think the idea is to be naive. The algorithms are a very powerful tool and that’s got to be part of the recipe and leveraged. But I think there’s a want and desire for something a little more human.

Ben Smith: Yeah.

Max Tani: There is something to be proud of when you discover something outside of an algorithm at this point. I do think I cherish the music that I discover that’s not just served to me in my Spotify release radar or something like that.

Gus Wenner: If you think of music more broadly and you look at what has resonated in a really deep way over the last even 20 years, you think about Amy Winehouse, you think about Adele, this year, Olivia Dean. There is something very classic about these acts. I’m answering your question in a weird way, but I guess my point is I think there were great formats that when brought back the right way really resonate in a modern context.

Max Tani: Well, we have to take a short break, but we’ll be right back with more with Gus Wenner right after this.
What have you thought about the music media landscape in general and some of the struggles that it seems like the music media has been facing, you lived some of it at the center of Rolling Stone and you guys navigated some of those challenges and came out the other side okay. But you look at Pitchfork, which earlier this year announced that it was going behind a paywall after very proudly not putting its reviews behind a paywall and acknowledging that music criticism now is something only that a few people are really interested in. What have you thought generally about some of those types of struggles?

Gus Wenner: Well, I think a lot of it has to do with packaging and presentation and the business model. And I go back to what I was saying before, which is I don’t think traditional media companies have really figured out how to think like a creator. Creators have been so successful in this environment. The company that I think actually has gotten it, totally different type of content, but Barstool in a lot of ways. They’ve done a really successful job of putting the talent first and having that be the business model. I think in the audio space, The Ringer has done a really good job of it in its own way.
So Jack and I have talked about wanting to build a new kind of media company with this business on a couple levels, and that’s definitely one of them is just the model and what’s at the tip of the spear. I think in terms of the culture and environment that we want to build, we want it to be fun and nimble and energetic and very of the material that we’re producing and creating. And I think that the broader media industry, whether it’s Pitchfork or a lot of these brands that have also been subsumed by these bigger corporate media companies, it’s hard to be as nimble and creative as I think you need to be to win in today’s landscape.

Max Tani: Track Star is obviously a big part of your focus and Public Opinion is part of your focus. Are there any other media companies that you are looking at as well, and do you plan on making any more investments this year?

Gus Wenner: Yes. The next thing, we’ll announce it in April. A huge part of my focus, especially in this initial stretch, is going to be on Track Star and Public Opinion, but I am working on another company and we will announce that in April. And it’s in a similar but different space, but I think it fits Track Star.

Ben Smith: Gus took me out to a very nice lunch as I recall. This would’ve been, gosh, 2021 was it? Or would it been 2019?

Gus Wenner: Something like that.

Ben Smith: I can’t actually remember if I was at BuzzFeed or at The Times. But-

Gus Wenner: You were at The Times.

Ben Smith: A very nice lunch. And this is actually really interesting. You were looking for... I mean, I’m a political journalist, and I think you were looking for a political journalist with strong cultural taste to really bring back the spirit of the early Rolling Stone where it cut across culture and it was the dominant music magazine, but then would also really punch really deeply into politics. And I just didn’t, I mean, it’s obviously incredibly interesting and I remember I told my son that, he was like, “You’re an idiot. You need to go back and call that man right now.” But-

Gus Wenner: I was going to say, you told your son, “Not that man, that kid. That’s part of the problem.”

Ben Smith: That wasn’t the problem. I’m just not deep enough in music to feel like I could do it. So I instead was like, “Oh, I know another super trouble-making political journalist who’s in a ska band.” And I think I introduced you to Noah Shachtman who you wound up hiring.

Gus Wenner: You did. At that time, yes. First of all, it was clear to me that politics was and was going to continue to... I mean, it always is a huge story, but especially in this political era we’re in, I wanted somebody who could really handle that in a really serious way and keep with Rolling Stone’s tradition of being a really serious player in that world. And also there’s a huge music staff with a lot of know-how and really, really deep knowledge and contacts and relationships in that space. And for that reason, I think someone like yourself made sense to me.

Ben Smith: No, you’re still recruiting me here, but the-

Gus Wenner: Well, no.

