Curious Worldview

Joe Aston | From Rear Window to Rampart

• Ryan Faulkner • Episode 223

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Who is Joe Aston?

For my Australian audience, you'll likely know him from his debut book The Chairman's Lounge, a forensic and damning account of Qantas. But for anyone international, put simply, Joe is among Australia's most consequential journalists.

He took over the Australian Financial Review's Rear Window column at just 28, and across a twelve-year tenure transformed it into the most anticipated daily column in Australian business and politics. 

His former editor called it journalism "like never before seen in Australia and arguably the world." 

Joe's reporting contributed to the downfall of the CPA Australia CEO and board, the resignation of Rio Tinto's chairman, Alan Joyce's early exit from Qantas, and a long list of uncomfortable reckoning in between.

In and amongst the many themes that this podcast covers, the most consistent among them has been journalism and good journalists. 

And I say that because I think I caught Joe at an interesting juncture in his life. In the last twelve months Joe’s gone independent. Leaving the security of the AFR to launch his own media company, Rampart. 

The work is the same. Breaking the stories from business and politics that his readers have come to expect, but the model is new, and it puts Joe in unfamiliar territory as an entrepreneur which I think is another example of how media business models are being re-cast, and indicative of the direction the best talent is heading towards. 

We recorded this about ten months into the Rampart journey. We cover his influences, his early years in PR, his personal battles, Rampart and throughout it all, what Joe judges to be, good journalism. 

Timestamps with Joe Aston

00:00 Introduction To Joe
02:06 Joe’s Influences
08:01 Alcoholism
14:54 From The Rear Window To Rampart
33:59 Journalistic Courage and Ethical Boundaries
44:04 Lessons from PR and Corporate Life
54:49 Goals for Rampart and Future Media Innovation
01:08:06 Serendipity


SPEAKER_01

My guest today is Joe Aston. For my Australian audience, you'll likely know him from his debut book, The Chairman's Lounge, which was a forensic and damning account of Qantas, particularly during the COVID years. But for anyone international, put simply, Joe is among Australia's most consequential journalists. He took over the Australian Financial Review's rear window column at just 28 years old, and across a 12-year tenure, transformed it into the most anticipated daily column in Australian business and politics. His former editor called it journalism like never before seen in Australia and arguably the world, which might sound hyperbolic, but Joe's reporting contributed to the downfall of the CPA Australia CEO and board, the resignation of Rio Tinto's chairman, Alan Joyce's early exit from Qantas, and a long list of uncomfortable reckoning in between, including a tussle with Cricket Australia, which in the podcast he speaks about having since amended. In and amongst the many themes that this podcast covers, the most consistent among them has been good journalism and good journalists. And the reason why I bring that up is because I think I caught Joe at an interesting juncture in his life. In the last 12 months, Joe's gone independent, leaving the security of the AFR, the Australian Financial Review, to launch Rampart, his own media company. The work is the same, breaking the stories from business and politics that his readers have come to expect, but the model is new, and it puts Joe in an unfamiliar territory as an entrepreneur, which I think is another example of how media business models are being recast and indicative of the direction that the best talent is heading towards. We recorded this about 10 months into Rampart's journey. We cover his influences, his early years in PR, his personal battles, Rampart, of course, and throughout it all, what Joe judges to be good journalism. I'm thrilled to welcome Joe Aston.

