I hope you’ll forgive me on Semafor’s fourth anniversary for talking our own book, and for sharing here a lightly edited version of a note I sent Semafor’s staff earlier today:
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I → hope → staff
Semafor CEO Justin Smith and I have been asked a lot lately: When we launched Semafor four years ago, is this what we were expecting?
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we → ask → what
Did we think it would get this much traction, this fast?
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it → think → traction
What has surprised us?
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What → surprise → us
The truth is that we would have been pleased four years ago to know the current state of Semafor — a respected brand, a brilliant newsroom, a strong, profitable business.
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we → please → Semafor
It took a lot of optimism to launch a new media company in 2022.
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It → take → 2022
This was informed optimism, however: We share a deep belief in how much the talented people we hoped we could hire could accomplish through incredibly hard work.
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we → inform → work
And we were always thinking big.
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we → think → ?
What’s so exciting right now is that Semafor is starting to emerge clearly as the thing that we hoped it would become — shaped and driven by our growing team in ways we couldn’t have imagined.
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we → ’ → ways
We launched with the insight that a leadership audience — CEOs and political leaders alike — was, paradoxically, the most desperate for efficient, fair, and sophisticated news.
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audience → launch → news
Then, no CEO or head of state had heard of us; now, we have 1.2 million subscriptions to our briefings, and more than 16,000 people have attended our convenings around the world.
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people → hear → world
We launched with global ambitions — but footprints only in the US and Africa, a start in the world’s most developed media market and one in its fastest-growing.
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We → launch → growing
Now we have journalists in 11 countries, scoops and email briefings and events with deep audiences in Africa and the Gulf, and we’re sprinting toward a launch in Asia next year.
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we → have → Asia
Our thesis at launch was that “events” was a journalism business that could help power the business of journalism.
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that → help → journalism
Our biggest upside surprise is how fast that’s happened, and the extent to which we quickly outgrew the category of “media events” and moved into another one: signature convenings that set the global agenda and serve both as festivals of news and crucial spaces for conversation and connection.
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that → happen → conversation
Perhaps most important, we launched with a deep sense that audiences — buffeted by the hyper-polarizing, hyper-toxic environment in which social media had become the tail wagging the dog of journalism — wanted a new approach.
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media → launch → approach
And we’re so proud to have defined a style and brand of journalism that separates facts and opinion, has an eye on its own blind spots, and leaves space for reasonable disagreement, on stage, on the page, and in the other places our journalism appears.
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journalism → ’re → places
This moment feels to us the way it did in 2022 — the bullet train has just left the platform, and everyone here at Semafor is finding their feet again.
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everyone → feel → feet
We anticipate closing this year substantially bigger than the last by tangible and intangible metrics — revenue and profitability and reach, impact, and brand.
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We → close → metrics
And, as everyone here can feel, we’re pressing for a defining fifth year, in which we start to feel the promise of a true global journalism brand that convenes the most important conversations in the world, starting this November in Silicon Valley.
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that → feel → Valley
We launched this project in 2022 with some ideas about what could be done.
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what → launch → ideas
But as our colleagues have heard us both say: This is a business of people and execution.
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This → hear → people
And none of it matters much without you, our community.
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none → matter → you
Thank you for joining us here and please keep all of it — the ideas, tips, criticism, and feedback — coming.
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all → thank → it
The Aporia
