OpenAI’s ad plan, Meta’s Vibes + a day in the life of Eater’s Stephanie Wu

Summary

The Digiday Podcast: OpenAI’s Ad Plan, Meta’s Vibes & A Day in the Life of Eater’s Stephanie Wu

Date: September 30, 2025
Host: Kimiko McCoy & Tim Peterson
Guest: Stephanie Wu (Editor-in-Chief, Vox Media’s Eater)

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Episode Overview

This episode explores the rapidly evolving digital media landscape, highlighting:

• OpenAI's significant moves towards launching an ads business for ChatGPT
• The complex future of TikTok US following its restructuring and political scrutiny
• Meta’s launch of “Vibes,” an entirely AI-generated content feed (the "AI slop era")
• A “Day in the Life” feature on Stephanie Wu, Editor-in-Chief of Eater, focusing on her productivity habits, inbox zero strategy, balancing leadership and family, and sources of personal inspiration

The tone is lively, curious, and honest, with hosts bantering through the news’ complexities and weaving in practical, real-life tips for media professionals.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. OpenAI’s Entry into the Ads Business

[02:26-10:23]

• Inevitable Move Toward Ads: The hosts draw parallels to Netflix and other platforms, noting it was "only a matter of time" before OpenAI pursued advertising as a revenue source.

  • “It only becomes a matter of time... and it looks like OpenAI is now on that same trajectory, that same playbook.” (Kimiko, 02:26)

• Leadership and Hiring News:

  • Fiji Simo (ex-Instacart CEO, ex-Facebook Feed lead) is reportedly meeting candidates to head a new ad team.
  • OpenAI has begun hiring for ad platform engineers, signaling internal tool development for integrating advertiser campaigns.
    • “I hope they change this person’s title because Jesus, having to put that on a resume, it’s tough.” (Tim, 03:21)

• Platform Monetization Realities:

  • Only 4% of ChatGPT's 500M+ weekly users pay for subscriptions—ads are the practical next step.

• Launch of ChatGPT Pulse:

  • A daily digest feature for Pro subscribers (potential ad surface), integrating with Gmail, Google Drive, and Calendar—raising real questions about intimacy and targeting.
    • “It’s a super intimate thing to have an ad placement there.” (Kimiko, 05:34)
    • “If you’re treating ChatGPT like your therapist … the more targeted these are, the more it’s gonna really show people how much ChatGPT knows about you.” (Tim, 05:59)

• Privacy, Intimacy, and the ‘Uncanny Valley’:

  • OpenAI’s access to personal data could cross a “fine line”—potentially provoking backlash, though the hosts predict user adaptation akin to Netflix ads’ rollout.
  • “We’re knocking at the Uncanny Valley’s door as to just how much a platform like ChatGPT knows about you.” (Kimiko, 06:49)

• Big Picture:

  • OpenAI has an opportunity to create the first truly “AI-native ad platform for the agentic era,” rather than re-adapting legacy web-native ad tech.

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2. TikTok US: Political Upheaval & Advertising Implications

[10:23-14:49]

• Ownership Restructuring:

  • ByteDance to manage commerce/ad sales; US joint venture (with Oracle, possible government oversight) to control algorithm and data.
    • “ByteDance is actually going to still have like the largest share.” (Tim, 10:55)

• Creator and Advertiser Apprehension:

  • Concerns over content moderation, political influence, and “what kind of algorithm am I getting here?”
    • “You’ve got the bulk of the business managed by the Trump administration at this point.” (Kimiko, 12:01)
  • Creators openly debating platform exodus; advertisers forced to consider brand alignment as TikTok becomes politicized.

• Key Ad Industry Question:

  • What will the new joint venture do to user/ad targeting & measurement—and can the US algorithm be as good as the original?
    • “Are the people at the government, at Oracle going to put their hand, a foot, their entire bodies on the scale to suppress certain types of content?” (Tim, 12:49)

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3. Meta’s “Vibes”: All-in on AI-Generated Feeds

[14:49-23:18]

• Launch of Meta Vibes:
  • Billed as an “AI-generated feed within the Meta AI app,” users can share short-form AI videos—dubbed “AI slop” by Kimiko.
  • “I’ve kind of come around on Meta Vibes… sometimes I’m just looking for something to watch while I’m waiting… I don’t really care what it is.” (Tim, 15:13)
• Host Experiences:
  • Vibes feeds include dogs driving cars, surreal Lisa Frank-esque scenarios; hosts compare the visual experience to DALL-E and Midjourney aesthetics.
  • “It reminds me of like DALL-E meets Lisa Frank.” (Tim, 16:03)
• Trojan Horse for Normalizing AI:
  • Suggestion that Meta is using Vibes less as a serious feed, more to desensitize the public to AI-generated media and rapidly gather data to fuel future ad training engines.
    • “Maybe Trojan horse... for AI desensitization for people.” (Kimiko, 18:02)
    • “There's a willingness to move full steam ahead with that. And now you’ve, you know… it’s being more and more normalized, you know, as long as it’s labeled.” (Kimiko, 21:22)
• Historical Parallel:
  • Compares AI normalization to Instagram's '#NoFilter' era—public aversion may fade and full acceptance may emerge, especially as long as labels clarify authenticity.
    • “It’s almost like you just stick it through this #NoFilter period of AI content, and then on the other side... everyone’s just like, I don’t really care.” (Tim, 22:32)

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4. Spotlight: Stephanie Wu’s Day in the Life

[23:18-53:13]

Morning Routine & Organization

• Wakes up: “Pitter patter” of kids' feet around 6:30–7:00am; 7:00am alarm rarely needed. Kids out by 8:15–8:30am.
• Personal Organization:
  • Master to-do list via a massive Google Doc—captures daily, weekly tasks and meeting notes; tasks not finished moved to the next day.
    • “It's just like a massive Google Doc... holds all the meetings for all the notes... keeps me organized.” (Stephanie, 26:58)
• Inbox Zero Devotee:
  • Anything left in email denotes a pending action.
  • Slack reminders liberally used (e.g. “remind me in 20 minutes/next day”) to avoid losing track.

Meeting Management & Work Habits

• Meeting Load: 3-4 meetings on a light day, up to 8-10 on a busy day, across direct reports, team check-ins, and cross-company collaboration.
• Calendar Color Coding:
  • Differentiates meeting types (in-person, performance reviews, commutes) for mental preparation.
• No-Meeting Fridays:
  • Implemented with about 85% success outside of summer Fridays.

Deep Work & Writing

• Optimal Writing Time:
  • Early morning before meetings and during commutes (“something nice about… [not] the strongest connection”), especially for her biweekly “From the Editor” newsletter. Gathers inspiration from dining out, pop culture, and voracious reading habits.
• Newsletter Process:
  • Assembles links over two weeks using Chrome Reading List; writing session can range from 30 minutes to a day or two, depending on depth.

