← Decoder with Nilay Patel
Decoder with Nilay Patel
Condé Nast CEO Roger Lynch on AI, the Met Gala & his secret succession plan
00:54:33
Friend of the show Peter Kafka interviews Conde Naste CEO Roger Lynch on an episode of Channels.
Loading summary
Transcript103 lines
- [00:01]
Sponsor Announcer 1
Support for the show comes from ServiceNow. AI is moving fast across the enterprise, but without visibility, it's just chaos. Different tools, different models, different teams using AI in completely different ways. ServiceNow turns that chaos into control. With the AI control tower, you see all your AI across the business in one place, what it's doing, what it's done and what it's about to do. So you stay in control. To put AI to work for people, visit ServiceNow.com,
- [00:36]
Sponsor Announcer 2
support for this show comes from Odoo. Running a business is hard enough, so why make it harder With a dozen different apps that don't talk to each other? Introducing Odoo. It's the only business software you'll ever need. It's an all in one, fully integrated platform that makes your work easier. CRM, accounting, inventory, E commerce, and more. And the best part? Odoo replaces multiple expensive platforms for a fraction of the cost. That's why over thousands of businesses have made the switch. So why not you try Odoo for free@odoo.com that's o d o o.com support for this show comes from Odoo. Running a business is hard enough, so why make it harder With a dozen different apps that don't talk to each other? Introducing Odoo. It's the only business software you'll ever need. It's an all in one, fully integrated platform that makes your work easier. CRM, accounting, inventory, E commerce, and more. And the best part? Odoo replaces multiple expensive platforms for a fraction of the cost. That's why over thousands of businesses have made the switch. So why not you try Odoo for free@odoo.com that's o d o o.com.
- [02:00]
Peter Kafka
Hey everybody, it's Nilai.
- [02:01]
Nilai
It's conference season, so I'm traveling across the country and around the world a lot more than usual. I'm out this week, but stay tuned for some very special decoder episodes we have coming up soon, starting on Monday. In the meantime, I wanted to share this conversation between my friend Peter Kafka and Conde Nast CEO Roger lynch on Peter's podcast channels. Lynch has been outspoken about traffic from Google search declining every single year. He said he's now told teams at Conde Nast to assume that Google traffic will be 00 from now on. That's what I've been calling Google zero for several years now. And you might recall that I just asked Google CEO Sundar Pichai about Lynch's comments during our recent interview. Sundar has always disagreed with me that Google zero is real, but I thought you all might be interested to hear Peter and Roger talk about it directly. You'll also hear Roger talk about AI, the growing influence of the creator economy, and more in this excellent conversation. Okay, here's Peter Kafka interviewing Conde Nast CEO Roger lynch on Channels. Enjoy.
- [03:01]
Peter Kafka
From the Vox Media podcast network. This is Channels with Peter Kafka. That is me. I'm also chief correspondent at Business Insider. And today we are talking about running the last remaining magazine empire with Conde Nast CEO Roger Lynch. Except I just looked at the transcript of this chat, and lynch only used the word magazine once. These days he thinks of Conde, which for decades was the the world's most prestigious magazine publisher, probably still is, as a portfolio of brands that shows up all kinds of places on the web, obviously on TikTok and at movie theaters and at the mega glamorous Met Ball. So in this conversation, we skip the question I normally ask magazine People, which is something like, hey, what the hell was a magazine in 2026 anyways? When we move on to other topics, like what's it like to be the subject of one of the most popular movies in the world? What's it like to run a media business when Google stops sending you traffic? And who's going to replace Anna Wintour and David Remnick, perhaps the two most influential editors in the world? And where is that shortlist? Spoiler? Lynch does not tell me where the list is, but you're going to like this interview. Anyway. Here's me talking to Conde Nast. Roger Lynch. Roger lynch, welcome to Channels.
- [04:21]
Roger Lynch
Thank you, Peter, Good to see you.
- [04:22]
Peter Kafka
You are talking to me from la. Very show. Busy of you. Speaking of showbiz, you guys just finished the Met Gala. I think it's an enormously successful project for you.
- [04:33]
Roger Lynch
It is, yes.