SPEAKER_00

Inevitably, the the influence of writers soaks into you. I always read a lot and I was always reading novels. And then when I um ended up at Qantas in corporate uh in the corporate communications department around 2007, I I sat in a as I've wrote in my book, I sat in this uh musty corner of their head headquarters in Mascot next to uh the chairman and the CEO speechwriter. Her name's Licinda Holdforth, and she's a writer, uh written books as well and and been a speechwriter for you know politicians all over the place. Um and she sort of we became close friends and she really got me into a lot of the great novels that I hadn't that I'd missed. You know, I hadn't unfortunately I I studied media at university, which is a gigantic waste of time. Um and I what I should have done is studied English literature, but um yeah, so so I really spent my twenties um just devouring all of the great novels, and I think that had a really big impact on my writing. Um, you know, and and and who like you know, Brett Easton Ellis and I love that new that US rat pack, you know, and uh Donna Tart and Jay McInerney and those um terrific writers um out of New York City, and um, but then also just like the great British um you know funny the funniest British writers from a hundred years ago, you know, right to Somerset Mom and and PJ Woodhouse. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, I was that's who I was grasping for, actually. Um and and look, there's many, many others, but um I think that, yeah, I think that had a really big impact. And then of course, you just I don't know that I think maybe my writing has a sort of an Australian-ness about it as well. Um and I don't know that that comes from writing because I really never read many Australian writers. Uh I think that's really just a sort of raw pop culture stuff that you bring to the table from watching terrible television. Well, what's the Australian-ness?

SPEAKER_01

Can you identify it?

SPEAKER_00

Well, I think it's just you know, some of the uh some of the blue sort of some of the most colourful language and and the the expressions that are um aimed at at the subjects of scorn uh tend to be quite Australian. I don't think you would find well sorry, I know you can't go to the to the New York newspapers or the London newspapers and find columns like mine that say the sort of things that I do about their leaders in business or in politics. It's just not the done thing. Um that's sort of the great thing about Australia. We don't we've always sort of, it's that egalitarianism you can say uh to and about the the the CEO of the biggest bank or the biggest mining company or the prime minister um exactly what you would say to uh about a mate who is being a knob in the pub. Whereas in London or New York it's all like you know, you are a master of you're a god of Wall Street or you're a master of of society and there's more respect that needs to be shown. Maybe that's more New York than London. I I mean the the the UK press certainly has reserves plenty of scorn, but but um yeah, I mean there are always exceptions, but that's sort of my general observation.

SPEAKER_01

Which of them swamped you the most of all those writers you were just talking about? Because you have a particular style and there is this Australianness to it, but I just wonder if the name sticks out.

SPEAKER_00

Um look, no, I I'd I'd I'd be lying if I said there was, you know. William Boyd became my favourite author, I think probably my favourite book ever, is Any Human Heart, which is written by William Boyd, um, a novel about a character called Logan Mount Stewart, who lived in every decade of the 20th century and had a really enormous and tragic life. Um but yeah, one of the great novels. And in fact, I interviewed William Boyd for the AFR one time, and they say never meet your heroes, but I have to say I was I was uh that's one of those moments that I I look back upon with great fondness. But yeah, look, I I would be lying to you if I said there was this author that you know there was this leading influence. It really is a mishmash of of whoever I happen to be reading.

SPEAKER_01

Have you ever tried your hand at a novel? Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah. In 2021, I took uh leave from the AFR. Uh I was back in Australia for a defamation uh court case, and the trial finished in December, and then I um anyway, I'm telling I'm this story could be shorter than I'm telling it.

SPEAKER_01

No, but lean into that, because that was the venture capitalists, right?

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, but I went back to I was living in LA. I came back to Sydney to to um attend the trial in person, did uh did hotel quarantine, spent the summer here in Australia and there was no COVID and it was perfect, and I was like, okay, I'm going back to LA, I'm packing up and I'm coming home for good. And um while I was there, uh I said, but I'm gonna I needed to do something different, and I I took sort of what must have been eight or nine or ten weeks off work, and I worked full time. I locked myself in my study, and I tried to start a novel, and uh it was a disaster. Yeah, I just did it, it's just so completely different from writing non-fiction or being or writing journalism, completely different. You've got to make it up. Um it it's a it's a big jump from making up what you think about real things to literally making up everything. Um, and so I just the other thing is when you write journalism, you get you're you're in a constant feedback uh system. So uh when I write something within within like an hour, two hours, I'm getting people telling me how funny I am or or appalling I am, or you know, they they love it or they hate it and you know about it straight away. If you lock yourself in a room and write a book, no one tells you anything. So the self-doubt that you, you know, because you're so used to using that feedback as a crutch in terms of your confidence, the self-doubt just eats you alive. So I I I don't know that I'm I've been writing journalism for so long, I don't know that I'm really temperamentally uh you know um wired to to write novels.