Lunch, Food, and Eater Life

• Lunch Routine:
  • Not sacred—typically “eating either camera off in a meeting or sneaking something in.” Husband handles weekly meal planning and cooking.
    • “By cook, I mean assemble.” (Stephanie, 38:52)
• Dining Out:
  • 2-3 nights per week; experiences as a “regular person," seldom disclosing role as EIC unless on-brand-ambassador duties or for special events like Eater’s anniversary.

End of Day & Wind-Down

• Workflow Ends:
  • Early wrap at 5:30pm to pick up kids, with a post-dinner return to work. Final wrap often 8–8:30pm.
• Final Rituals:
  • Inbox zero, task migration, Slack cleared. Wind-down includes Instagram scrolling, crosswords, and reading books—currently Empire of the Elite by Michael Grimbaum.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On OpenAI's Ad Ambition:
  • “As an AI platform… only about 4% of the app’s 500 million weekly users pay. The other 96% could be hit with ads.” (Kimiko, 03:56)
• On AI’s Intimacy:
  • “If you’re treating ChatGPT like your therapist… integrated into your email, calendar, everything… it’s not only listening, it’s listing because you’re telling it everything.” (Tim, 07:23)
• On Privacy ‘Uncanny Valley’:
  • “Here we are once again, knocking at the uncanny valley’s door as to just how much a platform like ChatGPT knows about you.” (Kimiko, 06:49)
• On Meta’s Vibes and AI Content Normalization:
  • “Meta introducing Vibes as a maybe Trojan horse… to desensitize people [to AI] or to prove their gobs and gobs of money spent on AI.” (Kimiko, 18:02)
  • “It’s like replacing doom scrolling with vibe scrolling.” (Tim, 19:03)
• Stephanie Wu’s Productivity Wisdom:
  • “It’s just like a massive Google Doc... holds all the meetings for all the notes... keeps me organized.” (Stephanie, 26:58)
  • “I strive to be at inbox zero and anything that’s in my inbox also serves as a reminder that there’s an action I have to take…” (Stephanie, 26:58)
  • “Simplicity seems key.” (Tim, 32:16)
• On Dining Out as Job Perk:
  • “Being able to justify dining out as ‘this is for work, this is my job,’ sounds like one of the bigger perks of being the editor in chief of Eater.” (Tim, 44:38)
• On Reading for Inspiration:
  • “I try to keep myself as immersed in pop culture as I can, so I can make references that make sense to me and hopefully make sense to anyone else who is interested in the same types of pop culture as I am.” (Stephanie, 44:38)

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• [02:26] – OpenAI’s Ad Plan and Playbook
• [04:39] – ChatGPT Pulse and Potential Ad Formats
• [05:34] – Privacy Implications of ChatGPT Ads
• [10:23] – TikTok US: Structure, Concerns, Creators
• [12:01] – Political Influence and Advertising on TikTok
• [14:49] – Meta Vibes: AI Content Feed Discussion
• [18:02] – AI Desensitization: “Trojan Horse” Theory
• [23:18] – Stephanie Wu: Day in the Life Interview Start
• [26:58] – Stephanie’s To-Do List & Productivity System
• [32:31] – Meeting Culture & Management Strategies
• [37:38] – Lunch Breaks and Food at Eater
• [41:08] – Newsletter Creation Process
• [44:49] – Dining Out Practices and Work-Life Balance
• [47:53] – Inbox Zero and Communication Hygiene

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Overall Tone & Takeaway

This episode balances industry analysis with practical, inside-baseball tips from a media leader:

• News: AI is reshaping ad tech and content experiences—often in ways both exciting and unsettling.
• Practicality: Real workflows and productivity habits matter as much as strategic thinking in navigating media’s shifting sands.
• Cultural Commentary: As digital audiences become increasingly AI-accustomed, what matters most is transparency and continual adaptation—whether you’re a tech giant, advertiser, or publisher.

This episode is a must-listen (and a must-read summary) for anyone seeking both macro-insight and micro-practical wisdom from the heart of digital media’s transformation.

Transcript

[Tim Peterson]

Foreign.

[Kimiko McCoy]

Hello, hello and welcome to another episode of the Digiday Podcast, a show about the business of media and marketing. I'm Kimiko McCoy, senior marketing reporter here at Digiday.

[Tim Peterson]

And I'm Tim Peterson, executive editor, video and audio, Digiday Media. What's up, Kimiko?

[Kimiko McCoy]

Tim, naturally I've spent another weekend doom scrolling. How. How are you?

[Tim Peterson]

I'm. I'm good. The. The song that was just playing on a loop for me at the end of my workout this morning was Wilson Phillips, hold off, which I feel like is instructive for the episode we're about to have, because we have it. It's one of those like Sam Jackson, hold on to your butts kinds of episodes because we got a lot to cover. Open AI taking another step towards joining the ads business, TikTok US. And some more details that have emerged about that, as well as more questions around just the future of TikTok US. And then Meta Vibes, the social platform for the AI Slop era that I have some surprising thoughts on. Surprising to me.

[Stephanie Wu]

Thoughts on.

[Tim Peterson]

Thoughts on. And then later in the episode we have Stephanie Wu, who is the editor in chief of Vox Media's Eater, on for the second installment in our Day in the Life series. I guess we could call it franchise. I don't know format, but it was really interesting to hear Stephanie talk about like how she manages her day to day between like the meetings she has her to do list, which I still think about, like her to do list process. How she's able to stay at Inbox Zero will always confound me, I think.

[Kimiko McCoy]

Yeah, we also talked to her about what she's reading and all of those things, which was a really interesting tidbit. I feel like this is a podcast episode to maybe bring like a pen and a paper to one, to take notes on Stephanie's inbox Zero strategy and then two, just to make a mind map of everything that's going on with AI right now to help make sense of it.

[Tim Peterson]

The future of the feed, I think, is the theme of this, at least the news portion of this episode.

[Kimiko McCoy]

Absolutely. So first we've got OpenAI, which I think we're headed down a path that was inevitable. Right. There were similar conversations about like Netflix and whatnot and some of these streaming platforms that were introducing ads where it only becomes even threads, where it only becomes a matter of time. And it looks like OpenAI is now on that same trajectory, that same playbook.

[Tim Peterson]

Yep. Yeah. So last week Alex Heath reported that OpenAI CEO of Applications Fiji Simo who is the former Instacart CEO, had previously run Facebook or the Facebook feed, and then oversaw Facebook within Meta. She has been meeting with potential candidates to lead some sort of new team that's going to be in charge of creating ChatGPT's ad product at the same time, and I think even the same day, adweek reported on a job listing that popped up that shows OpenAI is looking to hire some growth paid marketing platform engineer. I hope they change this person's title because Jesus, having to put that on a resume, it's tough. Someone who's going to is supposed to coordinate ad week, develop internal tools for ad platform integration, campaign management, and real time attribution, aka the ad platform that'll underpin ChatGPT's ad business. So that's both pretty significant moves.