- [04:36]
Peter Kafka
It's showbiz, it is commerce, it's philanthropy, It's a ton of celebrity, some controversy. It also seems like the most obvious expression of Conde Nast as a company today. Is that a fair summation?
- [04:53]
Roger Lynch
I think it's right. And I think it also showcases what we do best, which is create cultural moments. So events has been a strategy for us, as it is for many media companies. But for us, our events are really around creating cultural moments that really break through the zeitgeist and search algorithms or whatever's happening in sort of the headwinds of the media industry. Nothing holds back big cultural moments like the Met Gala.
- [05:22]
Peter Kafka
How do you measure success for a big cultural moment? At some point, you're a business, so you're trying to make money from it. You're also raising money for the Met, but it's a big, it's a big dollars and cents event for you as well. Is that the most important thing is the reception it gets online? Most important, how do you measure it?
- [05:41]
Roger Lynch
Look, that event in particular, it's different for each event. For that event in particular, it starts with the Met. Right? That is a fundraiser. And this year was immensely successful for the Costume Institute and the Met. And also the inauguration of the Conde Mnesque Galleries that we did the ribbon cutting for the morning of the Met Gala. From an audience standpoint, every year it surpasses our goals. And we finish the Met and we go, how could we ever do anything like that? And then it grows another 50 or 60% the following year. So last year, I don't know, we had a little over 2 billion total video views of the content we produce around the Met. This year it was 3.1 billion, another 50 something percent increase year over year.
- [06:29]
Peter Kafka
Does that tell you you're getting better at making the content or is there an. Is this audience getting bigger for this stuff?
- [06:36]
Roger Lynch
You know, I think, I think that in the earlier years for me, when I, when I joined, I think we had a lot of room to improve in the content that we created around the event itself. The event itself was spectacular. But how Conde Nast covered it and created content around it, there was opportunity for improvement on that. And I think, you know, we, we have done a, I think the team has done a fantastic job really increasing the quality and the creativity of the output around it. I think then what compounds on that is that the intrigue around this event just seems to grow every year. And yes, you mentioned this year there's some controversy. That's fine. That's actually good.
- [07:19]
Peter Kafka
Let's spell out the controversy. It's, it's. Jeff Bezos and his wife, Lauren Sanchez were sponsors and curators of the event. This event's always been tied to extreme. You've always had benefactors working with you on this project. Were you surprised at the blowback controversy you got from the Bezos involvement?
- [07:36]
Roger Lynch
Well, I mean, to be clear, their involvement was in support of the Met, the museum and the Custom Institute, and the money that they gave went to the museum. So look, I think there's a lot of reasons you can criticize extreme wealth and people will criticize with it, but, but to actually criticize them for donating money to a cultural institution, to me was a bit off base.
- [08:00]
Peter Kafka
But Were you surprised when you, when you. Because you're. This is going to be a regular feature going forward. As long as you're working on this, you're going to have people like the Bezos who want to be involved, and they're going to pony up a lot of money. Will that give you any pause, like, oh, do I want to deal with this? Or are you okay saying, yeah, these things come with. With attendant controversy, and that's okay.
- [08:18]
Roger Lynch
That's okay.
- [08:20]
Peter Kafka
Well put. Let's zoom out a little bit and just talk about Conde as a business. You came in in 2019 as a privately held magazine publisher. In 2019, the future for privately held magazine companies didn't look great. What's the best way to sum up what you have done during your tenure there?
- [08:43]
Roger Lynch
Well, I had the distinct advantage of not knowing anything about the business and not having grown up in the publishing industry. So it enabled me come in and question everything. And the first thing I questioned was how we were structured. We were structured first as two separate companies. There was an international business with its own CEO and a U.S. business. And they really acted like competitors in every way possible, including the editors competing with each other. There was so much internal competition. We had no time to focus on external even every country around the world where we operate, we're a very global company, operated completely independently from each other. And you know what? That, I think, was probably a good strategy for many, many decades. It made Conde Nast into a very large, successful global publisher.
- [09:33]
Peter Kafka
A whole series of fiefdoms. And then people were proud of the fiefdom nature.
