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☆ Tech journalist Taylor Lorenz breaks down her Substack plans and why she's leaving legacy media for the creator economy
▼ + stars: | 2024-10-03 | by ( Amanda Perelli | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +12 min

The tech journalist Taylor Lorenz is going solo and launching her own Substack publication. AdvertisementThe tech journalist Taylor Lorenz is going full creator mode, launching her own Substack publication called User Mag. "We are grateful for the work Taylor has produced at The Washington Post," a Post spokesperson said in a statement. I think Substack is doing a lot more in terms of multimedia. So there's people like that, that I'm really going to miss having access to their minds on a daily basis.

Persons: Taylor Lorenz, Lorenz, —, Vox, Joe Biden, Taylor, Eric Newcomer, Simon Owens, Matthew Yglesias, Yglesias, Peter Kafka, Seibel, He's, Mark, that's, Johnny Harris, Cleo Abram, Ryan Broderick, There's, J Aubrey, Mina Le, Hasan Piker, Kate Lindsay, I'm, Substack, haven't, Zoe Jensen, Drew Harwell, Drew, You've, Tucker Carlson, I'd, I've Organizations: Washington, BI, Service, The New York Times, Washington Post, YouTube, Fox News, The Washington, Post, Garbage, Vox, Business Locations: Substack livestreaming

☆ You probably can't make more than $1 million a year on Substack. But Matthew Yglesias does.
▼ + stars: | 2024-10-02 | by ( Peter Kafka | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +10 min

That turned out to be a very good decision: Yglesias says Slow Boring is grossing around $1.4 million a year, with limited overhead. Substack gives writers like Yglesias — and now, Taylor Lorenz — a lot of freedom and the ability to make a lot of money. Now, she's off to work on her own via User Mag, a new Substack publication she's launching this week. The Substack was an immediate success, and within a few months, Yglesias had 9,800 subscribers, paying him around $80 a year. Yglesias says he now has nearly 18,000 subscribers, which means he is likely grossing at least $1.4 million a year.

Persons: Matthew Yglesias, Yglesias, Taylor Lorenz, —, Lorenz, Harris, Vox, Ezra, doesn't, Substack, Kate Crawford, I've, Bari Weiss, Weiss, Kate, Crawford, that's, LaCroix, Matt, you've Organizations: Vox, Service, The New York Times, Washington Post, Democratic, Trump, who's, Republican, Netflix, Newsweek Locations: who's, Los Angeles, Vox.com

☆ Climate crisis: You don’t have to admit there’s one to be fighting climate change
▼ + stars: | 2024-03-23 | by ( Zachary B. Wolf | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +16 min

The climate crisis ends up touching on all of those issues, as CNN’s chief climate correspondent Bill Weir told me. Removing politics from climate changeWOLF: It’s interesting to hear you say that about Texas, because the governor and the Republican-dominated legislature there would seemingly be opposed to doing anything specifically because of climate change. Joe Biden has tried to make the argument that addressing climate change should be an economic boom. It seems clear that we’re going to burst through the 2-degree tipping point that had been previously suggested as the tipping point for climate change. What that means for marine ecosystems and coral reefs, which are the cradles of life in the oceans, and what it means for the power of storms as we head into hurricane season has scientists really, really worried.

Persons: Bill Weir, ”, Weir, You’re, WEIR, don’t, Syd Kitson, It’s, Hurricane Ian, CNN WEIR, Hurricane Maria, they’ve, it’s, It’ll, Joe Biden, Donald Trump, Matt Yglesias, WOLF, I’ve, we’ve, We’ve, Kena Betancur, they’re, There’s Organizations: CNN, NFL, Hurricane, Babcock, Buffalo, UN, Republican, Act, Citi Bikes, Getty, Greyhound Locations: Hope, Massachusetts, Salisbury , Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Florida, America, , Florida, Puerto Rico, Buffalo, Puerto Rican, Niagara Falls, Texas, Alaska, United States, Portland , Maine, Portland , Oregon, Central America, Charleston, South Carolina, New York City, Dallas, Chicago, New York, AFP

☆ The viral 'Twitter menswear guy' just wants an affordable home in a walkable neighborhood
▼ + stars: | 2024-03-16 | by ( Eliza Relman | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +6 min

It belongs to San Francisco-based fashion writer Derek Guy, also known as the "Twitter menswear guy" behind the @dieworkwear account. But, increasingly, he's been sounding off on his other passion: affordable housing. "I'm probably never going to be able to afford a home in San Francisco, that's my guess, or anywhere in the Bay Area, unless I move really, really, really far out," he said. But Guy has written about how diversity in cities — made possible by affordable housing — is essential for creative inspiration. How about you put me in the middle of a ton of affordable housing."

