Cycling Tips just fired a bunch of quality staff.
 

https://mobile.twitter.com/CaleyFret...Y0ydwHVTV0O_kg

Nerd Alert is such a good podcast. When they have Caley, Rome, Zach, and James as a group it is just so funny and good to listen to. They are informed, jaded, and funny grumpyh8ers(or however they spelled it). Super lame.


h/t PL forum

Shocking, and not. They had exceptional content and a unique perspective that convinced me to join and support.

Not a surprise. Once Cycling Tips was 'acquired' by the Outside monster, a gutting was inevitable. The fates of Beta (mtb; the admittedly feeble relict of Bike) and Peloton (road) are illustrative.

Bean counters will count beans.

It's a business, not a charity. If it's not sustainable, management does no favors by continuing to employ too many people. That just maximizes the probability of everyone losing their jobs.

That's if it is indeed unsustainable. I have seen plenty of businesses be ruined by letting talented people go and hiring people willing to work for less, but who have no idea what they are doing.

What if ownership largely caused this to happen by venturing into NFTs and not properly managing the various brands it purchased? And if major content creators are let go, where does content, which is needed to generate revenue, come from?

Alden Capital's butchering of newspapers fits well into this. While some restructuring may have been needed at various papers, Aldens total stripping has been heavily documented as well past what is believed to have been needed.

I'm confused. Does Alden Capital own Cycling Tips?

If that's who owns Outside Inc, then the answer is yes. Outside bought both Velonews and CyclingTips. I'm going to cancel my auto-renew subscription to both. I used to look forward to Dave Rome's tech articles and they're gone now.



Having started, run and owned and sold an international tech business, I've found there are almost always two ways to solve a problem - you can either increases sales or you can cut cost/people. If you're an accountant, it's always all about cutting. If you are the management that is ultimately responsible for growing the business, you usually try and find another way. Seems to me that an online magazine needs an editor in chief, and now they don't have one. That doesn't seem bright and I'm guessing it doesn't end well.


I don't know if John Cumming is still involved with Outside Inc (was chairman at some point, I think) but he was the guy that forgot to pay the rent on Park City Ski Area's mountain and was evicted by the owner who then leased it to Vail. Cumming eventually had to sell all of their base holdings to Vail Resorts as the result of that boneheaded move. Overall, he's not management I'd have a lot of confidence in. His dad made something like $6B in Wall Street arbitrage and was the money and brains behind most of what they did.


All that said, I'm sure they're seeing dropping revenue both because cycling revenues are leveling out after the boom and because ad revenues are crashing as this recession picks up steam. Still, I'd have thought pay cuts might have worked better or other means instead of gutting some important management and writers. At any rate, if I'm representative, their top line is going to take a hit. I'm dropping my subscriptions which were due to renew in the next quarter. They got rid of a lot of the writers I like to read.

Alden does not own Outside or CT.
I said Alden fits well into this because what they have done to newspapers is a good example of the concept I was referring to. Apologies for not clearly saying that.

Alden has laid people off from papers that were making money. Alden let go more people than needed at other papers.
The lack of original content creation due to so few writers also makes the Alden issue similar to CT.
Point being, the ability to be sustainable is not always a primary(or secondary) concern- people are still let go even if the company is profitable.

I get it, as an economist you look for justification in business behavior with the easiest being 'a company needs to be profitable in the end' since that can easily explain away a lot of seemingly atrocious behavior.
Keep in mind though- Outside in part did this to themselves thru the money they have spent on the failed NFT project. Outside corporate admitted they wouldn't meet projections in part due to the NFT failure.
I will let you guess how many people who pushed for and signed off on the NFT project have been announced as laid off.

I've seen and heard this sort of thing before, so I'm not really surprised or offended. But I will say that you obviously don't understand the first thing about economics and about economists.

I have listed to multiple economists talk about how they are constantly the 1 in the room that constantly pushes back on any economic/business discussion where passion or 'fairness' has taken the lead.

I honestly thought you had posted something similar before.

I agree- a business has to make money and it can't be a charity, otherwise everyone suffers. It still sucks to see when people are impacted who are so widely read/listened to. And it doubly sucks when they were so successful they were in demand and purchased for their success, only to then be at the mercy of a parent company who misspends and mismanages advertising. The content creators are then sent packing while the decision makers stay.its just roguh to see the story play out yet again and to a group I enjoy.