[Kimiko McCoy]

Yeah, it is. And like I said, it kind of flicks at the playbook that's happening here because as our own platforms reporter Crystal Scanlon has reported, at the same time, OpenAI is like burning through cash, right? As an AI platform, she reported. While OpenAI has a subscription business for ChatGPT, only about 4% of the app's 500 million weekly users pay, according to the company. The other 96% could be hit with ads. So that's kind of to say this playbook, like you grow and then subscriptions are like one thing to flick at. But the bigger thing here is how do you monetize the attention that's on your platform? And it seems like this is kind of where they're headed right now.

[Tim Peterson]

Yeah. And then I guess that's the third Prius of news. So they also launched ChatGPT Pulse, which seems like a daily digest. So the idea is, and this is initially just available to ChatGPT Pro subscribers, which I believe are the people paying $200 a month for ChatGPT. But the idea is each morning you'll be able to go into ChatGPT and get kind of a digest of depending on if you've hooked it up to your Google Calendar, your Google Drive, your Gmail, what have you, it'll take from those external sources as well as your chats that you've had with ChatGPT and kind of synthesize for you, like, here's what's going on and here's what you need to know today. And so it's a discovery surface. Feels like it'd be really easy for it to slide into there. And if you're hungry, here's a breakfast, you know, coupon for a breakfast sandwich or a coffee or what have you.

[Kimiko McCoy]

Absolutely. The question here that I. I have is, like, besides one, like, where would those ad placements be? Should they come to fruition? Right. But to how comfortable would users then be with getting ads there? Because at this point, you're connected to your calendar, your phone, your trips, yada, yada, yada, and it becomes like a super intimate thing to have an ad placement there. Right?

[Tim Peterson]

You would think so. But I wonder if at this point, we're just used to. If I'm looking at a feed, there's going to be ads in the feed, because it seems like one of the savvier things they're doing with this ChatGPT pulse is everything's going to appear as cards. And so I guess you're going to kind of be able to, I assume, swipe through from card to card. And so if you swipe from a card about, like, here's what's on your calendar today to here's a coupon for a coffee or whatever that's sponsored, that's not so different than swiping through TikTok or swiping through Instagram stories. But I do think you've raised an interesting point of, like, the more targeted these are, the more it's gonna really show people how much ChatGPT knows about you. And that's gonna be a really fine lot.

[Kimiko McCoy]

Yeah, it will be a fine line. And I know on this side of the pond, our data restrictions are not as tight as they are overseas and, you know, the UK and whatnot. So it'll be really interesting to see kind of how that plays out when you start talking about. Just like, I hate to bring up the Uncanny Valley every six weeks, but I feel like here we are once again knocking at the Uncanny Valley store as to just how much a platform like ChatGPT knows about you, especially if you start talking about, like, integration with ChatGPT Pulse.

[Tim Peterson]

Yeah, I mean, it's that idea of. It's that question for a long time that's dogged Facebook of people have a conversation out in the real world with someone about, like, I don't know, a car that they're considering buying, and then next time they're on Facebook, they see an ad for that car and it's like, is Facebook listing. It's going to be. Is ChatGPT always listening? And, like, whereas Facebook has always denied this, it feels like it's going to be hard to deny because it's like, well, what have your conversations with ChatGPT been like? Because if you're treating ChatGPT like your therapist. If you're hooking it up to your email, your calendar, everything like that, then yeah, it's, it's, it's not only, it's not list, it's listing because you're telling it everything.

[Kimiko McCoy]

Absolutely. And this is like a marketer and advertisers like promised land to have all of that information just at their fingertips. Like, I can't imagine a more targeted ad beyond using ChatGPT where not only there's a search functionality and that gets super intimate. Right. Because to your point, some people have used it as their therapist or even their significant other. And on the other side of it, you've got it integrated into other platforms that you're using, flight deals, you know, what you're eating and all types of stuff. So I don't know, it'll be interesting to see if there's any backlash there from users once they see how locked in ChatGPT is for you.

[Tim Peterson]

I'm sure there will be, but I'm sure it'll be the same as the backlash that like Netflix face when Netflix added ads. And then at some point you just kind of give yourself over to it. Especially if you're using the free tier of ChatGPT. Like this is a business at some point. Like, there's going to need to be some financial exchange ads. Historically when it comes to the Internet has been the default financial, financial exchange. We go on websites, we get information on the websites for free. In exchange, we get served ads. That's how Google search has worked, that's how YouTube has worked. So naturally that's going to be how ChatGPT works. One thing I'm really curious about is just what the ad tech infrastructure for OpenAI is going to look like. Because everyone, ad tech companies, agencies, brands are building these AI agents now to handle a lot of, you know, existing programmatic advertising workflows. Yeah, but those were all built for really the web era, and to some extent they've been adapted for mobile, to a lesser extent, honestly for ctv. But inherently these have all been like web native tools that have kind of been squeezed into the round peg of these other services. OpenAI has an opportunity here to build the first AI native ad platform for the agentic era. And so I'm curious what that's going to look like. It's something that Seb Joseph, our executive editor of News and I were talking about actually earlier this morning of just what does the ad platform for the agentic era look like? Maybe we'll find out with OpenAI maybe.

[Kimiko McCoy]

But I know one ad system, ad interoperation that we no longer have questions about is the what's going on with TikTok. We finally got some more insight as to how that deal is going to go down. So as it has been explained to me, by me, by you, Tim, and also by reading ByteDance, the Chinese TikTok Chinese parent company, is going to manage the commerce side of this and the ad side of this and then the US which is an amalgamation of Oracle and whoever else who are the other.

[Tim Peterson]

People and also ByteDance because something that's emerged is like ByteDance is actually going to still have like the largest share of like any single investor in this joint venture.

[Kimiko McCoy]

So, so ByteDance, Oracle and then the US as a governmental entity. Right. Will manage the actual, the algorithm. Right. And then the data side of this. Now it's obviously caused some backlash. I don't know about you, but I've seen on my own TikTok threads and handful of other social media platforms of creators saying like, I don't know how comfortable I am with this and like, is the countdown now on for us to leave TikTok and find, you know, a different social media platform to be on?

[Tim Peterson]

Yeah, I mean I've definitely seen those videos. I'm very much prepared to leave TikTok just because of the questions about like there was even Trump got asked the question of like, do you want the TikTok feed to be like a MAGA feed? And he said something along the lines of like, yeah, I would love that, but that wouldn't be fair. And just like you said the quiet part out loud.