Persons: —, you've, Derek Guy, Guy, he's, I'm, Maison, ragamuffins, KP6dM0W62T, derek, Guy's, YIMBYs, we're, Matthew Yglesias, Kate, Kate her, Princess, Wales, Middleton, He's Organizations: Service, Business, Franciscans Locations: San Francisco, Bay, North America, Vietnam, —, Tokyo

☆ Opinion | Yes, Take Me Back to 2001
▼ + stars: | 2024-01-26 | by ( Ross Douthat | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +2 min

“Let me be the bridge to an America that only the unknowing call myth,” he told his audience. “Let me be the bridge to a time of tranquillity, faith and confidence in action. And to those who say it was never so, that America’s not been better, I say you’re wrong. But much of contemporary conservatism believes strongly in Dole’s formulation — in a lost Arcadia and a debased present. But they’re usually couched as a kind of reactionary futurism, where going forward requires first taking several big steps back.

Persons: Bob Dole, ”, America’s, Dole’s, Bill Clinton’s, Donald Trump, Matt Yglesias Organizations: Republican, Trump Locations: America, Arcadia

☆ Opinion | Americans Might Tune Out the Trump Show Reboot
▼ + stars: | 2024-01-19 | by ( Michelle Goldberg | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +3 min

In crude material terms, Donald Trump’s presidency benefited the media, with subscriptions, ratings and clicks all soaring. “When Trump Wins, So Does the Media,” the center-left writer Matthew Yglesias wrote in October. In a second Trump presidency, those questions would be answered. If Trump is re-elected, I’d expect to see a lot of Americans adopting a similar stance as an emotional survival strategy. Though Trump thrives on attention, he’d be even more destructive without the pressure of sustained public outrage.

Persons: Donald Trump’s, Matthew Yglesias, Philip Bump, Trump, MAGA, George Packer, ” I’m, Trump’s, Viv Groskop, Vladimir Putin’s, he’d, Jennifer Senior, “ I’d, ”, Benjamin Toff Organizations: Trump, The New York Locations: Washington, The, Vladimir Putin’s Russia

☆ ChatGPT showed it could pass a freshman year at Harvard and achieve a 3.34 GPA, student says
▼ + stars: | 2023-07-19 | by ( Beatrice Nolan | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

ChatGPT is capable of achieving respectable grades at Harvard, an experiment found. Per the experiment conducted by a Harvard student, the bot ended the year with a 3.34 GPA. A version of ChatGPT powered by OpenAI's GPT-4 is capable of passing a typical freshman year at Harvard, a recent experiment found. To conduct the experiment, Bodnick, a Harvard student herself, asked eight professors and teaching assistants to grade ChatGPT's essays generated in response to real Harvard prompts. Higher education is starting to bring in guidance and policies to manage the rise of generative AI.

Persons: OpenAI's GPT, Maya Bodnick, Matthew Yglesias's, OpenAI's ChatGPT, Wharton, Christian Terwiesch Organizations: Harvard, Ivy League College

☆ How Democrats Can Win Workers
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-13 | by ( David Leonhardt | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +4 min

Today, I’ll be writing about what Democrats might do about the problem, focusing on a new YouGov poll, conducted as part of the Center for Working-Class Politics study. A key point is that even modest shifts in the working-class vote can decide elections. If President Biden wins 50 percent of the non-college vote next year, he will almost certainly be re-elected. But candidate messages that explicitly mentioned race were unpopular. Democrats who have won difficult recent elections, including both progressives and moderates, have often presented a blue-collar image.