Ben Smith: But I guess I’m curious about that because I think I really did love that vision that it was, but I also wonder in retrospect, I actually don’t know if you and Noah, you and/or Noah are remain at this point grateful to me for the intro, or are like, “Jesus Christ, that was terrible.” You don’t have to tell me now. But it now feels like, and certainly in this edition of Rolling Stone, the notion that it’s going to be culturally central and have these deep connections to the industry really investigative and tough on the same industry, and then at the same time be doing totally haywire political coverage that picks huge fights, whether it’s Hunter S. Thompson or Michael Hastings. Can that still live in one publication or was that ultimately not the way modern media is organized?

Gus Wenner: You’re saying-

Ben Smith: I basically thought you had these ambitions for cultural relevance and really tough journalism both on the industry and on the president of the United States, that I don’t know. I think that the shifts in power particularly of the industry, make it harder than it was in the 1970s to do all those things at the same time.

Gus Wenner: I can’t speak to Rolling Stone at this very moment, but what I can say is I think Rolling Stone’s biggest and most important assets were its access, its authority, and its storytelling. And when I say storytelling, I’m talking about ability to work with and find the best writers in the world. And it seemed clear to me that we had to lean into those things. And no matter what was happening and how pervasive social media has become, those were three unique, very valuable attributes that we could offer to the world.
At the same time, to your point, there is such a avalanche of information coming at everyone on a given day, especially on beats like the White House where Rolling Stone had a tiny modicum of the amount of resources that the New York Times or someone like that has covering this day in day out. So I didn’t want it to be a regular diet. I wanted us to focus on the highest level, deeply reported feature stories in those arena. And then the daily full coverage would be really around the core beat of music and entertainment do agree, but that these other areas where we had history and equity and know-how and a muscle, we had to punch big but less often. So that was really the mix, and I think that that works, but I think the way you described it is right, that that would be too much, I think.

Ben Smith: And I mean the other big, big shift in music journalism, entertainment journalism, lots of journalism has just been political journalism. The shift in power from the media to the sources to the subjects. I mean just the control over access and the ability, particularly for celebrities just to go direct means that they don’t need Rolling Stone the way they used to. And did that mean that you had to be more gentler essentially with the people you covered? I mean, [inaudible 00:38:20] that anybody has to?

Gus Wenner: I think a lot of people probably have felt that way. I never felt that way. You’re a hundred percent right. The reliance on the media in any industry has become way less, and I think it’s put media companies in a really weird position, where a lot of them in response have published weird stuff to try and maintain audience. And it’s been a very weird incentive and I think that it requires a different kind of thinking. And yeah, there was an era where with Rolling Stone, if we ask someone to be on the cover, it’d just be a no brainer, yes. And then in recent times, you’re negotiating with someone that they’ll only do it if their own personal photographer could take the photo. And it’s just lines that I was never willing to cross, and if that meant losing certain opportunities, that’s fine, but I always felt like the integrity of the brand was the most important thing.
But again, you’re right, the landscape has changed. And not to circle it back to Track Star, but it reminded me of the old days of Rolling Stone in the sense that people wanted to participate in it and saw the way that it actually could move the needle and make an impact with its audience in a way they can’t quite do on their own in their own channel. That to me was like A, is a huge revelation and something that I think we can build a lot around.

Max Tani: I’m going to ask the flip side of Ben’s question, which is, can you think of or remember any times where there were people who came to you and who were really upset about coverage from Rolling Stone, and how did you deal with that? I imagine that may have happened once or twice.

Gus Wenner: Oh yeah, constantly. I mean, countless times people I know, friends, people, I don’t know coming to me upset about a story or something. If the journalism was strong enough, it would just be a no brainer, and it was a story worth telling. What I hated, especially during a certain period, Rolling Stone got a little guilty of and quickly moved to address that, but was the kinds of stories that were negative and not important. That wasn’t the space I wanted us to play in, but the stories that were important and critical in ways that were answering questions that needed to be posed and answered and relied on real reporting, that was always way more important to me than someone I may have known that came to me like being upset that that reporting was being done.
I mean, I’ve worked with a lot of people and most would tell you that that’s always been how I managed Rolling Stone and certainly was the way... Well, I was going to talk about how my dad, but he did an amazing job of it. I mean he... Look, I don’t know, do you remember the story we did on Johnny Depp?

Ben Smith: Yeah.

Max Tani: Yeah. Of course.

Gus Wenner: Incredible piece of journalism. That was someone my dad had been close with and known forever.

Ben Smith: So how did he... I mean, I think this is actually something so important for media proprietors who are listening, how you handle that situation, which inevitably comes up when you own or invest in a publication. What did you learn from your dad on that? How did he handle that situation? How did he think about that kind of situation?