- [09:36]
Roger Lynch
They were. They were very, very protective. But you know what? I came in and looked at it. It's like, okay, I can understand why in a print magazine business, why that was a successful strategy, but the world has changed. The opportunity for us going forward is really about connecting with audiences in new and different ways. Using technology, certainly. And also audiences have changed, maybe in part because of technology. But if you just look at how cosmopolitan people have become in terms of their content consumption, when, you know, some of the most popular shows you may watch come out of Sweden or Korea, Israel, wherever. And when I, when I first joined, I started looking at the data about where our visitors were coming from each of our websites. And there was something that really struck me, which is, you know, wherever you went around the world and you looked at the data of our websites, about 40% of the traffic was coming from outside of that country. So my first listening tour, three or four weeks into joining Conde Nast, I'M meeting with editors around the world and I heard sort of a similar story, which is, oh, audiences in Italy only care about Italian culture and content. They don't care about what happens or. Same as France. And I'd always ask, well, then explain this. Why does 40% of the traffic to the sites here come from outside of the country? And the reverse is true, which is we have a huge audience from France or Italy going to our sites elsewhere around the country. It's because they are interested in it. We're just not organized in a way to present the content to them the way they want to consume it.
- [11:17]
Peter Kafka
And by the way, some of your employees still tell me that this culture, the former culture, is important. And by globalizing things and sort of consolidating brands globally and having shared resources for some of these companies that you're missing out on what makes a particular title unique and how they do speak to their core audience and whatever, whether it's geographic or demographic. And that mushing this stuff together has been a detriment, even though you're going to say it's successful.
- [11:49]
Roger Lynch
Well, the first thing I would say is I'll never be someone who just admits that everything we've done is perfect and is right. I think you can always learn. And what I told our teams when we made all the editorial changes now four or five years ago, the first thing I told them was, assume we got it wrong. Go figure out where we got it wrong and let's make adjustments. But don't assume we got everything right and wait till we learn a lesson a year from now. Figure it out now. Figure out what we got wrong, what adjustments we need to make, and there'll always be that case. We'll always be making adjustments to try to figure it out. And some of those adjustments, it's different brand by brand. If you take a brand like Wired, technology is more global. You know, the interests, the factors that influence our lives through technology is more global in nature. Something like Vogue. There's an element of global fashion, but then local markets, whether it's Japan, China, India, very strong local culture and local fashion. So there's not a one size fits all for any of our brands. You have to adjust your assumptions based on that brand and the local markets. So I do feel like we have largely got it right. And, you know, the results have been, you know, we take our largest brand, Vogue, it has grown every year that I've been at the company, and its profitability continues to grow, its reach grows, and it's more successful. Than it's ever been under my tenure. So.
- [13:16]
Peter Kafka
So overall, the business is profitable, which wasn't always the case. Increasing profitability, revenue is basically where it was in 2021. If you were a public company, people would be very upse upset with you. But you're not a public company. You're owned by the Neuhaus family, is sort of flat revenue and increasing profitability. Is that what they want out of this company?
- [13:39]
Roger Lynch
Well, I think if you look at what we have, revenue streams that have declined structurally and revenue that has grown and coming in to the company, I came into print advertising, print subscription, newsstand revenues that was just going to decline. We knew that. And that was by far the majority of the revenue when I joined. So the real trick wasn't to change the trajectory of that, because that wasn't going to change. It was to develop new revenue streams at a fast rate so that you can offset the decline that was going to happen in the legacy business. And we've done that. And so if you look at, you know, our big growth areas, certainly digital subscriptions, you know, it grew 29% last year. I think there are not many companies that wouldn't be thrilled to have 29% growth in digital subscription revenue or events. You know, we talked, we started the conversation today about events. Our event strategy has really paid off. And every year, these big tent pole events grow more than we expect. So if you look at last year, our big tent pole events last year grew about 50% revenue year on year. Huge. And these are not small revenue activities for us this year. Our events so far are up 60% over last year, which was up 50% over the year before. So those strategies around leaning into digital subscriptions or our commerce business, or our events business has really paid dividends for us.