[Kimiko McCoy]

No, I, I, I can understand why there would be an apprehension because it's not just the US government that would have oversight over to that. Because you're also talking about like Oracle as well. Right. Which is owned by Larry Ellison, who is kind of, I don't want to say pledged allegiance to Trump, but there's ties there. Right, right. So you've kind of got the bulk of the business managed by the Trump administration at this point, which begs the question like okay, well what kind of algorithm am I getting here? And for the creator, what am I allowed to say and what am I not allowed to say? You know, given that there's a new hierarchy here which you know. Yeah, goes back to do you want to continue to be on this platform or not? And if there's no creators, what then happens to the advertisers that were using this platform?

[Tim Peterson]

Right. Which is what's interesting about By Dance, like still managing ad sales for TikTok US of what is TikTok US, the consumer product, going to be to even have the advertisement? In addition to just questions of what are going to be the changes in user data that are going to affect targeting or measurement and also what are the changes? Because ByteDance is going to copy its TikTok algorithm and then license that to the TikTok US joint venture to then recreate the algorithm. Obviously there's the question of is that algorithm going to be as good as the historical TikTok algorithm? In addition to the question of are the people at the government, at Oracle that are part of this joint venture going to put a hand, a foot, their entire bodies on the scale to suppress certain types of content or promote other types of content? But then also is that algorithm gonna affect how ads are served or how ads are delivered to people, how ads are targeted on the platform?

[Kimiko McCoy]

Yeah, that'll be something that I think marketers, especially when you talk about like small businesses that are like heavily reliant on TikTok are gonna have to think about. And then also just like ads in general, one of the things that I think that the conclusions that we came to with what happened with Jimmy Kimmel, right. And that show being pulled off the air briefly and then brought back and the conundrum that advertisers were thrown into because of it. If everything is now politicized and Tick Tock has now become more politicized. Right. You as an advertiser even serving an ad there calls into question, you know, your brand politics.

[Tim Peterson]

Yeah. So maybe we just, we just all leave Tick Tock. And where, where do we go then? Kamiko? Because that's been the like theme of these videos I've been seeing on Tick Tock is people asking like, are we leaving TikTok? If so, where are we going? Come on, folks, let me know where are we going?

[Kimiko McCoy]

So glad that you've asked because now we have meta vibes that we can go to, which is the meta to the rescue.

[Tim Peterson]

As always, as always, the savior for this moment.

[Kimiko McCoy]

It's being called politely, an AI generated feed within the Meta AI app. It is AI slopped to me, all housed in one place thanks to. To meta.

[Tim Peterson]

Yeah, yeah. So people can create and share short form AI generated videos. It's all a generated videos. It's interesting. When I first read about the launch, I was just like, oh my God, I can't believe they're actually. This is, this is the dystopian. Like I thought 2025 was bad. Madison said, hold my beer. I've kind of come around on Meta Vibes, or maybe not necessarily Vibes itself, because, like, Kimiko, have you used Vibes yet?

[Kimiko McCoy]

Yeah, just watch the AI generated videos of dogs driving cars, of lions eating sheep and goats that are stacked on one top of each other. I wish I could describe to people what that app has to offer, but yes, I have.

[Tim Peterson]

It's like, it reminds me of like Dolly meets Lisa Frank. Is kind of like how I was feeling about it because it's very mid journey in terms of the aesthetic. Yeah. A lot of the dog driving cars with like the round sunglasses. But as I was going through it, I was just like, okay, this feed is bad. But at the same time, there's this post that's been popping up in my regular TikTok feed over the past couple weeks that's of like, different cars driving along, like a private highway over speed bumps. And the idea is, oh, let's see how this car is able to handle these speed bumps. Is it going to be able to make it through or is it going to flip horribly and it's going to be a bad crash? I thought this was like, fully AI generated.

[Kimiko McCoy]

Yeah.

[Tim Peterson]

Our producer Sarah Patterson, said she thinks this is actually, like, based on a video game or just clips from the video game. Regardless, it's not real. These aren't actual cars running through this. This is some form of simulation. That being said, I really enjoy watching these videos. I've spent minutes watching these videos and it's made me think about maybe there is a place for meta Vibes of just like, sometimes I'm just looking for something to watch while I'm waiting for the host to join a Zoom meeting that I'm gonna have. I don't really care what it is. I'm just looking to be entertained. And with something like Meta Vibes 2, I don't have to think about, is this an AI generated video or not? Is this fake? Is this. Am I being hoodwinked like I was with the bunnies on the trampoline?

[Kimiko McCoy]

He's on that tramp. I feel like the bunnies on the trampoline haunt this podcast, given we thought it was real and lo and behold, it was not.

[Stephanie Wu]

But I do think you bring up.

[Kimiko McCoy]

A really good point. Kind of like where we are in terms of being desensitized to AI content. Business Insider had a column by Katie Nitopoulos that I thought was really interesting where she brings up this point where it seems to be less about meta introducing Vibes as like an actual content feed, right, to compete with like TikTok or anything like that. They've already got reels. This seems more of a maybe Trojan horse, right, for like AI desensitization for people and then also to I guess maybe prove that this is something sustainable or prove their gobs and gobs and gobs of money that they spent on AI hiring AI people and things like this to kind of prove, like, look, you know, we've done something and if you've become desensitized and I become a little desensitized, you know, maybe there is a place here for AI generated ads and, you know, AI creators and whatnot as we continue down again. The uncanny valley.

[Tim Peterson]

Yeah, yeah. It's not even that, like I've necessarily become desensitized so much as I've become overly sensitized of like everything I see, I'm immediately just like, okay, but is that real or is that AI that having an app where it's just like, it's all AI? I don't have to ask that question. I don't have to worry about it. I can purely just like look at some dogs driving cars, check out just for the hell of it is kind of nice. It's like replacing doom scrolling with vibe scrolling, which probably plays into like meta's whole branding thing. I promise you, I'm not trying to shill for this. I don't know if this is an app that I'll use long term, but it feels like there's a place for it because, like, ultimately what do I use TikTok for? Just to kill time to have some entertainment. I don't need it to be real stuff. I just need it to be something interesting to look at for a few minutes while I'm between doing other things. But I do think you raised an interesting point of like meta Vibes being a Trojan horse because I think this could be something because there's like, you can like and share. There's like engagement built into Meta Vibes. That is good data for meta to be able to use to apply as training data. Because, you know, meta, I think, what is it by the end of next year wants to be able to like enable fully AI generated ads, a fully generated advertising workflow. It's going to need data to be able to like, know what are the ads that people would watch or that would do well. Yeah, this seems like a really good resource for that.

