The Business of Business, a publication from Thinknum that launched in 2018, has lost most of its editorial staff due to financial issues.
The publication had three full time writers and two editors, but now only editor in chief Christie Smythe remains.
Gone are:
- Karen Ho, a senior writer hired just more than a month ago. She has been at Business Insider covering the business of sustainability. Ho previously was at Quartz as a global finance and economics reporter. Ho has reported for outlets including FiveThirtyEight, Time, GQ, Refinery29, The Outline, Interview, The Daily Beast, and more.
- Thomas Lee, a senior writer hired earlier this year. He had been a corporate energy reporter for Argus Media. Lee was the business columnist for the San Francisco Chronicle before leaving in late 2017. He then went into freelancing and ghostwriting. Before joining the Chronicle, Lee was the retail reporter at the Minneapolis Star Tribune, where he covered Target, Wal-Mart, and Best Buy.
- Zack Abrams, data editor. He previously ran Bwog and holds a degree in data science from Columbia University.
- Abigail Rubenstein, who formerly worked at Law360 and Fastinform/Academic Times. She was deputy editor and had been there since December 2021.
- Sam Klebanov, who joined in January and holds a degree from Northeastern University.
Noah Kirsch and Andrew Kirell report, “For the moment, staffers have been told to stop doing their jobs because their managers aren’t sure if they’ll be paid. Joel Lindenfeld, who as of last week was a creative content producer at The Business of Business, told The Daily Beast he hasn’t received a paycheck for more than a month.
“Adding fuel to speculation about the missed paychecks, The Business of Business abruptly placed co-founder Justin Zhen on leave last week, according to multiple people familiar with the matter.”
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