- [15:15]
Peter Kafka
But I guess what I'm asking is, are your owners, okay, if you come back to them and say at the end of this year, say, listen, our revenue didn't increase much, or we're still where we were in 2021. I've. We had some declining businesses. I've replaced them with growing businesses. And you, the Newhouse family, you get to enjoy x percent more profits. Is that a win for them and for them?
- [15:35]
Roger Lynch
Well, let's be clear. Our revenue is growing. Our revenue grew last year, and our revenue already this year is growing again. So we do have growing revenue.
- [15:42]
Peter Kafka
Okay, so it's, it's. It. Do you think you are gonna. If we, if we look at the chart right, and you're, you're still sort of where you were in 2020, you went down from 2021 and now back up to 2021 rates. I guess I'm saying is, is the expectation that you're going to surpass where you were at 2021 at some point or is this sort of the level you're going to be at?
- [16:01]
Roger Lynch
Oh, no, we're definitely surpassing.
- [16:03]
Peter Kafka
Yeah.
- [16:03]
Roger Lynch
Our business is going to continue to grow.
- [16:05]
Peter Kafka
You think it is reasonable to, to grow revenue and profit?
- [16:08]
Roger Lynch
Definitely. Because the, you know, the trajectory that we had to overcome was again, the majority of the revenue of the company when I joined being print advertising and print subscription newsstands. As the declining business. It's a small minority of our revenue today because all of these other revenue areas have been growing and they grow every year. And so now they've surpassed the decline in the traditional business and they're only going to continue to grow. So our revenue will continue to grow because these new streams like digital subscriptions and commerce and events and all of that are growing at double digit rates.
- [16:44]
Peter Kafka
And if we go back to 2019, does this look like the company you imagined you were taking over and were going to transform? Is this where you thought you'd end up?
- [16:54]
Roger Lynch
I knew that we had some big challenges and frankly, that's what attracted me to this. I like really big challenges. I like transformation. I like connecting the dots and strategies and then going executing against it. The thing I knew is that there was going to be a big messy transformation just in terms of the structure of the company and that those changes were going to be cultural as much as they were organizational and that we were going to need to do a lot of innovation around creating new businesses and revenue streams. But what gave me hope that we had that opportunity was the strength of our brands. And so the number one thing for me when I was considering whether to take this job was to try to understand were our brands becoming more connected with audiences or less. I asked for a lot of data on that. I wanted to see principally around digital platforms. What I really quickly realized is they're definitely becoming more connected with audiences, we're growing audiences and therefore, okay, what we have is really a business model problem that is very solvable.
- [18:05]
Peter Kafka
Wait, wait, wait. It is. Because the traditional line, as you know, for, for every company going through analog to digital is you're trading your, your analog dollars for digital dimes, pennies, whatever it is. And so it's a business problem that has really bedeviled just about every media company.
- [18:24]
Roger Lynch
That's true. But Peter, when I joined, it's been widely reported that the company was losing money and not a small amount of money. And today we're profitable.
- [18:32]
Peter Kafka
Yeah.
- [18:32]
Roger Lynch
And when I joined, we were majority print revenue. And today we're major.
- [18:38]
Peter Kafka
Right. What I'm saying is when you said this is a solvable business problem, now you can point back and say, yeah, we solved it. But in 2019, you had that same level of confidence that we're going to figure this out where most people have not.
- [18:48]
Roger Lynch
Yes. Yeah, I did. I knew it would be tough, but I knew we'd figure it out.
- [18:53]
Peter Kafka
Yeah, I mean, most of. I mean, your peers don't really exist anymore. It used to be Conde Nast and Time Inc. And Time Inc. Doesn't exist. It's been chopped up and renamed a bunch of places. A lot of the most, I think, of all the digital brands that we're going to challenge, the Conde Nast, the world I just wrote about basic, basically the end of buzzfeed yesterday. Vice has gone bankrupt. Vox Media, who makes this podcast, is splitting itself up as we talk. So I guess what I'm saying is you did a good job. If you can sit here and say, yeah, we have grown revenue and we've grown profitability while other folks have been falling down, not really a question. I guess that's a compliment.
