Business Insider CEO Blodget explains name change to Insider

Business Insider CEO Henry Blodget sent the following to the staff on Tuesday:

Hello, everyone!

I wanted to let you know that we’re more fully integrating “Business Insider” with our broader publication “Insider.” In the process, we’re shortening Business Insider’s name to Insider.

As you can see, we’ve already changed this at the top of the page.

Beyond what you see, what does this mean?

First, it doesn’t mean that we’re less committed to our business and tech journalism. On the contrary, we’re going to continue to expand our business and tech coverage over the next few years, in addition to investing in other areas.

It just means that we’ll refer to our company and publication as “Insider,” instead of “Business Insider” or “BI.” Our site will present Business Insider as the business section of Insider. The default email addresses of our journalists and team-members will change to “@insider.com,” though the “@businessinsider.com” and all other aliases will continue to work. We will continue to use the Business Insider name in some places — some social media feeds, international editions, and shows and emails, for example — but the broader publication will be called Insider.

Why are we doing this?

In short, because “Insider” is a shorter and simpler name. And because we believe we can better serve you and achieve our long-term vision with a single name rather than two. (In case you hadn’t noticed, we have also had a broader publication called “Insider” for the past several years.)

Many of you already call us “Insider.” It’s a great fit for our broader plans, which extend beyond business journalism. It’s simple. It’s easy to say and type. It’s broad and flexible. Most importantly, it fully encompasses the breadth, depth, and scale of what we want to become.

In the next few years, Insider will also become even less of a traditional “one size fits all” publication and more of a next-generation digital journalism service, with different feeds and stories for different people. For business and tech executives, the “Insider feed” will be heavy on business and tech stories. For entertainment fans, it will include a lot of entertainment stories. And so on.

If the name Insider had been available when we launched 14 years ago as a New York-focused tech blog, we would have started with Insider. But it wasn’t. So we launched as Silicon Alley Insider. Two years later, when our coverage and ambitions had broadened to include finance, markets, and other industries, we became Business Insider. Now, another decade later, we’re completing the transition to Insider.

Name changes can be awkward and confusing. They can also be sad. Friends told me for years that they missed “SAI” and “Alley Insider,” for example, and I, too, fondly remember those days. Some of you will likely continue to call us “Business Insider” or “BI” for a while. You are of course welcome to do that.

But!

We love the name Insider, and we know a lot of you love it, too. We know because we’ve been building “Insider” as a broader publication for years. We have a passionate global audience of hundreds of millions of people who know us only as Insider. Now, with all of our resources and creativity behind it, we will continue to build Insider into one of the most loved and influential journalism brands in the world.

In case you want to know more, I’ve included a Q&A below.

Thank you as ever for reading, watching, listening, and partnering with us. We would not be here without you.

Henry Blodget
CEO and Co-Founder