[Kimiko McCoy]

And then even in my own reporting, I don't think that this is something that marketers are going to be apprehensive toward. Right. In the conversations that I've had with marketers and brands and things like this, the sentiment is less like a fear of AI, AI slop and whatnot, and more so of like the, the, the back and forth that you were mentioning kind of in your own head, like, is this AI or is this not? If it is directly labeled as this is AI. I've seen like, so, like Popeyes had their AI produced diss track and things like that. I think there's a willingness to move full steam ahead with, with that. And now you've, you know.

[Tim Peterson]

Yeah.

[Kimiko McCoy]

Again, it's being more and more normalized, you know, as long as it's labeled now. Now you've got them more on board.

[Tim Peterson]

Yeah. Which also reminds me of the. Do you remember the like, hashtag no filter era of Instagram?

[Kimiko McCoy]

Boy, do I.

[Tim Peterson]

So for anyone who, who doesn't either because they were too old for Instagram in the, like, early 2010s or too young for Instagram and the early 2010s, or just had better things to be doing with your life, Instagram got very popular because of the filters that were on there. And people would just apply these filters to their photos so that everything looked like a National Geographic photographer's version of, I don't know, the subway stop or the sandwich you're having for lunch. To the point where there was the backlash. And NoFilter came about because people felt like there was an overuse of filters. It feels like right now we're in kind of like the NoFilter era of AI content. But what's happened since NoFilter is people are using filters all the time on Instagram, on TikTok, on all these social platforms. Like it's become so widely accepted.

[Kimiko McCoy]

Yeah.

[Tim Peterson]

That I feel like to your point, around the marketers, like, it's almost like you just stick it through this no filter hashtag no filter period of AI content. And then on the other side of it, everyone's just like, I don't really care as long as I know if a filter is being applied or if something's AI generated.

[Kimiko McCoy]

Exactly. As. As long as people don't feel like they're being bamboozled. Which I think, as we're learning, is kind of the sticking point here. More so than, you know, is this AI generated at all. But I think, you know, if nothing else, you found a new doom scrolling opportunity. Vibe scrolling. When you're not, when you're not putting together your Google spreadsheet and getting your Inbox to zero. Like our guest this week, Stephanie Wu.

[Tim Peterson]

Oh my God, I can't believe that she like does inbox zero. That just, that will fascinate me about everyone. I'm just trying to get to like inbox sub 100.

[Stephanie Wu]

Yeah.

[Kimiko McCoy]

Same, same. So, yeah, it was a really good conversation with Stephanie. She gave us some ton of great insight. Again, you know what she's reading right now, how she spends her time managing not only Fox Media's eater, but also, you know, her kids and her family life and things like that. So with no further ado, here's. Here's a day in the life with Stephanie. Stephanie Wu.

[Tim Peterson]

Hey Stephanie, welcome to the JJ podcast.

[Stephanie Wu]

Thank you, Tim and Kimiko, glad to be here.

[Tim Peterson]

Yeah, we're glad to have you. Kimiko and I love talking about our days in the lives. That's one of the small talk things we typically do before we start recordings and also just now that we're doing more and more of these formats, talking to others about how they spend their days in the lives. So we appreciate you taking the time do this with us.

[Stephanie Wu]

Of course.

[Tim Peterson]

So I guess talking about anyone's average day in the life, first question is what time a person wakes up. Do you have a set time that you get up each day, each workday? I imagine weekends maybe is different.

[Stephanie Wu]

Yeah, I strive for a set time, but the reality is my kids wake me up when they wake up. And so these days, because I guess anyone with young kids can tell you there's like no rhyme or reason to wake up times these days I hear like pitter patter feet around 6:30 or 7, they're jumping into the bed and depending on what time it is, we decide if the day is starting. I do have an Alarm set for 7am and the truth is that it rarely is the alarm that wakes me up. So day starts around that time. First things first is getting the kids ready and out of the house. They're usually out of the house before my husband and I even like really begin to start our mornings. But we take it from there. It's around that time on the weekdays and they're usually out of the house by 8:15, latest 8:30.

[Kimiko McCoy]

I'm always so curious about kids internal biological clocks waking up at the crack of dawn. I haven't seen that time willingly since I was also a child. But I'm curious after you guys, like with all of this going on in the mornings, where do you kind of find time to maybe think about setting up your work today?

[Stephanie Wu]

I mean, I guess so let me go a little further. Maybe that answers your question. So they are, they get out of the house and if I have time, if I don't have an early morning meeting or a breakfast meeting or anything like that, I would try to squeeze a week workout in. That's my like, okay, the house is as empty as it's going to get and I'm going to get my workout in before I'm then like, okay, you know, shower, really get ready for the work day. If I'm at home, I'm usually logged on by 9:30 at the latest. If I'm heading into the office, I try to leave a little earlier just so that I can be in the office before 10 at the very latest essentially. And so that's when I'm kind of like, okay, I'm orienting myself for like, okay, what's on my to do list. I'm, I'm looking through any emails or Slack notifications that might have come through in the evening and I'm getting myself set up for the workday in earnest.

[Tim Peterson]

And are you the type of person who plans out and lays out clothes? Actually has a daily planner that you put together a to do list the day before? Do you take each day as it comes?

[Stephanie Wu]

Yeah, I'm super planned out. So I've got a running to do list. It's really just a big Google Doc. I switched to this method maybe like 2 years ago and it's really working for me. It's just like a massive Google Doc that's got my week by week to do list. It holds all the meetings for all the notes for any meetings I'm in. And often at the end of the day, anything that didn't get crossed off on the to do list gets moved to the next day or the next week and so on and so forth. But it really keeps me organized. I also strive to be at inbox zero and anything that's in my inbox also serves as a reminder that there's an action I have to take or I'm waiting on something. And so that also helps me keep track of what needs to be done. And then I'm a liberal user of Slack reminder notifications. And so if something needs to be taken care of early the next morning, I'm setting a reminder so it pops back up at 9am So I don't lose track of the things I need to tackle pretty much as soon as I sit down versus like okay, as long as this gets done sometime today, we're okay.

[Tim Peterson]

I didn't Even know that was a thing. I gotta now look into that because Slack notifications is my biggest trigger. Like, if I'm in a good mood, that's the one thing that can put me in just a horrible mood.

[Stephanie Wu]

Yes, yes. So I'll set a, like, essentially it's like a remind me. And you can say like, okay, remind me in 20 minutes, remind me in three hours, remind me the next day. And I use those a lot.

[Tim Peterson]

Okay, so maybe the best route to deal with like Slack being my most hated app is to actually become a Slack power user.

[Stephanie Wu]

I mean, maybe I will say Slack is kind of a necessary evil. I've embraced it. But it certainly, it's changed the way.

[Kimiko McCoy]

We'Ve worked a lot and it's gracious. I am no, really, really admiring the Google Doc I want to look into. I've been handwriting everything and it's been a mess. So appreciate your efficiency here. When you are setting those things up. Talk about about the bookmarks here, right? Do you set them up like when you get to your office, that's when you start writing out all your things or is that kind of the end of the day for the next day type deal or when do you find time to set that all up?