- [19:30]
Roger Lynch
I'll just say thank you.
- [19:31]
Peter Kafka
You're welcome. We'll be right back with Conde Nast. Roger Lynch. But first, a word from a sponsor.
- [19:40]
Sponsor Announcer 1
Support for the show comes from ServiceNow. AI was supposed to handle the parts of the job you hate. Instead, it just describes them, suggests what to do about them, and then leaves you to do it. That's not help, that's homework. ServiceNow's AI specialists are different. They're not a tool. Think of them as digital teammates who actually do the work from start to finish. Cases get resolved, requests get processed, loops get closed, and most importantly, no extra work for you. Because when you can truly delegate to AI, you can get back to the work. Only you can do the work that requires a person with ideas and judgment and, you know, a pulse. To learn how to put AI to work for people, visit servicenow.com.
- [40:18]
Roger Lynch
To then come and compete with us for those audiences. That's the rub there. And so for AI, the risk is these AI companies use the content that our journalists create and use it to compete with our core business model. Now, if they want to negotiate with us and enter into license agreements like OpenAI has done, or Amazon or Microsoft or Perplexity, fine, then we can come to terms on how that will work, those that don't do that or worse frankly, in the case of Google, they tie their scraping of AI content to their search scraping. So Google's been found to be dominant in search. They don't let you opt out of scraping your content for AI unless you opt out for search, which is very difficult for a publisher to do. I think that's anti competitive. I think it's wrong that they do that. But look, these companies are also our partners so we can have disagreements in some area of our business and strong alignment in other areas. Again with Google, we're one of the largest publishers on YouTube. We have a very, very good, strong relationship with YouTube and it's really core to our business and really important for them too.
- [41:37]
Peter Kafka
And you've said Google Search is basically going to go to zero or something close to that for you or basically stop showing up as referral traffic sooner than later because of the AI summaries they're doing. Google Discover is this hugely important product for publishers that I think most regular people don't know about that isn't often as big a deal or bigger than Google Search. Are you still working to get your stuff showing up on Google Discovery?
- [42:07]
Roger Lynch
We do get traffic from Google Discover but it is very different traffic than search. Search is intent driven traffic. Google Discover traffic doesn't convert for subscription, doesn't convert for commerce. You may be able to sell a few ads around it, but it is far less important.
- [42:24]
Peter Kafka
Spell out why it's less important.
- [42:26]
Roger Lynch
Because if somebody goes to Google and types, you know, Vogue shopping recommendations, there is real clear intent with what they're looking for. If they're going to Google to search for something and they see an article promoted that catches their eye and they click on it, it's much less committed. It's great. We love to get traffic from Google Discover but that person is much less likely to become a Vogue subscriber or New Yorker subscriber or even transact in commerce than someone who shows much more intent through search. So it is not a replacement. Even though we've seen Discover traffic grow as search traffic has declined. That's a bad trade off.
- [43:11]
Peter Kafka
When we get off this call, I'm going to slack some people I work for. I'm going to say here's what Roger lynch, the CEO of Conde Nast says about Google Discover traffic. I'll let you know how.
- [43:19]
Roger Lynch
I bet you Jim Bankoff agrees 100% with me.
- [43:22]
Peter Kafka
Jim's one of the people I work for. At least as today we're recording this on Tuesday, May 12, did you take a look at the Vox Media podcast network which is recording this podcast? It's an asset that is probably going to trade hands very soon.
- [43:37]
Roger Lynch
Yeah, I'm not going to comment on that, Peter.
- [43:38]
Peter Kafka
Fair enough. I'll take that as a maybe. With the AI deals, Given that you've now gone multiple rounds with different platforms and you've seen all the promise and peril and pitfall, what is most important to get out of the AI companies? Is it straight cash, like you're going to use our stuff, pay us, or it sounds like the referrals aren't really a thing that most people are not clicking through those footnotes and AI results. What is the best case scenario for you in these AI deals?
- [44:08]
Roger Lynch
First and foremost, it is to have a license arrangement which reflects the fact that this is copyrighted content.
