Today's guest, Ernie Smith, has been writing for the internet for 15 years. He's been writing his current newsletter, Tedium, for almost 10. We spoke about his approach to newslettering, turning down money from Substack, and making cool stuff for the internet purely for the sake of it.

00:00 Who is Ernie Smith?

01:30 Why (and how) Ernie coded his newsletter himself

05:35 Has personality been stripped from the internet?

12:44 How Ernie grew his audience

15:20 UDM14 — Google without all the fluff

18:56 Ernie’s approach to side projects

31:39 Is the creator economy good for the internet?

41:28 Hopes for the future of the internet

45:10 What’s next for Ernie?

Intro music produced by J. & Doug Organ.

Today’s guest, Justin Gordon, seems to have more energy to expend in a day than we do in a week. Literally: we put out one ~50min podcast episode per week; he once put out one ~50min podcast episode per day for 112 days straight.

Justin has been a podcaster, vlogger, producer, and newsletterist, sometimes all at once, for the last 12 years. In this episode:

00:00 Who is Justin Gordon?

01:24 Lessons from 500+ interviews

04:30 Podcasting every day for 112 days

12:55 6 Lessons from podcasting every day

15:23 Why start a newsletter?

18:17 How to grow a newsletter

19:50 Writing deep dives about entrepreneurs

28:33 The athlete-creator mindset

31:14 Making money as a creator

36:17 The best and worst interviews he's ever done

39:43 Advice for podcasters and writers

Intro music produced by J. & Doug Organ.

Kate Lindsay is a freelance writer and newsletter editor whose own newsletter, Embedded, is pushing 35k subscribers. She's one of the best people out there writing about the internet for the internet. This is an episode about why more newsletters should be run by two people, an indie newsletter born from a shuttered publication, and paying NYC rent with premium newsletter subscriptions.

00:00 Who is Kate and what is Embedded?

05:33 How Embedded evolved from a killed publication

09:56 Kate's other projects (as a newsletter editor and writer)

13:35 Blowing up with the Millennial Pause

16:44 Being an editor vs. a writer

19:09 What is a newsletter? What is a creator?

27:42 The stats — how to grow a newsletter

34:22 Are creators the new journalists?

38:49 Advice for online creators

Intro music produced by J. & Doug Organ.