The Standard, Part 1 – The End and The Beginning

Note: Third in a series. First post, second post.

The Oak Grove cemetery in Tisbury, Massachusetts encompasses roughly ten acres of rolling woodlands and narrow dirt roads. Its 1,800 or so headstones date back two centuries, making Oak Grove a relative newcomer as New England graveyards go. I’ve been visiting this sacred, spectral spot on the island of Martha’s Vineyard for nearly five decades. Half my family is buried there. 

Late August, 2001. I am sitting on my grandfather’s gravestone in the cemetery’s relative cool. A breeze keeps the mosquitoes at bay. A cell phone is glued to my ear; the right side of my head sweats from the battery’s heat. Or perhaps it’s the nature of the call. I am presiding over the final meeting of the Board of Directors for Standard Media International, a company I founded in 1997. I didn’t know if I’d find cell service in the cemetery – mobile service was notoriously sketchy on the island. But if I had to endure the death of something precious to me while on vacation, I wanted to do it in the company of my grandfather’s ghost. If I couldn’t find a signal, so much the better. Everyone knew how I was going to vote. 

Few in the tech industry remember The Industry Standard, the “newsmagazine of the Internet Economy.” It ceased publication during the 2001 dot-com crash, six years before the iPhone and 21 years before ChatGPT. The Standard, as it was known, was one of the last print weeklies to launch in the United States. By some measures it was also the largest: We sold more than 7,500 pages of advertising in 2000, a record that will likely stand for eternity, given the ongoing decline of print. 

From my perch on top of Gaadaddy’s final resting place, I asked for a roll call. One by one, our directors voted to place my company into bankruptcy. I recorded my abstention – I was fuming from losing a cram down battle(1) with the company’s principal shareholder, but I knew a “no” vote might give them an excuse to sue for dereliction of fiduciary duty. Our corporate counsel mumbled some placating words about next steps, and I asked for a motion to adjourn. After four incandescent, troubled, and historic years, the most successful media company of the Internet boom had officially thrown in the towel. 

For a few brief and glorious years The Standard chronicled the World Wide Web’s ascension to cultural and economic prominence – from its spectacular boom in the late 1990s to its inevitable bust in the early aughts. The Standard’s finances mirrored the times we covered – we earned less than $5 million in our first year, but that figure ballooned to nearly $125 million in year three. 

By year four, it was over. 

***

Five years after joining Louis’ band, I stole out of Wired’s new offices on Third Street (we’d moved into a much larger warehouse on the other side of South Park) and drove to a McDonald’s near the entrance to 101 South. I told my colleagues that I had a doctor’s appointment that might last a few hours. 

Instead, I ducked into the McDonald’s bathroom and changed into a suit and tie. I pointed my car south toward Foster City, a soulless suburb consisting of sterile tract homes, lifeless manmade waterways, and cheaply built office parks. Fate had given me another audition – this one with a man who represented nearly everything Wired stood against. 

The month before I received yet another phone call that changed my life, this time from a headhunter. One of the most successful trade publishers in the world – the International Data Group, also known as IDG – is looking for a CEO to start a new publishing company focused on the Internet. Might I be interested? 

The call came at an opportune moment. Earlier that year I pitched Louis an idea for a new publication, one I called “The Economist meets Variety for the Internet.” The world needed a high-quality newsmagazine covering the raucous industry springing up around the World Wide Web, I argued. There’s far too much hype and hand waving inside the industry, and when the mainstream business press deigns to cover the story, it’s with a contradictory mix of equal parts disdain and credulity. A weekly driven by rigorous financial journalism and a knowing wink, backed by Wired’s well-earned credibility? It’d kill!

In the years since Wired’s launch, my role at the company had expanded. Not only did I run editorial, I also took charge of corporate development – meaning it was my job to find new business opportunities for the Wired brand. I felt utterly unqualified to do this, but I did love puzzling through ways to make a business work(2). In five years, we launched an online unit (“HotWired(3)”), a book imprint (“HardWired”), a television studio (“Wired TV”), and explored countless ideas, including deals with hotel chains, merchandisers, and international partners. I’d even moved my family to London to oversee, and ultimately shut down, our ill-fated attempt at creating a Wired edition in London(4). Besides HotWired, which was losing a lot of money but had strong traffic, none of our efforts ended up bearing much fruit. Louis wanted an empire, but at its core, Wired’s true brilliance centered on its original product: the magazine(5). 

Starting a weekly focused on a red hot market, I reasoned, would lean into our strengths and bolster our top and bottom lines. Louis thought my idea had merit, but in the end, it simply wasn’t “Wired enough.” Wired is sexy, Wired is avant garde, Wired is contrarian! A business magazine is…none of those things. 

Five years of startup madness at Wired had left me exhausted and somewhat disillusioned with the way the place was run. “I am weary of Wired,” I wrote in my journal two days before stealing away to Foster City. “It’s time for a change.” 

***

Patrick J. McGovern founded IDG in 1964 in Boston, Massachusetts. He was 25 years old. McGovern built his company into a trade publishing powerhouse with more than 100 distinct businesses across dozens of countries. Uncle Pat, as everyone called him(6), was a legend in technology circles. He ran IDG like a federation – each subsidiary had a leader who ran their business semi-autonomously. As long as the business hit or exceeded its top and bottom line goals, Pat pretty much left it alone – save during the holidays, when he personally delivered a bonus check to every employee across his vast empire. 