- [44:16]
Peter Kafka
You're using our stuff, pay us.
- [44:18]
Roger Lynch
Yeah, not just pay us, but agree to terms on how you're going to use it. Just like when I was in the music industry or we did film television. These license deals, you can think about two main components. There's the money, but there's also the use, the grant of rights. How can you use it? And most importantly, how can you not use it? So, as an example, we would never do a deal with an AI company that says, take all of our New Yorker content and just show it verbatim to your customers. That wouldn't be in our interest. We would have put conditions around it. So these terms of the license deals are just as important as the money that's generated from them. We don't think that they will refer traffic anywhere near the rate at which search did. But there's an interesting dynamic that we see. You mentioned that I said search is going to go away. We chased it for a number of years, and each year we do our budget and we'd say search is going to decline just because we don't know why, but we know there'll be some algorithm change that will cause it to decline. And each of the last three years or so, we underestimated the decline. And so last year we said we're going to take a different approach. I told all of our teams, you need to plan your businesses around there being no search, and if you don't have a plan for that, you may not have a business. And we took that approach, and I think it was very effective because it caused people to really think about how do we generate audiences that have strong intent and strong engagement. Now, as search declined, we saw our direct Audiences grow. I think it was in part the work that we were doing, but I think it was also in part because people like, if you think about the example I gave, I said Vogue shopping recommendations or something like that, you type that in a search algorithm, if what you get in return is an AI summary or a bunch of Google links to Walmart or whoever the deal is, that's not a satisfactory outcome. You might just type in to a search bar, vogue.com and then find it that way. So we've been seeing direct traffic grow dramatically where it's the majority source of our traffic now. And I think it is, you know, our teams would like to say, oh, it's because we've done such a great job, you know, And I think that is largely true, but I think it is also because people are finding less relevant search results than they used to. And so where they used to use Google in some ways as a navigation tool, they're finding that navigation, it's very effective. The AI summaries for answering really simple questions, but less so for things that involve taste. And this is one of the big things that I've seen in the discussions that we've had with AI companies. Three or four years ago, when we started negotiating with them, it was a bit surreal because we literally, one company in particular told us, okay, we need to know how many words you have. It's like, okay, do the words matter? Just any words. Can you tell us how many words you have? Because we pay by the word. We're like, okay, this is going to be a long discussion. But we got through it, negotiated these deals, and then as these services, answer engines started to become used more and more, these companies started to realize that our content was being used in their answers much more significantly. So they started coming back to us like, oh, okay, we see your content really matters in certain areas. And now there's a whole debate about whether AI has taste or could ever replicate taste perfect, right? Because that is our core business, creativity, taste. And I think that creates much more opportunities for us now in how we can work with AI companies.
- [48:15]
Peter Kafka
What about the worry that even though you're getting paid today, even though you have restrictions and limits around how you can use your work, that inevitably what you're doing is building up these platforms, making them more and more useful. And certainly one of the products they might come out with one day is not their own version of Vogue, but just things that deliver enough information to people that's tailored the way they want that they really don't have any need to go somewhere else most of the time. And you're essentially building, you're building a thing that will put you out of business, which is a recurring issue with all the platforms. But it seems more likely than ever with AI.
- [48:53]
Roger Lynch
I think it is more likely than ever with AI for brands that don't have the authority that our top brands have. I don't worry about AI putting Vogue or the New Yorker out of business. It just will never replicate what those brands and what the editorial teams can do with those. If you have, and you mentioned some of the companies that are sort of gone by the wayside. Look, I think they were the darlings of these platforms when they were sending them all the traffic. And they did a really effective job of arbitrage and taking intent driven searches or video or whatever and turning it into commerce transactions or ads or things like that. But they were entirely reliant on, yes, that traffic continuing. And when that traffic went away, what they didn't have was brands that had the level of authority that frankly our brands have.