[Stephanie Wu]

Yeah, it's an, it's an ongoing to do list. So things get like, if I'm really hyper organized, I've got my running to do list. I come out of a meeting, I've got action items. I'm moving them onto that dock, right. So that I know I don't forget. I don't lose track of the things that are on my to do list. More likely I'm just kind of like keeping my notes. And then at the end of the day before I've logged off, I'm really cleaning things up and making sure, okay, did I miss a to do from a meeting I've had? Did I do something but not check that off? And really just like, kind of like a end of day, I guess, organizational hygiene to prep me for the next day.

[Tim Peterson]

Got it. And do you like categorize your to dos? I try to do to do lists and I've had all kinds of versions of to do lists where I'll have like my daily to do list but then inevitably like things fall off of that or get added to that and have to move off. And so then I'll have like a weekly to do list. And ideally I'd be able to like take things from one, move them to the other and it'd be very streamlined and I'D have some sort of garbage can to do list as well. And I've even tried. Okay, I'm going to have my podcast to do list, I'm going to have my newsletter to do list, my video to do list, my administrative to do list. That hasn't worked for me either. How do you or to what extent do you even go so far? Am I overthinking all of this entirely?

[Stephanie Wu]

No, I'm with you. Sometimes for really big projects, it's good to see all the things you need to do for a certain project. But I am more likely to organize my to do list based on the time of day. I think I'm gonna get to tackle it. So not necessarily by urgency because sometimes there's big urgent things I don't have, say, a full hour to dedicate to it. So I'm more likely to say, okay, I see. I have a break between meetings between 10:30 and 11:30. I'm gonna try to knock these four smaller things out in that hour and time, block my to do list in that way, and then hope that I've saved enough time for those really big things.

[Kimiko McCoy]

We're getting a masterclass in to do list here.

[Stephanie Wu]

I know it's a day in life to do.

[Kimiko McCoy]

Listen, clearly Tim and I need a better system going here, but if I can entertain one more question about to do list, right? Are you doing this all by hand or using any type of AI to help you parse and sort through this?

[Stephanie Wu]

Oh, no, I don't think I would. I barely trust myself to understand my own brain, much less offloading this to AI. Now I do this by hand. I mean, like I said, it's a Google Doc. And I think what has really helped me about it being a Google Doc is that it's accessible to me both on my computer and on my phone. Because there was a time when it was really like sticky notes, like you know, the digital sticky notes. And I just like, if I like didn't have that ready accessible at any minute, I'd be like, I can't plan my life when I don't know what's next on my to do list. I've tried various other, you know, more fancier note taking programs and I just keep coming back to the Google Doc.

[Kimiko McCoy]

Love that.

[Tim Peterson]

That's probably simplicity seems key with this.

[Kimiko McCoy]

I'd say so. So by the time that you get to the office with your hyper functional to do list, right, Talk to us about what's on the to do list. How many meetings are you typically in.

[Stephanie Wu]

And with who It's a lot of meetings. I, I think it on a light day, we're talking three to four. On a really busy day, maybe eight to 10. This is a mixture of meetings with my direct reports, of course, who I am checking in with quite frequently. Regularly scheduled team meetings that I like to join. So I have a sense of what's going on across the team. I run quite a few teams and so I try to make sure I have touch points with each of the teams that are laddering up into me and then meetings with other teams across the company that I get a little bit less FaceTime with. And so it can really be slap kind of like a mixed bag of who I'm meeting with on any given day. But I do like to like as part of my, again, organizational hygiene the day ahead, I'm looking at my calendar. I'm making sure every meeting's got, if I'm running it, it's got a purpose, it's got an agenda and we're set up. Otherwise we're taking it off the calendar if it's not needed. And if I'm not running it, I'm making sure we still, with whoever is running it, that we still need this meeting. Because it is definitely one of my pet peeves to have meetings where everyone's sitting around unprepared and just kind of like, oh, well, this was on the calendar, so, so we all showed up. So really try to make sure every single meeting has intention and purpose and rhyme and reason.

[Tim Peterson]

Do you go so far as like the Amazon method of. For the meetings you run, people have to submit memos if they want to talk something and there's a hard cap on the time for the meeting.

[Stephanie Wu]

No, that all seems, that's like one step too far for me. But I guess what I do do is I like to color code my calendar so I can kind of see at a glance. Okay, this is in person. That's a very type of like mental preparation, right. For an in person meeting versus just like dialing onto a Zoom or a Google Meet. Right now we're in performance conversation season. So we're all doing performance conversations with my direct reports with my own manager. And so I've color coded those in a different way because again, like I want to be mentally prepared when I'm in those meetings. It's not just like your regular meeting. And so, and then if I'm commuting, if I'm blocking out to commute, that's a different color just so I can see at A glance, what my day looks like and how much code shifting I have to do essentially to get myself prepared for all the different types of meetings.

[Tim Peterson]

Are you someone who likes to stack meetings? I know for me, I try to. If I'm going to have one meeting and another meeting gets scheduled, I try to do it right around the same time. So then I have blocks where I can get work done uninterrupted. But I feel like for other people, they may want to have time in between meetings and kind of space. How do you. Do you have one system or the other?

[Stephanie Wu]

I don't like to stack meetings, but it gets inevitable, especially when you have.

[Tim Peterson]

Eight to ten meetings a day.

[Kimiko McCoy]

That I actually should have backed up and asked this. How often are you in the office for in person versus zoom meetings?

[Stephanie Wu]

Yeah, I'm in the office anywhere from one to three days a week. And it really just depends on are there people in town I want to see? Are there meetings that I really do want to be in person for? Are there events that I have, you know, in the middle of the day, at the end of the day where it's much easier for me to get there from the office? So it's pretty flexible. I'm in at least once a week, but the weeks themselves vary quite a bit. Like this week, I'm here three days.

[Tim Peterson]

Some days you have three to four meetings, which is a light day. That still can be a lot. Do you cap these meetings at all in terms of. Are all your meetings a half hour, or do you have meetings that run up to three hours on a regular basis?

[Stephanie Wu]

Oh, gosh, no. If it's more than an hour, it's because we're really trying to be hyper productive around solving a problem or are just kind of working together on something live. No, I would say 90% of my meetings are an hour or less.

[Tim Peterson]

Okay, and do you have any days that are like, no meeting days?

[Stephanie Wu]

We really tried to implement Fridays as our no meeting days.

[Tim Peterson]

How often are you successful with that?

