Angwin: I made a founders mistake with Markup

Julia Angwin

Kara Swisher of Recode interviewed former Markup editor in chief Julia Angwin about her ouster from the tech news site earlier this week.

Here is an excerpt:

So, I guess the only question is, what the hell happened?
Yes. So, I did a kind of founders mistake, which was I recruited Sue to be the business partner. And we didn’t talk about what our roles would be until we were a couple of weeks away from closing the gift from Craig. And then, she gave me an ultimatum that she would quit if I didn’t make her CEO and my boss. And I was scared. I thought, “Oh my God, we’re going to lose this money. How do I go back to them and say we’re starting again with a different team?”
And so, I said, “Okay, well, I’ll agree to that.” Because honestly, I didn’t want to do the business-side stuff. Most of that job is actually stuff I don’t want to do. But I need an employment guarantee. I need a contract so that I can’t be fired at will. And she said, “Sure, let’s totally do that. But it’s going to take a couple of months. Let’s just close this stuff and we’ll get to it. We’ll get to it.” And we never got to it.

Read more here.

Chris Roush

Chris Roush was the dean of the School of Communications at Quinnipiac University in Hamden, Connecticut. He was previously Walter E. Hussman Sr. Distinguished Professor in business journalism at UNC-Chapel Hill. He is a former business journalist for Bloomberg News, Businessweek, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, The Tampa Tribune and the Sarasota Herald-Tribune. He is the author of the leading business reporting textbook "Show me the Money: Writing Business and Economics Stories for Mass Communication" and "Thinking Things Over," a biography of former Wall Street Journal editor Vermont Royster.