- [49:54]
Peter Kafka
And so this is, this is what every publisher tells me is how they're going to survive. This is, our brands are meaningful. People have relationships with our brand. We're going to create even more direct relationships with our brand. People will come to us because our thing is special. So let's stipulate that you said, I think seven of your brands make 85% of your revenue. So seven of your brands all fit in that category. How many other publishers do you think are going to make it through this era? How many publishers do you think realistically have brands that resonate with enough people that they can stay afloat on their own without being disaggregated by AI well,
- [50:30]
Roger Lynch
first of all, I would want to give the impression that it's only very big brands that can be successful because we have some very small brands like Pitchfork. It's less than 1%. You fold it into GQ, but it has a high. We put it under GQ, but it has its separate editorial team and operates under its own brand and has been very successful. It actually has one of the largest direct audiences and now has a subscription product which is doing very, very well. Like that's a brand that will do well in this era because it has authority. It is more niche in its content area. It's never going to be as big as Vogue, but it has a point of view and it has a loyal, dedicated audience. So it's not just big brand, small brand, it really is. Does your brand have authority? Does it have connection with audience that is really deeper than search or discover traffic.
- [51:30]
Peter Kafka
Another way of putting my question, what percent of publishers, existing publishers, do you think survive this era?
- [51:35]
Roger Lynch
Well, I mean, we've already seen a lot of that damage done today. So of the publishers that are left, it's a higher percentage that will survive than it was five years ago. But certainly they're not going to all survive. I think that writing is on the wall, or at least not in the form that they are today.
- [51:56]
Peter Kafka
Speaking of the future, one day Anna Wintour and David Remnick will no longer work for you. They're not young people. They're very good at what they do. And your company seems, I don't know, dependent on them, leans on their authority in a really meaningful way at the New Yorker. And then broadly for Anna Wintour, what is the plan when they leave? How are you thinking about who's going to take the fill those shoes?
- [52:24]
Roger Lynch
Well, you know, first of all, for people that are in this field, those are the pinnacle jobs. They really are. And you're talking about two of the most successful editors ever. So it will be very, very difficult to find people who could ever replace them. But guess what? I'm sure the same was said about Grace Mirabella when she ran Vogue for several decades before Anna came in, or Tina Brown or William Shawn or any of the great editors that have been attached to these brands over many, many, many decades.
- [52:57]
Peter Kafka
Have either of them said, this is who I want to replace me? Just don't tell anyone yet?
- [53:01]
Roger Lynch
No, no. I mean, it's very funny because one of the things I also implemented when I joined was succession planning. It was very clear that this had never been done before. It got an ass. And it caused people to be very uncomfortable to start talking about who could ever possibly replace them. But we always look to have a broad selection of potential people who could fulfill a role. But you never know whether they're going to be available or what the situation is. And we also work to bring in talent, specifically with the idea of succession. So it's something that we run a really disciplined process every single year. I report it to my board. We spend time going through. We have our editors wait, so what
- [53:49]
Peter Kafka
does that look like? So you run through a process of, if David Remnick got hit by a bus today, here's who would replace him.
- [53:56]
Roger Lynch
Look, the standard process for every company I've run is you have emergency successor identified. You have a list of people who could be ready now or in the next year or two. You have a List that could be three to five years and a list that could be five plus years.
- [54:12]
Peter Kafka
So these lists exist. The files exist. They're on your desk. As Pam Bondi once said, they're out of my desk.
- [54:17]
Roger Lynch
They are locked away.
- [54:18]
Peter Kafka
And you revise them periodically?
- [54:21]
Roger Lynch
We revise them every year. We go through a formal process where we evaluate it every year, and some names are added and some names drop off.
- [54:30]
Peter Kafka
And do Anna and David participate in this process?
- [54:33]
Roger Lynch
They do.
- [54:34]
Peter Kafka
Okay. All right, let's find the list people, Conde and Ask moles. Send me a message.
- [54:40]
Roger Lynch
Good luck with that.
- [54:40]
Peter Kafka
One last question for you. The biggest movie in America, I think, or biggest movie in the world, I think, is Devil Wears Prada 2. It's about Conde Nast. They don't call it Conde Nast. They don't call it Vogue. It's about your company. It's owned by Disney. Do you participate financially? I know you guys did a lot of marketing for it. You had Anna and Meryl on the COVID of Vogue. Do you participate financially in that movie's success?
