# Media companies lose their way when they chase scale

Markdown copy of https://realalpha.app/s/media-companies-lose-their-way-when-they-chase-scale/ on Real Alpha, the best minutes from long interviews with the people building AI. Cite and link the page, not this copy.

- Speaker: [Ben Lerer](https://realalpha.app/people/ben-lerer/) · Co-founder, Lerer Hippeau · Founded Group Nine Media and invests in early-stage companies through Lerer Hippeau.
- Host: [John Coogan](https://realalpha.app/people/john-coogan/) · Co-host, TBPN · Co-founded Soylent and Lucy; OpenAI bought his show TBPN in April 2026.
- Host: [Jordi Hays](https://realalpha.app/people/jordi-hays/) · Co-host, TBPN · Founded Branded Native; co-founded fintech Capital, which Rho bought.
- Show: TBPN
- Episode: [🦞 Moltbot / Clawdbot Creator Peter Steinberger, Palmer Luckey, and more](https://realalpha.app/v/c4kLgSWUfC8/), Jan 27, 2026
- Moment: 1:37:41 to 1:44:36 of the episode (7 min), playing on https://realalpha.app/s/media-companies-lose-their-way-when-they-chase-scale/; the episode from there: https://realalpha.app/v/c4kLgSWUfC8/?t=5861

## Quote

> “And the way to do it right is to do what you love and **stay relatively small** and build, like, a real community based thing like you guys are doing.”
> — [Ben Lerer](https://realalpha.app/people/ben-lerer/) at [1:42:08](https://realalpha.app/v/c4kLgSWUfC8/?t=6128) · TBPN

## Takeaways

1. Chasing year-over-year growth diluted the core product.
2. Media and commerce did not add up to more when combined.
3. Build around a real community instead of venture-scale expectations.

## About this segment

Ben Lerer recounts how raising capital pushed his media company to dilute its core and bolt on commerce, then explains why small, community-driven businesses can be a better fit. His experience shows how growth targets can undermine the product.

From “🦞 Moltbot / Clawdbot Creator Peter Steinberger, Palmer Luckey, and more”, Jan 27, 2026. [Watch the full episode](https://realalpha.app/v/c4kLgSWUfC8/)

## Transcript

From the transcript TBPN publishes with the episode.

[1:37:47](https://realalpha.app/v/c4kLgSWUfC8/?t=5867) Yes. So, look, when when I started, there was this idea that sort of like the Internet would destroy every traditional business in every space in the entire world. Yeah. Now there's a little bit of that, like, the AI will do that, but, like, you know, I'm I'm old. So this was, like, the the web will destroy all. And we looked at print magazines and newspapers, and the idea was all of them would go away entirely and would be replaced by digital in the entire size of that market, and all that ad revenue was gonna move online. And so, you know, we were one of the early movers in sort of going and trying to capture that market. And we looked at the big men's magazines or the local city guides or whatever it was and tried to go build that online. And at first, did it the way that you guys were doing it. It was like very much this labor of love, and we didn't have that much access to capital because it wasn't hot, hot, hot yet.

[1:38:41](https://realalpha.app/v/c4kLgSWUfC8/?t=5921) Sure. And so our first few years, we were profitable and stayed small, and it was like it was amazing. And we had a a a small community of people that were diehard and advertisers who really felt the needle move, and it was it was wonderful. And what happened was the space got attention from big VCs and people wanted to go and sort of, like, you know, get in on the gold rush and a bunch of people raised a bunch of money, and I was one of them. And, you know, the idea was you have to grow into or live into those valuations.

[1:39:14](https://realalpha.app/v/c4kLgSWUfC8/?t=5954) Like, you just like you just sort of alluded to. And, you know, we we went from one to to three to seven to 15. Like, it was growing, like, you know, maybe not like a software company today, but it was growing like a software company did back then. And we kept raising into it. And a few of the, like, mistakes and by the way, they were they were not fatal mistakes, but they were they were ultimately the thing that sort of they they they took a lot of the joy out of the business, I would say, was when we got obsessed with figuring out how do you keep how do you keep growing and how do you keep doubling year out year over year.

