Condé Nast was a money-losing magazine publisher in 2019, when Roger Lynch took over as CEO. Now it’s profitable.
How’d he do that?
Cuts and consolidation are part of the story. But Lynch says he’s focused on growing newish businesses, like the annual Met Gala his Vogue title oversees — a Super Bowl for people who like seeing celebrities in out-there outfits.
He’s also had to navigate complicated relationships with big digital platforms like Meta and Google, which used to drive lots of traffic to his sites but don’t anymore. And more recently, with AI companies like OpenAI, which could be competitors to his properties but for now are giving him cash. (Axel Springer, which owns Business Insider, also has an OpenAI deal.)
One thing he says he hasn’t had to worry about is pressure from the Trump administration — a distinction he likes making with the likes of Paramount and Disney, who get a lot of attention from Washington. He also says he’s not terribly worried about seeing his employees leave to set up their own Substacks, because running a solo media business isn’t for most people.
And as far as the question people in and outside Condé talk about all the time — who will replace fashion icon Anna Wintour, his chief content officer, and David Remnick, who runs The New Yorker, when those legendary editors retire? — Lynch says he has an answer. But he’s not telling.
Peter Kafka: In other interviews this year, you’ve repeatedly brought up the idea that you run a media company that doesn’t worry about upsetting Donald Trump or his administration —that you don’t have to worry about interference from the FCC or the DOJ. Who is the audience for that message?
Roger Lynch: The audience is our own employees and our future employees.
We have a talent brand that is very important to us, and I think if you’re a journalist today, there’s fewer and fewer places where you can practice your best work without being either impacted directly by the government or by the ownership group.
That is a source of competitive advantage. In the seven years I’ve been at the company, not once have our owners or our board come to me and said, “Hey, don’t publish this. Don’t publish that.” And not once have I done that to our editors, because we have the best editors in the world, and the way to keep the best editors in the world is to stay out of their way and support them.
I really believe that is the key to our success, and I’m fortunate that we’re owned by a family that believes in that, too. So I talk about it publicly because I want people to know — especially journalists who are maybe at places where they don’t feel that they have that freedom — that should there be an opportunity to work at Condé Nast, they’d be welcomed here, and they would not be interfered with.
So much media chatter these days is about independent creators like Emily Sundberg, who, in a different era, might be working for one of your titles, but instead has her own center of gravity and her own audience. Is there a way for you to work with someone who’s become a successful solo operator?
These new outlets for creatives or journalists are very good. This is an industry that’s been under pressure. There are fewer jobs in it than there were five years ago. So new outlets and new ways for journalists or creatives to be able to develop businesses that can sustain them is only good.
It does make us think differently about how we operate. We have to be more creative. We have to say, “OK, there may be somebody who’s got a Substack who is in an adjacent field that we can work with in some areas, and they’ll have their Substack, and it’s not necessarily competitive with what we do, and that’s OK.”
You’ll probably see us do more of that.
But what is the upside for someone who makes their own stuff, gets paid well for it, and gets profiled in The New York Times? What is Condé Nast giving them by saying, “You can now publish in our outlet, too?”
Take someone like Lachlan Cartwright, at Vanity Fair. He has Breaker, his own publication. It’s great, but it’s a limited audience that he’ll reach on his own. Working with us gives him access to a much broader audience than he would be able to develop just on his own.
It’s a pretty good model to have: You can have somebody as talented as he is and connected as he is building his own business — but at the same time, collaborating with us.
And what about keeping the next Lachlan Cartwright or Emily Sundberg, who may be working for one of your publications right now, from going off and doing their own thing? How do you convince them to stick around?
We haven’t had a lot of that happen.
The unfortunate case with Substack is there aren’t that many that really can make a good living doing it. And I think those that do find that it is hard work. You are constantly having to produce, you are constantly having to think about how you grow your business.
For some people, that’s exhilarating and can be very successful, and for some, it’s exhausting. I think there’s a limit as to how many people will be able to do that.
One day, Anna Wintour and David Remnick will no longer work for you. They’re not young people. They are very good at what they do, and your company leans on their authority in a really meaningful way. What is the plan when they leave?
We’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 [at The New Yorker].
Has either of them told you, “This is who I want to replace me”?
One of the things I also implemented when I joined was succession planning. It was very clear that this had never been done before at Condé Nast, and it caused people to be very uncomfortable to start talking about who could ever possibly replace them.
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. We also work to bring in talent, specifically with the idea of succession. We run a really disciplined process every single year: I report it to my board, we spend time going through. We have our editors …
You run through a process of “If David Remnick got hit by a bus today, here’s who would replace him?”
Look, the standard process for every company I’ve run is you have an 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.
So these lists exist. The files exist, they’re on your desk, as Pam Bondi would say.
They are not on my desk. They are locked away.
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.
And do Anna and David participate in this process?
They do.
OK. Let’s find the list, people.
Good luck with that one.
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