- [55:07]
Roger Lynch
No, that movie is their movie. It's not our movie. And we have no direct participation in it. But we certainly have a lot of fun with it. And I think Anna and Meryl going over on the COVID of Vogue, and as you may have seen, Chloe, our editor of American Vogue, had to work hard to convince Hannah to do that because that is not who she is. Was fabulous. And that cover of Vogue with the two of them was iconic. But what I would say is that movie has generated a lot of interest, not just about Vogue, but about Conde Nast. It's been good for our business. It's certainly been good for our business.
- [55:45]
Peter Kafka
I know for a while, every publisher and we talked about this, said, hey, we make all this amazing. We make great stories, et cetera. These things are often turned into movies and television shows. You really got to lean into that and figure out ways to get these things made, either by ourselves or with partners for a while. While during the streaming boom, the streamers were buying literally anything you guys could make. That does not happen anymore. How have you rethought the business of getting into Hollywood and television and streaming?
- [56:16]
Roger Lynch
Well, that business has shrunk as an industry. The number of new shows and films being produced has shrunk, and the time it takes to get something approved has shrunk. But for us, we had seven shows and movies premiere last year. We sold 11 new ones. So our team, it's a very small team, but our team does, I think, a really good job punching above their weight with that. But it starts with all of that. Starts with the IP of our journalism and our content.
- [56:47]
Peter Kafka
What's more important for you to figure that out or to figure out TikTok and short video that more people are consuming more often?
- [56:54]
Roger Lynch
Well, short form video is a much bigger part of our business than film and television in terms of revenue. Certainly short form video is very important for us.
- [57:05]
Peter Kafka
Roger lynch, you've been there since 2019. How much longer do you have? When does your succession plan kick in?
- [57:12]
Roger Lynch
I always tell people I've started a number of companies. Most of the companies I run are companies I've started and even companies I've started. I've gotten bored after maybe four or five years and I know when I get that feeling like, okay, I'm starting to get bored. Time for me to do something. I never get bored in this job. Honestly. There's first of all always really challenging problems to solve and also the most interesting intellectual people to deal with. So I have no plans on leaving. I really enjoy it and I'm definitely not bored.
- [57:43]
Peter Kafka
As a bonus, you get to talk to people like me. Roger lynch, thank you for your time.
- [57:46]
Roger Lynch
Thanks Peter.
- [57:48]
Peter Kafka
Thanks again to Roger Lynch. Thanks again to Charlotte Silver who produces and edits the show. Thanks to our advertisers who bring it to you for free. Thanks to you guys for listening. More media bosses coming your way soon. See you then.
- [58:09]
Sponsor Announcer 2
Your team just added its 67th AI tool and also your 67th security blind spot. The good news? The Vanta agent works like a GRC engineer in the background finding every app
- [58:20]
Roger Lynch
your team uses, scoring the risk and
- [58:22]
Peter Kafka
drafting fixes for you.
- [58:23]
Sponsor Announcer 2
Vanta is the platform used by over
- [58:25]
Roger Lynch
16,000 fast moving companies like Ramp Cursor
- [58:28]
Sponsor Announcer 2
and Harvey who are shaping the future with AI and staying ahead of AI risk. Get started at vanta.com
- [58:38]
Roger Lynch
Athletic Brewing Company
- [58:39]
Sponsor Announcer 2
Crafts Award winning non alcoholic beers for those who want to be part of every round. With over 185 flavor awards, they're exceptional NA beers that fit your lifestyle and any social occasion. Summer's full of good times and Athletic fits right in. Go to athleticbrewing.com to have brews delivered to your door or find them at
- [58:57]
Roger Lynch
a bar, restaurant or store near you near beer.
- [59:00]
Sponsor Announcer 2
Athletic Brewing Co.
- [59:01]
Sponsor Announcer 1
Fit for all times.
- [59:06]
Peter Kafka
Some Follow the noise.
- [59:08]
Roger Lynch
Bloomberg follows the money. Whether it's the funds fueling AI or or crypto's trillion dollar swings, there's a money side to every story. Get the money side of the story. Subscribe now@bloomberg.com.