[Stephanie Wu]

85% of the time. And I made it, I should say. So we do summer Fridays. And so on summer Fridays, I've been a little bit more okay with taking meetings just because I'm like, all right, trying to be productive and, like, get everyone out early. Right. And so now that summer Fridays have ended, I'm really trying to. And I've said this out loud to several team members for accountability. I was like, we've really got to go back to Friday meetings only if it's like, deeply, deeply urgent. It's just everybody's day to like, really catch up and like, do the work. And I really value that. And I know my colleagues really value that as well.

[Kimiko McCoy]

Absolutely. Especially since the weekends feel like lunch breaks more and more as we continue into adulthood. Speaking of lunch breaks, we obviously can't talk to the EIC of eater and not talk about food. Right. With all of these meetings, how sacred is your lunch break? Do you honor it or are you kind of like eating crumbs in the keyboard style?

[Stephanie Wu]

Unfortunately, not so sacred. Again, unless I've got a lunch meeting that I'm leaving my desk and actually going to meet someone, then yes, I have every. I try really hard to not look at my phone during a lunch meeting or a breakfast meeting for that matter, so that it's really kind of connected. But on a typical day, I'm eating either camera off in a meeting or I'm just trying to sneak something in. Like, I'll like, stand up and make something and then 15 minutes later I'll go back and get it and just kind of squeezing that lunch in. It's not the most glamorous of meals. In my career as an editor in.

[Tim Peterson]

Chiba Meter, I have one person that I used to work with who since 2020 and working remotely, made a point where every day they would actually make their lunch. And that was their way of being forced to get pulled away from the office and have kind of a break. It sounded perfectly reasonable. Also still sounds kind of ridiculous to me of like, how do you actually have that time? Even if they're able to cook something in a half hour, when you do have lunch, are you meal prepping in the week and you have kind of that lunch made, are you going out and picking something up?

[Stephanie Wu]

I'm very lucky. My husband is the chief meal planner in the household, and so he usually has thought out, you know, with whatever groceries we've purchased and whatever leftovers we have. Because I do like to give him a break from cooking on the weekends. And we do a lot more like ordering out or going out. He's usually got planned out during the week what he thinks the lunches will be. He does the cooking and I. I benefit. And so the days where I stand up and cook is if he's in the office. And by cook, I mean assemble.

[Kimiko McCoy]

Do you have your day in terms of like, stacking it? Do you split it up in terms of like, the first half of the day before lunch is work mode. Right. Or meetings or however you set it up, and then the second half of the Day is like I'm catching up on things. I've got hands on keyboards type deal or how do you set that up? Or is it kind of all mixed together?

[Stephanie Wu]

It's meetings and responding to what some of the more urgent asks are in between meetings. So like slacks and emails and whatnot. I'm always peeking in between meetings to try and take care of as much as I can. And then I would say my deep work happens better in the early morning hours before my meeting block starts. Or actually I have gotten really into writing on my commute because there's something nice about like I don't have, you know, the strongest connection. And I'm. I'm writing something that's. I'm usually writing my newsletter. I do a newsletter that's called from the editor. It comes out twice a month and I'm. It's. So it's very conversational. Right. I'm not like pulling from a bunch of interviews and sources to write something. So I really like doing that on my commute because I'm just like focused. There's nothing else I can do and I'm just tapping out on my phone like two or three paragraphs and then I'm editing that at a time when I can actually sit down and properly self edit. But getting the words out is the hardest part. And so I like to do that when I'm taken away from my desk and all the typical distractions that come with sitting in front of my laptop.

[Tim Peterson]

How long generally does it take to put together each newsletter for you?

[Stephanie Wu]

Since it's every two weeks and the newsletter includes kind of a roundup of interesting things I've read or things we've published over those two weeks. I do spend that time in between newsletters gathering the links I want to link to, essentially. So I'm always reading just both for fun and professionally, always with an eye on. Okay. This might be something I want to include in the newsletter when I'm ready to write it. If it's a topic, I know the back of my hand. I can probably get it out in 30, 45 minutes. If it's something that's a little bit more involved, I want to be really thoughtful about the words I'm using and making sure that I'm telling a more in depth story. That could take a day or two. But essentially I'm using up. I get my two weeks and I use up a lot of the two weeks to produce the next one before it's on to the next.

[Tim Peterson]

And are you stashing those Links in a Google Doc. Do you just have a bunch of tabs open all the time or do you have some other system?

[Stephanie Wu]

My Chrome reading list has been really helpful for that.

[Kimiko McCoy]

I want to do a body doubling day with you. I feel like I could learn. I could stand to learn so much. And also typing on your phone. I have big screen activities and little screen activities. I can't get more than a lowercase text message out. So really, really, Admiral here. Admirable.

[Stephanie Wu]

This has been a big shift in my life when I was like, I have to get over that and I have to be able to write everywhere.

[Kimiko McCoy]

Gracious. Where do you find your inspiration, Right. For the newsletter and for your work outside of, you know, obviously the stuff that Eater does. But where else do you find inspiration?

[Stephanie Wu]

As, you know, as with all of my colleagues, I think just about everyone who works with Eater, I dine out quite a bit. I love dining out. It's one of. It's something I'm so passionate about. It's one of the reasons why I was so excited about this job to really kind of get to tap into the dining scene not just locally in New York, where I live, but also in every place that I visit in my job before this, I was a travel editor. So it was really kind of like trying to understand through dining how different, you know, how the spirit and the culture and the fabric of other cities that I don't live in comes to life through the dining scene. And so I get a lot of inspiration absolutely, just by being out there. What are people talking about when they're dining out? What do menus look like? How are prices changing? How are desserts becoming more complex or more basic? And I think that drives a lot of, like, what am I seeing? And of course, I'm getting inputs from all my colleagues, too, with, like, what they're seeing and what they're out there doing and drinking and eating. And that, I think gives me a lot of color for. Because I do like to think about, like, often what interests me or the story that I'm gonna tell a friend when I'm catching up with them over drinks is often also going to be a story that's going to be interesting to our audience, who's also deeply devoted to, you know, dining out and experiencing new restaurants. So I do try to keep things really personal. That being said, I mentioned earlier, I'm a voracious reader. I read a lot of things and I watch a decent amount of TV fall, you know, TV season is just about to pick up. So I think that's going to pick up, too. But I try to keep myself as immersed in pop culture as I can so that I can make references that make sense to me and hopefully make sense to anyone else who is kind of interested in the same types of pop culture as I am.

[Tim Peterson]

Being able to justify dining out as this is for work, this is my job. Sounds like one of the bigger perks of being the editor in chief of Yater. Do you have a dining budget?