Persons: I’ll, Biden, ”, Bhaskar Sunkara, Matthew Yglesias, Mark Kelly of Arizona, Marcy Kaptur, Jared Abbott, Harry Truman, Franklin Roosevelt Organizations: Center, Democratic, Jacobin, Voters, Ohio, Progress, Swing Locations: Chicago , Los Angeles , New York, Philadelphia

☆ Joe Biden Is a President Who Knows the Right Time to Shut Up - The New York Times
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-07 | by ( Matthew Yglesias | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

In many ways he embodies what is an unusual model of the presidency in our media age. Presidents facing legislative roadblocks are invariably urged to do more, to say more, to use the bully pulpit more. The dramatic speech or confrontation makes for good storytelling in a way that a drawn-out, incremental, closed-door — in short, boring — negotiation never could. That is the insight President Biden brought to the office. A reduction in spending, disproportionately tilted to nonmilitary budget items, is a real win for the right.

Persons: Biden, McCarthy, doesn’t Biden Organizations: Supplemental, Assistance

☆ Want to know why younger generations seem so pissed? Look at the housing market.
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-04 | by ( Matt Turner | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +6 min

But the biggest issue is probably a housing market that simply feels unfair. From a shaky economy to student debt, to general inflation and spiking healthcare costs, there's lots to be worried about. "One was the long, weak labor market in the wake of the Great Recession, and the other is how badly the housing market functions." When you look at the housing market, it's particularly grim right now. But while Americans have different health situations (and lifestyles and levels of student debt), all of them live somewhere.

Persons: Gen Zers, —, Zers, Josée Rose, there's, Matt Yglesias, Phil Rosen, Goldman Sachs, James Rodriguez, Pew, John Myers, Ben Southwood, Sam Bowman, homebuyers Organizations: Service, Deloitte, TIAA Institute, Federal Reserve Bank of New, Mortgage, Association, Commonwealth Fund Locations: Federal Reserve Bank of New York, New York, isn't

☆ The House Passed the Bill. Who Won?
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-01 | by ( David Leonhardt | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +2 min

It is a short-term bill that lacks any attempt to solve the country’s long-term fiscal challenges through tax increases or changes to Medicare and Social Security. The House bill not only protects all the clean energy subsidies passed last year, but also includes a bipartisan priority known as permitting reform that has the potential to remove some of the bureaucratic obstacles to major clean-energy projects. “This is the thing the Climate Left keeps not acknowledging,” Matthew Yglesias wrote in his Substack newsletter this week. Instead, they led to a classic political deal that left untouched the major accomplishes of Biden’s first term. It is a reminder that he is the most successful bipartisan negotiator to occupy the White House in decades.

Persons: Biden, ” Matthew Yglesias Organizations: Social Security, Republicans, Republican Party, House Locations: Appalachian

☆ Elon Musk says Twitter has no 'actual choice' when complying with authoritarian government requests to restrict content
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-29 | by ( Katherine Tangalakis-Lippert | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +2 min

Elon Musk has approved more government requests for censorship on Twitter than his predecessor. A "free speech absolutist," Musk previously said he'd only censor Russian news "at gunpoint." Now facing criticism over Twitter's track record, he says there's no "actual choice" but to comply. Please point out where we had an actual choice and we will reverse it." "Look, I'm not the one who bought Twitter amidst a blaze of proclamations about free speech principles," Yglesias responded.

☆ Elon Musk says Twitter has ‘no actual choice’ about government censorship requests
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-29 | by ( Clare Duffy | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +4 min

New York CNN —Criticized for giving into governments’ censorship demands, Elon Musk on Sunday claimed that Twitter has “no actual choice” about complying those requests. The comment comes after Musk has previously called himself a “free speech absolutist” and said he wanted to buy Twitter to bolster users’ ability to speak freely on the platform. Shortly after agreeing to acquire Twitter, Musk explained his approach to free speech by saying: “Is someone you don’t like allowed to say something you don’t like? However, prior to Musk’s takeover, Twitter frequently fought government takedown requests in court, including from India and Turkey, in addition to publicly releasing detailed information about such requests and how it handled them. In last recent removal request report before Musk’s takeover, Twitter said it received more than 47,000 removal requests between July and December 2021, and complied with 51% of them.

☆ Wikipedia cofounder slams Elon Musk for caving to Turkey's government and censoring tweets, says Wikipedia fought similar demands and won
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-15 | by ( Grace Mayer | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

Twitter announced it would "restrict access to some content in Turkey" right before the country's presidential election. Wikipedia cofounder Jimmy Wales criticized Twitter CEO Elon Musk's decision to restrict content. Twitter's Global Government Affairs account had tweeted about the changes ahead of Turkey's presidential election held on Sunday. Turkey's highest court determined that blocking the website was unconstitutional, and access to Wikipedia was restored in January 2020, The New York Times reported. Before Musk, Twitter agreed to around 50% of government requests.

