What it was like to work at Trader Monthly

Rich Blake, who now writes for Reuters Hedge World, reminisces none too happily about what it was like to work at the now-defunct Trader Monthly magazine and its parent, Doubledown Media, under head Russell Lane.

Blake writes, “The only thing more perplexing than how/why the company ever tried to function without even a single full-time experienced financial writer on staff besides myself is why I ever went along with it, which I suppose owes to the company’s original startup mentality, though looking back, myself, Ty and Brian, who handled front of the book and lifestyle content, really were suckers disguised as gluttons for punishment masquerading as can-do soldiers.

“Also perplexing, to which anyone who has perused the DD bankruptcy filing can attest, is the mountain of the debts the company ran up, considering, again, there was no real editorial staff and what freelancers we did use were often were not paid for months or at all. God Only Knows what that was about but I Know There’s An Answer.

“The least impressive figure in the Doubledown saga is not Lane, but Jim Dunning, the diminutive private equity mogul who after becoming involved as owner (buying much of Magnus Greaves’ stake) would come by the office once every few weeks to blow smoke up all of our asses. Patronizing to Monty Python type levels of absurdity, Dunning was convinced that he was building a company that would one day be valued at $1 billion dollars or more, hence the ill-fated launch – with no staff – of Dealmaker, billed as Trader Monthly for bankers, and the ill-fated acquisition of Private Air, and the debacle that was the launch of Players Club with top-shelf collaborator Lenny Dykstra.”

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