Gus Wenner: I mean, for him it was a whole other level of Harry because he had Rolling Stone. He also had Us Weekly, which at the time, that and People Magazine, they were Instagram in a lot of ways and they were that big and it was a celebrity gossip magazine and there’s a lot of celebrity in his life. And so there was all sorts of overlapping. I can’t really speak to how he handled it. I can tell you I know many, many times where he made the noble decision, but I think he had a really good barometer of where the line was and what was worthy. I think with Us Weekly, it was complicated because by nature it was a gossip magazine, so the lines were way different. But with Rolling Stone, I think he kept a really strong line. And I mean, he was responsible for I think some of the most important and impactful cultural societal journalism of the last 60 years. So maybe he didn’t do everything perfect, maybe I didn’t do everything perfect, but I think he did a really good job of it.

Max Tani: Gus, did you always want to go into the family business? You started working at Rolling Stone right out of college and you were thrown into these, as you mentioned earlier, just really intense situations. I can’t really imagine what that would be like at 26 to be making the decision about the future of this thing that your dad spent a long time doing. Did you always want to do this?

Gus Wenner: I mean, my real love was music in college and high school and whatnot, and when I graduated, my intention wasn’t to... I couldn’t have foreseen the way it went. In fact, my dad, who’s a pretty shrewd guy, he sat me down and was like, “Just so you know, this is going nowhere.” And I was like, “I don’t want it to.”
And he was like, “Look, even if you were great at this, which the odds of that are pretty slim,” he was like, “I wouldn’t even want to put this burden on you. It’s a lot.” But then I think there was something around the fact that it was right at this moment in 2012, and I remember I went to see Shane Smith and Vice was killing it. They were eating Rolling Stone’s lunch of this new digital media thing. And I was introduced to Shane by Tom Freston, who was an old friend of my dad’s and a big investor and part of Vice’s success. And I walked out of his office and I was like, and I’ve said this to Shane before or after this all, in recent times, but I felt just determined on this mission and crusade to make Rolling Stones successful in this new world.
And its mission was so deep in my blood and feeling that I never even thought, is this what I want to do? Is this not what I want to do? It just was like, do it. And that was a big driving force for me. But at the same time I was like, look, if I’m not good at this, the proof’s in the pudding. The numbers are very clear, I should do something else. But we kept being successful in building this digital part of the business, which eventually became the whole of the business.

Max Tani: Ben, I feel like that was a pretty interesting time for you as well. Do you remember that intoxicating feeling? I feel like I got there towards the end as the party was tapering off, but I saw all of you doing that, and it seemed very exciting.

Ben Smith: Doing digital media back when things were good?

Max Tani: Doing digital media when they had parties, and it was really fun.

Ben Smith: Oh, yeah. No, I mean-

Max Tani: You would walk out of an executive’s office and feel excited.

Ben Smith: Yeah. And actually I got on the ride in 2004, and so I never had the hard part of the job, which Gus had at Rolling Stone which was transformation. I mean, I’ve never done that. That seems extremely difficult and don’t want that job. But there was that sense, which I’m sure you felt at Vice and I’m sure pissed you off of just the arrogance and the sense that the future obviously belongs to these newcomers and the legacy brands are obviously being pushed aside. I don’t know. I mean, I think in retrospect we were so arrogant and pretty much wrong about that.

Gus Wenner: Well, yeah, I think there was some of that. There was also this other element, which is like BuzzFeed was VC-backed.

Ben Smith: Yeah. We had access to so much capital.

Gus Wenner: There were so much capital, and it almost felt like the mission was just to grow top line revenue as much as possible so they could raise more money at an even higher valuation. So we were left as a privately-owned family business who relied and cared about profitability, which of course everything got eventually to that place, but almost competing against these competitors that were selling $1 for 50 cents, basically. And-

Ben Smith: Oh yeah. I remember at BuzzFeed, we were very briefly profitable. I think it was in 2014, and the board, our board was like, “What are you doing? Why are you profitable? You’re supposed to be focused on growth, not profitability. You’re obviously not spending our money fast enough.”

Gus Wenner: Not that that is a surprise, but it’s so crazy. Look, I’m grateful that I came up in a environment that was about managing to profitability and building a sustainable business. And I think it-

Max Tani: It’s back in fashion.

Gus Wenner: It’s back in fashion. It’s back in fashion.

