Some professional news

The tl;dr: Medium is acquiring Talkshow Industries, and I’m thrilled to be joining Medium as Head of Product.

Two years ago this summer, my longtime friend Greg Knauss and I started collaborating and piecing together a prototype of what would eventually become the app Talkshow. When we decided to turn the product idea into a company, we filed in Delaware as “Talkshow Industries, Inc.,” imagining the day when we would have multiple products under the Talkshow umbrella. We built a small team, launched in April of 2016, and were lucky to have a bit of early buzz. Fast forward to November of last year, when we came to the realization that our early hypothesis was wrong, and decided to build something new. The “Industries” part of the name came in handy… a bit earlier than we had planned.

Around Thanksgiving, we started building a new product, Episode, designed to help people find, enjoy and share great podcasts. A couple of months ago I reached out to Ev Williams to get some feedback on our early beta. That conversation turned into something deeper… about where Medium is headed, and how I could help.

I’ve spent a good chunk of my career (at Talkshow, Twitter, SAY Media and Six Apart) building platforms for people to express themselves and connect with their audience. I’ve also been lucky enough to advise and consult with Medium over the past few years, so joining this team and being given the chance to work on this product almost feels like a homecoming. But it’s the uncharted territory that’s exciting: the opportunity that Medium has to build and evolve a new model of funding for original writing is both compelling and important. I am ready to dive into this work head first.

As part of this, we are shutting down Episode, and closing the doors on Talkshow.

I’m incredibly grateful for the Talkshow team: Greg, Tiffany Hughes and Reyner Crosby — y’all are amazing. Huge thanks to David Hornik, danny rimer, and all of our investors and advisors who supported us along the way. And to the community of people who loved Talkshow, and our Episode beta testers: thanks for giving us a shot, and for all the thoughtful and passionate feedback you shared about what we had built.

I’m excited to join the talented and passionate team at Medium, and ready to get to work.

Onward!