☆ 'Free speech opportunist' Elon Musk caved to government pressure to censor tweets ahead of the Turkish election. Critics argue SpaceX dealings with the country's right-wing leader may have caused the
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-14 | by ( Katherine Tangalakis-Lippert | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +9 min

Elon Musk's reputation as a free speech absolutist took another hit on Saturday after Twitter sided with the Turkish government and censored the accounts of political opponents ahead of a contentious election. Targeted Turkish dissidentsThe details of the legal request and which specific accounts were targeted were not made public. Yakut had previously shared information about Erdogan's governmental dealings and alleged the Turkish leader had been involved in the disappearance of his son-in-law, Turkish Minute reported last week. "I'm sure this is just a coincidence," users on Twitter posted, some sarcastically, circulating news of Musk's business dealings with Turkey. Musk and representatives for Twitter, SpaceX, and the Republic of Turkey did not immediately respond to Insider's requests for comment.

☆ Sunlight in your bedroom could become a luxury as cities debate allowing landlords to rent windowless rooms in former office buildings to alleviate the housing crisis
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-25 | by ( Eliza Relman | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +5 min

Housing advocates are debating whether windowless bedrooms are the solution to the housing crisis. Enter windowless bedrooms. Journalist Matt Yglesias argued last year that windowless bedrooms would "save downtowns" by facilitating the mass retrofitting of office buildings into apartments. Supporters argue that building apartments with windowless bedrooms could both help alleviate the severe housing shortage and affordability crisis and repopulate urban business districts. But in recent years, windowless bedrooms have become somewhat normalized on college campuses.

☆ Elon Musk's Twitter faces censorship allegations in India free speech battle
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-25 | by ( David Ingram | David Ingram Covers Tech For Nbc News. | ) www.nbcnews.com time to read: +5 min

Elon Musk is facing allegations of being complicit with state censorship after Twitter appeared to take sides with India’s government in a turbulent free speech fight over a documentary critical of the country’s prime minister. Musk’s brief answer was in contrast to the sometimes-detailed, personalized responses he has given to other people who complain to him about Twitter. Within India, Twitter said it complied 5.6% of the time. “The BBC has not asked Twitter to remove any content relating to the documentary,” the British broadcaster said in a statement. “The IT Rules are being exploited, handing authorities license to pressure platforms to censor content in ‘emergency’ cases,” he said in a Twitter thread.

☆ Prominent political columnist gets confused about basis points—here's everything you need to know
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-13 | by ( Ryan Ermey | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +2 min

More surprising was that Yglesias seemingly hadn't looked up what basis points are. "A 'basis point' is just a percentage point. It has the exact same meaning and takes up the same number of words and I have no idea why finance guys like to say 'basis point' instead. Sometimes they shorten it to 'bips' because too many people have gotten wise to the basis points," read a footnote in the original post. A basis point is not a percentage point.

☆ Substack is having a moment, again. But can the startup live up to its massive $650 million valuation?
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-19 | by ( Samantha Stokes | Steven Perlberg | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +17 min

He provided a place where readers could find him "in case the bird app spirals into oblivion": his Substack newsletter. The epidemiologist Eric Feigl-Ding began promoting his Substack newsletter to his 722,000 Twitter followers in early November. They have been a welcome addition, Substack writers say. Substack has also recently rolled out mentions and cross-reporting functions, where writers can mention other Substack writers and share existing posts with their audiences. The irony, of course, is that many Substack writers rely on their Twitter audiences to promote their posts.

☆ Trump-Fuentes-Ye dinner was a mistake given 2022 election results
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-30 | by ( Musa Al-Gharbi | Musa Al-Gharbi Is A Paul F. Lazarsfeld Fellow In Sociology At Columbia University. His Research | Social Media Can Be Found On His Website | ) www.nbcnews.com time to read: +8 min

Many who backed the GOP in other races voted for Democrats when the Republican was an election denier. The cynical bid paid off: Literally all the extreme GOP candidates that Democrats boosted failed in the general election. Many people who would otherwise happily vote Republican were unwilling to vote for Trump or those he endorsed. And Trump’s sexist and misogynistic rhetoric alienated Republican voters, men and women alike. Women, for their part, moved toward the GOP, with women of color shifting more than white women.

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