SPEAKER_01

Why does it matter so much that you are getting that immediate feedback?

SPEAKER_00

Well, it shouldn't, should it? But you know, why does why does the you know why does the alcoholic need his next drink? Or why does the junkie need his next fix? I mean, it's just something that you become reliant on. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

And you're totally sober now? I am, yeah. Is that would you say you were an alcoholic?

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, I would. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

So thinking about booze all the time and felt.

SPEAKER_00

Well, I don't think about it all the time anymore, but yeah, I certainly did before.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah. You you gave this anecdote on the Batuda interview that you did. Oh yeah. Um, which was ten years ago you got a call from the AFR CFO saying, Look, you're doing a great job, but it might be best if you if you work from home in the afternoon. And then you went on to say that you were coming in drunk every other day and causing a scene and then qualified. It wasn't really causing a scene, but you know what I mean.

SPEAKER_00

Well, um well, what I mean, in many ways, uh drinking is what attracted me to journalism.

unknown

Okay.

SPEAKER_00

Because in my 20s, I had to put on a suit, go to the office, um, and function all day like a normal person before I could go home and get drunk. Um, and then I've I I was I realized that if I was a journalist, I could go to work, go out for lunch, get drunk with other people, get them drunk, and get them to tell me things that they're not supposed to tell me. Yeah, stumble back to the office, write a story, and then go and then keep drinking. And then, of course, inevitably you just kept drinking while you were writing, and it got worse and worse and worse. And um it's an experience that is not uncommon in my profession. But uh, yeah, look, it's funny how much standards have changed even in the last 10 years or 12 years, or you know. I I started at Fairfax in 2011 at the Financial Review, and um sort of people found it vaguely amusing when someone or multiple people every day came back from lunch pissed. And it's not really it's just not looked at the same way today, it's sort of quite frowned upon. Um but yeah, like um, yeah, if you come back to the office disinhibited and you're all in a shared space and your job is to cook be on the phone to people, um, clarifying information or checking information or whatever, it's pretty it can become apparent to people that they've got someone here di deeply impaired in their midst. Um but uh it's all a bit hazy to be honest. Uh it's not only um you know because of the drinking, but also it's actually a long time ago now.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, it was twenty nineteen.

SPEAKER_00

Uh well I well the conversation with the CEO of Fairfax, which was best if you don't come into the office, that was like 2013. Um so that's a long time since I've been working in the afternoon from uh in a newsroom, and then yeah, I got sober in 2019.

SPEAKER_01

And why was it not just tapering off the lifestyle that revolved around booze to a hard can't ever drink booze? Um and if that's too personal or questionable, let me know.

SPEAKER_00

That's fine. Well, look, um everyone's different, and I can't speak for other people, but I can only tell you what works for me. And I am wired in a way that means I don't want one drink, and I don't want two drinks, I want all the drinks. So there's no situation ever where you know, people because people have said this, why don't you just moderate? You know, like just well, I can't. I tried that, I tried that. Like, do you think do you think I didn't try that? Um I I've you know, when I'm drinking my first, I'm thinking about my second. When I'm drinking my fifteenth, I'm thinking about my sixteenth. And when I'm not drinking, I'm thinking about drinking. You know, so drinking's not for me, and um, I had to accept that. And it's really, really hard to accept. It's it's really hard. It's probably it's the hardest thing I've ever done.

SPEAKER_01

I'm really sorry about that. It's it's do you think it's just it's genetic, it's just a part of your makeup? Is this luck of the draw that you happen to get that?