Max Tani: Well, Gus, we know you got to go. So last question for you from our producer, which is what are you listening to right now? What’s exciting to you musically?

Gus Wenner: Oh my God.

Max Tani: We were actually specifically asked, by the way, for you to show us the last thing that you were listening to on your phone, just to keep it honest, but-

Gus Wenner: Okay, let me see.

Max Tani: ... if you would like, we would be interested in that.

Gus Wenner: Let me see. Oh my God. Okay. Well, actually the last thing, the thing that I’m literally up right now is this song called Parachute by Sean Lennon. And the reason I’m-

Max Tani: Oh, nice.

Gus Wenner: ... listening to that, because I saw Sean on Friday night and I asked him if he ever thought about that Parachute of his record Friendly Fire, which was an amazing record, felt to me like it was lifted for SZA’s song, Kill Bill. And if you listen to those two songs, they’re so strikingly similar. And Sean was like, “No one’s ever really brought that up to me, but it’s always been in the back of my mind.” And I was like, “It’s like a one for one.” But he was like, “Yeah. I probably ripped that off someone else, so whatever.” But that’s a great record. But what am I listening to now? The person that has struck me as a serious talent is this guy, Mk.gee.

Max Tani: Yeah.

Gus Wenner: Yeah. He’s really, really brilliant as a guitar player, as a songwriter, as a singer, there’s something like almost Prince in there, but Fleetwood Mac in a way. So that’s the person I think is incredible. But I listen to all sorts of music.

Max Tani: And also an artist who suffers from, in my view, the big problem of music in the internet age, which is if I’ve never said the artist out loud, I don’t know how to pronounce it, I’m just only familiar from reading the actual words. So maybe that’s something that you guys can address with your new media company. But Gus, we really, really-

Gus Wenner: It will be our mission.

Max Tani: Yes, thank you. Thank you.

Ben Smith: Thank you, Gus. Thanks for coming on.

Max Tani: Pronounce as many artists’ names as possible.

Gus Wenner: Thank you guys so much. I’m sorry I was a little sick and look a little sick.

Ben Smith: You were great, Gus, thank you.

Max Tani: You look great. Thank you so much, Gus.

Gus Wenner: Thanks guys. Talk soon.

Ben Smith: So Max, that was so fun. Gus was really so open, and I just this so deep in the world of music media, do you buy this basic idea that people are tired of the algorithms and that there’s going to be this resurgence in whatever it is, whatever magic Rolling Stone used to have?

Max Tani: I think at the top end, people are definitely interested in breaking free from algorithms. And there is in a moment where so much of our lives are defined by recommendations and algorithmic feeds, I think that ultimately Gus is right that it does feel cheap and it’s a fun house mirror version of you. It’s like you know that it’s you in there, but you don’t necessarily like what you see all the time. This is how I feel in my TikTok feed is I’m like, man, they think I am an idiot who just is interested in cooking videos and menswear and snowboarding and basketball, and I do like all those things, but I actually am much more interested in when I open up my phone, consuming a much broader amount of content that doesn’t totally rot my brain and that enriches my life.
And so I think definitely there is space for the things that define you as a person in your taste, the things that you’re proud of, like, oh, I love that band, or I love this thing, this excitement that you get, I think that there is space outside of the algorithm for that, but for a lot of the most, the basic stuff, some kind of your fifth favorite artist, maybe the algorithm is going to do that stuff for you. What do you think, Ben?

Ben Smith: I mean, I thought about actually what you said, Gus said a lot of smart stuff, but I thought what you said about treasuring things you discover outside the algorithm is so true. If it’s like a band, the song you found on a show or a person recommended to you just obviously has more resonance.

Max Tani: We see that too from the people who we have on the show. People love Blackbird Spyplane because they’re like, “This is this cool newsletter that I read about that I found out, and I read it a few times a week, and it’s my special thing that feels like part of my tastes.” And I think that that’s different than just the, I get a lot of fashion content that’s pitched to me and that comes at me through the feed that’s just lacks that special little personal touch.

Ben Smith: It’s funny, personalization actually turns out to be the enemy of the personal touch. Personalization is so deeply impersonal, comes from nowhere, and isn’t ultimately what anybody likes. Although it’s a great utility.