[1:39:53](https://realalpha.app/v/c4kLgSWUfC8/?t=5993) And we part of it was we need to grow the advertising base, and so we need to find more and more and more users that got away from our core and got away from sort of what we thought we were really great at doing. And so the product started to get a little watered down. And then on the other side, it was commerce. How do we start to sell stuff to these guys? How do we start to monetize directly? Today, subscriptions are something that I think is an actual viable model, again, in not not at scale. Yeah. Like, everyone points to the New York Times and says, oh, this can work. Like, the New York Times is n of one. That's I don't think you're gonna build venture scale businesses doing that, but but there is more willingness to pay for consumers than there was ten years ago.

[1:40:32](https://realalpha.app/v/c4kLgSWUfC8/?t=6032) And so our our thought was they're not going to pay for our content. They're going to pay for products. We bought a sort of, you know, ancillary commerce business and scaled that. And I went out to raise what was our series b thinking that we could go and get sort of one plus one equals three. They're gonna love our media business, which is, like, profitable and attracts this audience. They're gonna like our commerce business, which has a bigger ceiling and is growing fast. And in fact, I just got, like, full punch in the face, and it was, like, one plus one equals one and a half. And these businesses don't necessarily belong together. And media folks understood the media business and commerce folks understood the commerce business. And so I had to go through this sort of painful process of taking them apart from one another.

[1:41:19](https://realalpha.app/v/c4kLgSWUfC8/?t=6079) And then I got the sort of bug for the roll up. And, well, if I'm not gonna grow vertically, maybe I can grow horizontally. And what are other like minded brands? And can we sell them together? And can we build a tech platform together? And bought a bunch of companies and raised a bunch of money. And that worked. But the reality was we were always swimming against the current, which was social media. And, you know, media in general fell under the eye of big tech. Yeah.

[1:41:49](https://realalpha.app/v/c4kLgSWUfC8/?t=6109) And, you know, meta grew and and, obviously, you know, what Google represented for the ad ecosystem. And then as, you know, Amazon and Apple and Netflix grew, and it just was clear that, like, I wasn't even at the kids' table. I was in, like, the other room entirely. And now look at what's happened with, like, the top of the market. Look at, like, Discovery and the, like, amazing run they had and the fact that, like, they need to be consolidated.

[1:42:13](https://realalpha.app/v/c4kLgSWUfC8/?t=6133) It's just it's an impossible business. Yeah. And the way to do it right is to do what you love and stay relatively small and build, like, a real community based thing like you guys are doing. I have, like, so much respect for this show. And, like, my hope is that you, like, find other ways to leverage the influence that you have here, and don't put a, like, target on your back where you have to turn this show into a billion dollar company because Yep. Totally.

[1:42:40](https://realalpha.app/v/c4kLgSWUfC8/?t=6160) It just Yeah. John's John's John's position was always that value in media today is flowing to personalities, individuals, right? Even on the subscription side, when you're signing up for a subscription today, the subscriptions that I'm excited to sign up for are when I know the dollars are flowing to an individual who's gonna just obsess over. Like a Ben Thompson is a classic example. Totally. Right?

[1:43:04](https://realalpha.app/v/c4kLgSWUfC8/?t=6184) Or like an Emily Sundberg in New York. The dollars are going to an individual who has a certain point of view, they're and just gonna obsess over whatever topics, and then the value's gonna flow to the platforms, the Spotifys, the YouTubes, the Metas, like, you kind of The wanna be in either only other category that's emerged as durable to me is the like, you know, truth monopoly, which is like a legacy media brand. There's only maybe 10 of them in the world. The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, things like that, where they kind of one like 100%. Part of the value is like you It's windy.

[1:43:37](https://realalpha.app/v/c4kLgSWUfC8/?t=6217) It's like you own an asset that basically has a license to distribute what becomes the truth, right? And that takes fifty years to kind of create

[1:43:47](https://realalpha.app/v/c4kLgSWUfC8/?t=6227) And even across all those assets, you're talking about tens of billions of dollars, which is a drop in the bucket compared to the independent creator earnings. I think YouTube paid out like $50,000,000,000 to creators. And then YouTube itself also makes another $50,000,000,000 And so, like, all of that is way more money flowing around than, like, the few publications that stuck around and made the business model work and are doing quite well. But creating these new things in the middle, we call yeah. We wanna stay out of that messy middle.

[1:44:16](https://realalpha.app/v/c4kLgSWUfC8/?t=6256) Yeah. And I I, you know, I do think the look. Venture in general Mhmm. Like, is so many companies raise money that should not be raising money. Most companies raise money should not be raising money.