[Stephanie Wu]

I do not have a dining budget specifically, but I dine out just a lot for fun. And I actually think that. Well, first of all, I would say dining out is something I would do for fun with or without this job. Actually, the bigger change, again, came when I had my kids. I really had to just figure out, like, you can't dine out all the time with little kids. And so I had to reset my schedule. Wasn't just going out every night. And so I've tried to kind of limit myself to two to three nights out a week. And I think about my day as we spent a lot of time talking about. But I also look at my week across the board and just make sure, okay, I can't be out every night. Gotta be equal partner and parent in all of these ways. And so with these more precious nights out, what am I doing with them? And frankly, far less is it, oh, I'm going to a restaurant because I have to for work. And far more it's, I'm catching up with a friend or I'm catching up with a colleague. Let's go somewhere. I've been wanting to try regardless. And then I get their input, right? I get to see how they react to the menu. And it's not just from a critical lens, but it's also from, like, let's pay attention to everything else that's happening around us, not just with what's on the plate, but also what's in the room and what's happening in the kitchen. And actually think I personally am driving so much joy out of this because it's not actually, like, I'm not one of the writers and editors on the team that's going out writing about it, covering the news, you know, like, rinse and repeat. Like, that really does, you know, I absolutely recognize the toll that can take. And I am more of, like, I get to enjoy it because I just want a really broad overview of what the scene is looking like and how it's changing. And I channel that perspective into my newsletter. But it's not the daily kind of reporting and writing that so many of my colleagues are doing.

[Kimiko McCoy]

You recently appeared on one of Bravo shows. No. Watch what happens live. How often do you find yourself attending, whether it be restaurant openings or shows or things like that? Kind of, I guess, EIC on one hand and like brand ambassador on the.

[Stephanie Wu]

Other, when we've got lots of exciting projects to talk about. This eater's 20th anniversary being a great example. I'm of course, spending a lot more time on TV shows and chatting on podcasts such as this wonderful one that I'm on right now. But generally speaking, I try to really do my best to go out to dinner like a regular person and less of like, I mean, I love a restaurant opening or our friends and family, but it's just so different from the experience that a typical diner would get. So whenever I can, I am dining like anyone else. I'm not calling up a restaurant and saying, hey, I'm the editor in chief, and I'm coming in and really just trying to, again, have the same experience everybody else has.

[Tim Peterson]

I want to go back to something wild. You had said earlier you are an Inbox zero person.

[Stephanie Wu]

Yes.

[Tim Peterson]

How many emails do you get a day? Before we get into how the hell do you get to inbox 0?

[Stephanie Wu]

Probably definitely in the hundreds a day.

[Tim Peterson]

So how the hell do you get to Inbox zero? And how often do you actually succeed in getting to Inbox zero?

[Stephanie Wu]

So for better or for worse, of the, let's say 200, I am just making that number up. For better or for Worse, of the 200 emails I'm getting a day, only 10 to 15. Do I actually have to do something about it? So there's a lot of emails that are just like calendar reminders and whatnot. There's a lot of emails where I'm being cc'd on for some reason, but I know that somebody else on my team who's more than capable is actually taking care of it. And then there's a lot of press emails that I kind of skim and then, okay, I'm archiving them so I can save them for later. And so once I get rid of all of that, I'm left with, like I said, 10 to 15 emails that I'm like, okay, this needs a response, or I need to really sit down and think about this, or I need to go check with someone else before I'm responding to this. So the inbox gets manageable as long as I'm on top of it every day. If I'm out for like a two Week vacation. It's like you don't want to go back in there.

[Tim Peterson]

Do you set aside time each day to like go through your inbox or you constantly check an email?

[Stephanie Wu]

If I've got time, like in between meetings, I'll go in and do some quick cleanup. But it is one of my end of days before I sign off activities.

[Kimiko McCoy]

Yeah, I was just going to ask, what does the end of day look like for you once you've reached inbox zero?

[Stephanie Wu]

Hopefully the inbox zero is one of the last things I'm doing as well as just kind of like okay is my. So I guess okay before I'm signing off. On any given day, I'm getting my inbox as close to zero as I can. I'm checking my to do list to move things onto the next day or rearrange it so that it's in the order I want it to be in the next day. I'm looking ahead of my calendar so that I know what meetings I've got, what I need to be prepared for. I'm clearing out my slack notifications. Then I'm like, all right, I'm done.

[Tim Peterson]

What time do you usually wrap up each day?

[Stephanie Wu]

What time do I usually wrap up? So I usually have a hard out around 5:30 ish to pick up the kids from wherever they are. But I will after dinner sign on, just get a little bit more of that stuff cleared out of my inbox. And so I would say more typically I'm probably done with my work stuff, probably closer to 8, 8:30, but there's a break in between where I'm very focused on, you know, getting the kids, feeding the kids, putting them to bed and all of that.

[Kimiko McCoy]

Do you have a wind down routine or has that been replaced with bath time and emails?

[Stephanie Wu]

Oh my gosh, no. I need a wind down routine. My husband and I always say like the best time of our day is when both kids are asleep and we can just sit next to each other with our own screens and like sometimes we're watching something together and then after that we're like, okay, now let's just sit in silence with our own devices and, and be together but kind of have our introvert moment. No, I'm usually just kind of like scrolling through Instagram toward the true end of the day or playing the crossword or something that's really completely unrelated to work. And then usually I will read a little bit before I go to sleep, whether that's an ebook or a physical book, just to really get out of the Algorithms, essentially.

[Kimiko McCoy]

No, I totally get it. What are you reading right now?

[Stephanie Wu]

This is very perfect for this podcast. I'm reading Michael Grimbaum's Empire of the Elite, the book about the history of Conde Nast. Oh, nice.

[Kimiko McCoy]

Very on brand. Love that.

[Stephanie Wu]

You know, it's a lot more historical than I thought. They really. Grimbaum, who's the media reporter at the New York Times, really goes all the way back to, like, Conde Nast before even the new houses owned it. And like a lot of the lore that as someone who's worked at the company myself, you know, quite a few times, like, I had no idea about a lot of this. And it's really focused, I think, interestingly, on not just kind of like, okay, Vogue is a big magazine and Vanity Fair is a big magazine and so on, but it's focused on how these magazines shaped American culture and, like, the power and the influence that comes with running these magazines, working at these magazines, and then keeping up the cultural cachet of these brands, which I just find fascinating.

[Tim Peterson]

Interesting. Kimiko. Maybe we'll need to start, like a book club series and have this on and see if Stephanie wants to come back on talk about it.

[Stephanie Wu]

You'll have no shortage of journalists wanting to discuss this month with you.

[Kimiko McCoy]

Stephanie, it has been such a treat having you on the podcast with us today. Thank you so much for joining us.

[Stephanie Wu]

Thank you for having me. This was so fun to nerd out.

[Tim Peterson]

About to do lists and slack reminder notifications, which I did not know was a thing, but will be the first thing I do once I get off this zoom. Thanks for listening to this episode of the Digiday Podcast. If you enjoyed it, please leave us a rating and a review on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you're listening. Get more from Digiday with our daily newsletter sent out each weekday morning. Visit digiday.comnewsletters to sign up.