Max Tani: No, absolutely. And in a pinch, it’s great. I need to find a hotel. I need to find something that I don’t really care that much about. But for things that you do care deeply about, it can be good to break free of that. The other question that I had for you, Ben, I thought that his point that he made that it’s funny that the creators have all of the audience and excitement and attention, but don’t have that great of monetization. And many of the media companies have great monetization but don’t really have any of the big personalities and audiences was a really interesting point. Did you think that that was true?

Ben Smith: Oh yeah. I mean, I think in some ways that’s a very sharp formula for something we’re talking about all over the place. Why should Versant Media buy or license or whatever, Pod Save America and The Bulwark? It’s because they have a giant, rapacious advertising machine across a zillion platforms and plugged into the huge brands that still buy a lot of the advertising for whom, honestly, a medium sized podcast operation are too small to bother with. And so I do think there are matches to be made between essentially the ad sales and subscription arms of legacy businesses and the content from new media. And I mean that’s in some way always been the logic of all sorts of different acquisitions.

Max Tani: So Ben, when I was watching the Super Bowl this weekend, I was watching this Lay’s ad in which they very sentimentally passed down the potato farm from father to daughter. And it’s this very idealized version of America, and people love the idea of several generations of farmers. In media, we have a very different attitude about that. People think, oh, this is just a nepotism situation. What do you think about Gus’s relationship with his family business? And were you surprised by some of the stories and his thinking about how he was navigating this very difficult time at Rolling Stone while he was 26 years old and his dad was recovering from a heart attack?

Ben Smith: First of all, I actually wept during that Lay’s ad. That was just totally directed to me. I wept and went and found some Lay’s potato chips. But yeah, it’s funny because this is definitely something I’ve really deeply changed my view on family businesses, which is, I remember when we were at BuzzFeed, Jonah Peretti and I joking about, it’s like The New York Times wants to find the ideal CEO for the most important news business in the world, and they do a global search to figure out who could be the best possible leader. And oh my God, what a coincidence. It’s the son of the current guy. And that’s funny to say, and it sounds ridiculous, but I just think obviously A.G Sulzberger has done a phenomenal job running that place. I mean, look at The Washington Post, look at The New York Times, and in part of it is that sense of long-term stewardship and you’re not going to pivot and you don’t think of it as a brand and you’re not looking for an exit and all this jargon. You’re totally committed to the business.
I remember Dean Baquet said once that, “The success of the New York Times rests the choice by the Sulzberger family to be millionaires rather than billionaires.” Which I thought... But the other part of it is that for a smart kid who, for whatever screw loose reason is obsessed with following in their father’s or their mother’s footsteps, you do just learn an enormous amount and you grow up in this thing and it’s in your blood and you’re obsessed with it. But also he’s learning at the feet of Jann Wenner who love him or hate him, one of the great media figures of his generation and obviously has soaked up an enormous amount from that. And so it gives you a leg up. I think a lot of talented actors or the children of other talented actors because they’ve studied at their parents’ feet and it’s unfair, but it is obviously an advantage. My kids actually listen to this show. I don’t think any of them are planning to get into journalism, but I hope they’ll consider it. Somebody’s going to have to run Semafor at some point. Eli, are you listening?

Max Tani: Yes. Yes. And they’ve definitely picked up a few things wandering around for sure, or helping you answer your emails while you’re driving. But it is true, and it says something that the two most successful media companies in America are run mostly by the children, the family members of the families that owned them, both The Times and Fox, of course.

Ben Smith: Yeah, that’s right.

Max Tani: Well, that feels like a great place to leave it. Thank you so much for listening to another episode of Mixed Signals from us here at Semafor. Our show is expertly produced, as always by Chris McLeod of Blue Elevator Productions and our very own Josh Billinson. With special thanks to Anna Pezzino, Jules Zern, Chad Lewis, Rachel Oppenheim, Tory Core, Garrett Wiley, and Daniel Hoeft. Our engineer is Rick Kwan, and our theme music is by the great Steve Bone, who I saw at a party recently. What’s up Steve? Our public editor is Shane Smith. Shane, at one point you were supposed to come on our show, and yet you still haven’t been on. But Gus had a great time and he’s a friend of yours. Come on our show.

Ben Smith: Oh yes. And if you’re listening, if you’re Shane or otherwise, please follow us in your favorite podcast platform and subscribe on YouTube.

Max Tani: And if you want more, you can always sign up for Semafor’s Media Newsletter out every Sunday night, and of course, leave us a five-star review.

Ben Smith: Yeah, please do that. Five stars.