"Multiple economists"? The NBER data indicates that there are over 15k economists just in the US. I'm not sure that your exposure to "multiple economists" has given you a realistic sense of the breadth of thought within the discipline. Do you realize that economists have been studying and explaining the myriad ways in which business owners and managers screw things up and operate inefficiently for, well...Since Adam Smith wrote The Wealth of Nations? We start teaching those concepts in intro classes.

Just to bring this back on-track, I'll ask you to tell me, specifically, what you object to in my post (#5). Tell me, specifically, what (in that post) suggests that I'm some sort of apologist for bad management?

As some wag once said, if you laid all the economists in the world end to end you wouldn't reach a conclusion.

If you actually read any two (or three, or four, or ten) undergraduate econ texts, you’ll see that they largely cover the same material and present the same theories…in other words, you’ll see that the wag’s statement is largely incorrect. However, there is a bit of truth in it: as in any healthy discipline, there is disagreement at paradigmatic boundaries. After all, physicists agree on a great deal, but they don’t yet know certain things – like what caused the big bang. We can find similar examples from virtually every discipline.

By the way, I prefer Harry Truman‘s quip about economists. You can Google it.

Caley Fretz is awesome and definitely is not done writing and talking about cycling. Same goes for Dave Rome, who has a passion for tools and tech and also a great storyteller. These guys are going to keep doing what they do regardless of who or how they get paid.

I saw this pop up and worth keeping an eye on:https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcas...s/id1655210692

Shall I blow the punch line?

Knock yourself out! It's a great line that actually does convey something about economics.

I'd still love an answer to this question, mstateglfr .

These people who make content they a lot of cyclists obviously enjoy will find new jobs and bring some of their audience with them.

Been busy, not ignoring this.

You showing there are over 15000 is of no consequence. I have heard multiple economists talk about how they bum out rooms at parties with comments that are viewed as cold. These anecdotes have been made as lighthearted/self-depricating observations. Whether I have heard that from 3 economists or 10000 economists is not important. Ive heard it and genuinely thought you had said something similar once. I dont need to hear from 80% of people in a given field to comment on what a few say.
Yes I am aware that business owners and managers who screw things up have been studied by economists.


Your comments in post #5 are accurate as general points and I acknowledged that yesterday by saying I agree what you posted is accurate.
My view is that those who screwed things up should be the ones let go and it really sucks to see talented and respected content creators sent packing for the mistakes of others. It seems to me that though your response in post 5 is correct, it misses the point(that I and others seem to want). Your post, as I read it, made it seem like you were justifying the firings. I just dont think who was fired is justifiable.
If you think they should have been fired instead of decision makers at Outside who, in part, led to projections not being met, let me know why. If you dont think they should have been fired, your comment in post 5 sure doesnt make that clear.

You weren't commenting on "what a few say." You used a personal pronoun ('you" in the sentence below) to lump me in with "economists."

Would you like it if I wrote, "I've met a few people from Des Moines who are *******s...So, I get it, as a person from Des Moines you're an *******...?" That's the same as your logic.

Sure, agreed, most definitely. But once an organization is in dire straits, it may (unfortunately) only be possible to save it by sacrificing some good people.

All you've really done is agree with my comment in post #5 and then use it as a springboard to insult me and a good chunk of my profession which does not at all resemble your grossly uninformed prejudice. So piss off.

Yep, that's the one!

I like that quote because Econ is about (among other things) assessing trade-offs -- every benefit has a cost, every policy solution has a downside. Our job is to present policymakers with potential solutions and the costs of each one -- monetary and otherwise. It's not really our job to reach overarching conclusions or tell those policymakers what to do. That's why the view expressed by jon c. a few posts back is pretty much irrelevant.

I referenced a self-depicting observation that I've heard multiple economists make.
You say you aren't offended, but the post above sure makes it seem otherwise.

I apologize for offending you. I have found the comments I referenced to be funny because I've seen that sort of scenario happen during a gathering- the person is correct, but it kills the discussion. Poor sense of humor on my part.
My wife is an attorney, I also think I have grown immune to hearing jokes about a profession and actually taking them to heart. But that doesn't mean I should assume everyone feels the same.
Again, genuinely sorry for insulting your profession. I recognize the value of economists and appreciate the analytical work, even though you think I don't understand economics.

I don't agree with your comments in post 5 though. Yes they are accurate, no I don't think they are how this scenario should play out. It seems like you commented without being aware of who at CT was let go, who owns CT, or the general background of how things have been fumbled by Outside. Maybe that's just me hoping you weren't aware. If you were aware, then we just disagree about who should be held accountable for poor decisions at the corporate level.