Playboy Comes to Substack: For anyone who has ever defended their Playboy patronage by saying they read it for the articles, now you have no excuse. The legendary publisher joined the newsletter platform Substack on Wednesday, where it plans to showcase a collection of archival material, as well as new fiction and nonfiction alike from rising writers. I was put on to the premiere by one of my favorite Substack authors, Magdalene J. Taylor, who writes the sex and relationships column Many Such Cases and is an editor at Playboy. Given the historically fraught state of sex and dating, Playboy has a legitimate opportunity to springboard itself back into relevance, if it can take its task seriously enough to do so.
Pulled Quotes
“Congrats, Larry [Fink], you got your long-termism. It comes with AI porn generated in space, but you got it.”
Semafor’s Liz Hoffman, on the oddly long-term thinking emerging from Silicon Valley
READ MORE
“Taken together, these statements are extraordinary: the owners of capital warning workers that the ice beneath them is about to crack—while continuing to stomp on it.”
The Atlantic’s Josh Tyrangiel, on what AI will do to employment
READ MORE
“Language is, or rather was, our special thing.”
The New Yorker’s Gideon Lewis-Kraus, on the humanity of LLMs
READ MORE
“Philosophers describe the ‘problem of expensive tastes’; today’s luxuries become tomorrow’s necessities.”
The New Yorker’s Joshua Rothman, on the double-edged sword of taste
READ MORE
Quote/Unquote
Iz Harris is the chief executive of the startup Newpress, a collective of YouTube news creators cofounded by former Vox journalist Johnny Harris.
Newpress, which will launch its proprietary platform next week, includes Johnny Harris and three other creators—Sam Ellis, Christophe Haubursin, and Max Fisher—who have over 10 million YouTube subscribers between them. The four, which are backed by a full-time staff of around 30, reflect the growing prominence of YouTube as an incubator for new media ventures.
This interview has been edited.
Mark Stenberg: How would you describe Newpress?
Iz Harris: It’s a media company that produces journalism on all social platforms. We operate like a lot of newsrooms, in that we have processes for pitching, fact-checking, and publishing, but all of our ideas come from our creators, all of our creators have their own shows, and everything is done in their own voice.
Mark: Your four creators have, up till now, largely lived on YouTube. What will the Newpress platform unlock?
Iz: Think of it as Slack on steroids. It’s a community platform: We want our contributors to participate in our process, to ask questions, and to provide tips and connections. We’ve let 25,000 people off the wait list and will let in the other 25,000 next week. Joining and participating is free, but we are going to launch a membership program, for about $60 a year, that will allow members access to exclusive perks, like AMAs. By the end of the year we hope to do $1 million in membership revenue, from about 17,000 paying supporters.