Pat’s businesses thrived under this model – in 1997, he was one of only 100 or so billionaires in the United States(7) – but his model had its limitations. Notoriously frugal, Pat refused to take outside investment – which meant ambitious new projects rarely got funded. And IDG focused exclusively on the computer business, an industry which, in the late 1990s, was on the brink of radical disruption by the World Wide Web. If a magazine had a “world” in its title – ComputerWorld, InfoWorld, MacWorld, PCWorld – Pat owned it. 

When Louis penned the Wired manifesto in late 1992 – the one I encouraged him to write – he took direct aim at Pat’s formula: 

“…the computer “press” is too busy churning out the latest PCInfoComputingCorporateWorld iteration of its ad sales formula cum parts catalog to discuss the meaning or context of social changes so profound their only parallel is probably the discovery of fire.”

Now here I was, about to meet the man whose life’s work had become an animating joke inside Wired’s offices. Was I selling out?

Pat sat upright at a table in a forgettable hotel breakfast bar, a napkin folded neatly in his lap. Stiff, proper, and yet somehow genial, Pat certainly didn’t look like a tycoon. The first thing I noticed was his terrible toupee – surely he had enough money to get a better one?! But that was Pat – a man who prided himself on always flying coach. I’d never met someone with such unimaginable wealth, a person who could singlehandedly determine whether or not to fund a business. I wasn’t just nervous, I was awestruck. So this is what a billionaire looks like?!

McGovern let me do most of the talking, and I was happy to oblige. He kicked it off, explaining that he thought the Internet represented an important new market in the computer business, one that deserved its own magazine. I took it from there, explaining my “Economist meets Variety” idea in detail. Pat listened quietly, giving away little. This wouldn’t just be a weekly, I continued, it would also be an online publication like HotWired, and it would have its own research and events business as well. It would feature a paid subscription model(8), just like BusinessWeek or Fortune. I was pitching hard, eager to earn Pat’s confidence. Pat asked me polite but pointed questions about audience, circulation strategy, and startup costs. I ducked and dodged – I knew my ideas colored outside Pat’s preferred lines.  We’d need time to develop a full business plan, I concluded lamely. But I think this idea is a winner! 

Pat thanked me, and said he’d be in touch shortly. We shook hands, and that was that. I had no idea how I’d come across until one week later – Friday, June 13th, 1997, as it happened(9). The headhunter called to tell me the job was mine. Was I going to take it? 

***

Leaving Wired was not easy. From my journal at the time: “Friday IDG offered me the job of starting a new magazine. $175K(10) salary, full authority, my role to make or fuck up. A CEO at 31, if I take it. I check my gut and…it is not leaping. The job in many respects is ideal – perfect. But I find myself wondering – do I want to be a businessman? Also nagging – can I actually pull this off? Also nagging – will IDG step up and back the model I want to create?(11)”

When I told Louis I was considering the offer, he asked what he could do to keep me at Wired. Well, I explained, I liked the idea of having full control – being in charge, running my own thing. As much as I appreciated the experience and excitement of Wired, the truth was it was Louis’ band. I wanted a chance to be the front man. Plus, the money was…far better, and I had a family to consider. 

Much to my surprise, Louis offered to relinquish his title of Editor and hand the magazine over to me. I couldn’t believe it – that was like Mick Jagger handing the mic to Charlie Watts! Stunned and flattered, I agreed. That afternoon I called Pat’s #2, Kelly Conlin, and declined Pat’s generous offer. 

Nervous and uncertain, I returned to Wired the next day and ran my first meeting as Editor of Louis’s magazine. It did not go well. Or, put another way, it went exactly the same as every other editorial meeting I’d ever run – I managed the agenda, but Louis, who had retained the title of “Editor in Chief,” still had the mic firmly grasped in his hand. 

I left that meeting and immediately called Conlin back.  I’d made a terrible mistake, I told him. Does the job offer still stand?

—–

This post (and its predecessors) represent something of a departure for me – the result of a friend asking me “how did you end up at Wired, anyway?” Let me know what you think.

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 Footnotes:

(1) A “cram down” occurs when a company takes a financing round that forces current investors to either join the round or lose a significant portion of their equity.

 (2) I think Louis put me in charge of corporate development because I was pretty hard-nosed about contracts – I insisted that all our employees have stock options, and I wrote in digital rights to every contract we signed with our freelancers.

(3) HotWired was the first site to run online advertising – the story of that first banner, and my role in it, is here.

(4) This proved to be the least fun job I’d ever have. First I got to hire one of the most talented teams I’ve ever worked with – including Oliver Morton, Azeem Azhar, Hari Kunzru, and James Flint. Then as Wired’s US arm ran into financial trouble, I had to fire them all. All this while enjoying the British weather. I think I saw the sun once, skittering nervously above London’s ceaseless freezing fog.

 (5) Wall Street seemed to know this. In 1996, our company tried to go public – twice. And both times, we had to pull the IPO.

 (6) Not to his face, of course.

 (7) 25 years later, that number has grown to more than 800, the majority of that wealth driven by the tech revolution just underway back in the 1990s.

(8) Little known fact: Most computer magazines employed what is known as a controlled model, where the magazine was mailed to qualified audience members. This meant the magazine was entirely dependent on advertising revenue – presenting, in my mind, a serious conflict of interest for its editorial staff, given the magazine’s job was to cover samesaid advertisers. I had run into this conflict first hand at another trade publication called MacWeek, which was owned by IDG’s main rival in computer publishing, Ziff Davis

(9) If only I were a superstitious person….the first draft of this post is being published on Friday, June 13th, 2025.

 (10) Nearly $350K in today’s dollars, much more than I was being paid at Wired

 (11) The answer: Yes, for a while, but in the end, a solid no.