Here’s the conclusion of Lalawag’s exclusive interview with Owen Thomas of Valleywag.
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Dianne de Guzman: Some say that Valleywag has taken many hits from Denton and that the brand slowly being killed off. What’s your opinion on that?
Owen Thomas: If it is, it’s a strange sort of death where more people know about it than ever.
Dd: Has your readership increased since you’ve been folded into Gawker?
OT: Oh, definitely.
Dd: You’ve always cross-posted articles with Gawker, but you say readership has still increased?
OT: I’m not exactly sure about the numbers, but I do know that December was one of our best months yet. I had a million page views just writing by myself and being the only one writing for Valleywag. Right now the stats are a little wonky because of the transition but if you look at Sitemeter, I’d swear that that’s an accurate reflection. I’m getting better read for two or three posts a day than I was on seventeen. Which I think is a sort of lesson on productivity.
Dd: Sean’s a big fan of Valleywag and he said he liked it when it was you and Paul [Boutin].
OT: Yeah, Paul’s a great writer and fantastic talent. Probably the decision I’m saddest about. Nicholas [Carlson] is at Silicon Alley Insider. Melissa [Gira] got a ton of writing projects. She just did a sex education project on MySpace – which is where sex education needs to be today. I know Jackson [West] has been doing some freelance work. Jackson, I think, has this rocket ship trajectory.
Dd: So what’s the deal with Nick Douglas?
OT: I love Nick. From the start, Paul and I took him under our wings. We were both working for large corporations, but we loved Valleywag and wanted it to prosper and do well. I think Nick is fantastic. He needs to find the right platform for his talent because I think what he’s finding is this whole notion of a brand called, “You.” Being a free agent doesn’t really pay the rent, doesn’t make you famous.
Now, more than ever, we need editors. We need people who filter all the noise and turn it into signal. I think as a lone individual, you’re just noise. That’s why I was always happy to go to something like Valleywag as opposed to starting my own thing. The scandal of my job in Silicon Valley is that when you work for someone else, you’re not an entrepreneur. ‘When did you found Valleywag?’ That’s what they ask. Then I remind them that “founder” when you look it up in the dictionary means, “to sink underneath the waves.”
Dd: That’s a good point.
OT: I stole that one from Paul, actually.
Dd: In the tech scene everybody’s worried about the origins and how other companies start.
OT: The creation myth. ‘I went on a job interview and then went to my desk the next Monday.’ That’s not a very exciting creation method. But that’s what most creation myths are.
Twitter actually was this side project of someone sitting at their desk, doing a job. And suddenly, Jack Dorsey is transformed from a mere engineer to magical “founder.” He’s “chairman of the board” like Sinatra. Even though he no longer goes into the Twitter office, he’s still Chairman of the Board.
The only title that counts in Silicon Valley is “founder.” It’s sort of the most [prestigious] title you can get. It means, “the guy who we have to keep around for publicity purposes who no one really likes and no one wants to deal with, oh, but he owns a big chunk of the company and we have to listen to him.”
Dd: … but he may or may not do much.
OT: Yeah. The perfect example is Bram Cohen of BitTorrent. I’ve actually met Bram and he actually seems nice when you meet him in person, but in terms of his contribution to the company? Not very clear.
Dd: That happens.
OT: I mean, he created BitTorrent originally, which is great because lots of people use BitTorrent. But that particular talent doesn’t mean that – even technically – he has the chops to contribute to what the company needs right now. And it’s sad when you become irrelevant, but it happens much more quickly than anyone wants to admit.
Dd: That happens a lot, in my opinion, in terms of people starting their company and then trying to flitter off and let others run it.
OT: Like, what’s Digg without Kevin Rose? The reality is, doing a weekly Digg-branded podcast, he’s the cover boy when there’s a story about the company.
Dd: Like Pete Cashmore and Mashable.
OT: Yes, but what does he do?
Dd: What does Cashmore do?
OT: My nickname for Mashable is “Sellable.” I mean, that’s what he’s been trying to do.
Dd: I recently saw the Current.com documentary about Pete Cashmore.
OT: Oh, yeah, [Valleywag] wrote that up. Current sent a camera crew to follow him around. Here’s what Pete does: takes taxicabs to easily located startups based in San Francisco. Talk with their founders – it’s not clear about what – to do absolutely nothing. The best example of that is that he was filmed talking to the co-founder of Bebo, Michael Birch, a day or two before AOL bought them.
Now, did that meeting lead to a relationship that let Pete Cashmore break the story? No. Mashable has always rushed to post someone else’s story on it. They do a great job of re-blogging. Sometimes I wish they’d just post the link and not spend so much time re-writing.
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