20,000 Subscribers

Thank you for everything. Here's to the next milestone.

Hello folks, hope everybody's having a nice Friday so far. If I may, I'd like to interrupt your usual programming to let you know that over the past week we achieved an incredible milestone: 20,000 subscribers.

When I plucked up the courage to start this thing in an Austin wing joint, all the way back in 2018, there's simply no way I could have fathomed what Inside The Newsroom would become. But six years on, and many wings later, we're as strong as ever.

The journey to get here hasn't been linear. Everything that happened at The Wall Street Journal certainly set me back, and my future in journalism appeared gloomy at best. But whenever the uncertainty started to get the better of me, I referred back to a commencement speech Steve Jobs gave to Stanford University in 2005. He talked about how after he was thrown out of his own company, only to make a famous return that would propel Apple into one of the most successful companies there's ever been, that it's impossible to know what the future holds. Instead, we should reflect on everything we've done and that has happened to us, and connect the dots backwards in order to find our purpose and meaning.

When I look back at all of my own ups and downs, where I came from and the direction I'm now headed, it all makes sense. And only now, after three years of running ITN full-time, am truly comfortable with the uncomfortable.

I never publish anything with the intention to boost my ego or attract praise. In fact, I've gone the other way over the past year, and prefer to just shut up and listen. But I do hope that my own personal journey can relate in some way to yours, and if you just keep going in the direction you think is correct, each and every day, week, month and year, it will all work out in the end.

So with that, thank you, sincerely, from the very bottom of my heart. I literally couldn't have done any of this without your support and loyalty. Know that whatever happens I'll keep this little boat sailing for as long as I can, and here's to the next 1,000 subscribers.