SPEAKER_00

I don't know if it's nature or nurture, it's hard to say. Um you know, I um but I do know that when I was little, um I would when I got pocket money, you know, I'm talking when I was six or seven years old. The first thing I would do on a Friday when I got my two dollar coin for my pocket money is I would walk straight to the shop, I would buy two dollars worth of candy, and I would eat all of it in half an hour until I was sick. Now, that to me tells you, and and and then I'd be depressed that I had no money for the rest of the week. That to me says that I had this in me from the very beginning. Now, is that nature or nurture? It would sort of suggest that it's nature, but I you know I don't have any science to, you know, I've never looked into that deeply. It's still an open question, I think. Yeah, and and like when you say I'm sorry about that, I'm not sorry. I mean, if all the things that I could be afflicted with in life, it's probably a good one to at least if I've got it under control. I mean, I'd rather have that than many other horrible diseases that that people have. So, you know, in many ways I feel lucky.

SPEAKER_01

Do you think that same compulsiveness, binging the candy, thinking about the 15th drink, does that apply to the energy you put into the journalism? And therefore there's like a guilt as to how often it's being published and how good it is?

SPEAKER_00

Addictive behaviour I definitely think I definitely think applies around uh well again, I can't speak for other people, I can only speak from my own experience, but I definitely um uh feel you know uncomfortable in my own skin. Uh sorry, when I feel uncomfortable in my own skin, I would reach for a drink, and I I and now that I don't drink, I I I de there are definitely occasions where I reach for other things. Um sugar is definitely one of those, but you know, there's all sorts of things, and shopping is another one. Um yeah, there's there's lots of things. Um and and you know, I'm still I've I've still got um yeah, I'm still wired wrong and and um and and my own worst enemy, and that's something that's you know just I just have to accept and try and try and be as the best version of myself that I can be. But um that might have sounded a bit proxy, but uh sapiness is but but and workaholism, you know, I think I think it's right. I I I think it it it's I haven't really analyzed it, but I work really hard, I really um hold myself to high standards, um and you are sort of almost reaching for a hit, as we were sort of talking about before. There's it feels good for people to tell you that they love your work. You know, that's you know, and um alcoholism is in my experience an ego-centered disease, and and so there are similarities in that you know, I do what I I one of the things that drives me in what I do is the that it feeds my ego. Um I just have to be really careful um about that, you know, about am I doing this for ego reasons or am I doing this for the right reasons? And sometimes, sometimes the same reason, sometimes it's the same thing, but that that that overlaps. But yeah, all of that's a challenge. And and because I write about people's flaws and mistakes and psychological blind spots, I feel really comfortable thinking about my own because there that that's actually in many ways how I've been able to pick up on and really understand and walk in the shoes of flawed people, uh, brilliant, but flawed people. Um, and I'm not calling myself brilliant there, but I'm just giving these people some credit where it's due. Um, it is the fact that like I I I see some of the mistakes in my own behaviours, you know, and that's so that's all been like psychology's become a big part of what are of my writing in in the last few years, definitely. So yeah, I sort of do sort of I do wallow in that in that subject matter because it's a it's just you learn so much.

SPEAKER_01

You mentioned several times just how good it feels for people to say you do a good job, and in researching for you, I'm just again and again hit over the head with this really high status journalist who people saying no one else in the world can have pulled off a column like he did, and he took the rear window from this to that, and he's leaving on top, and you praise after praise after praise. Um, and are you sort of self-conscious of that? Do you do you feel vulnerable around the status that you've been given by your readers?

SPEAKER_00

Um well, I don't think about this it, I don't sort of think about it status. I don't, yeah, like that's that's maybe systemizing it more than I would. To me, um, I turned up, I I I wrote um what I think were some really great columns over a really long period of time. And so then you do go on a journey with your audience, and that's special. Uh but then I've moved on, and and a part of it was uh there was this sort of there was a there was someone between me and the audience, and that was the masthead, and what I now try and do is have a direct relationship with my audience, and that's still at an early stage, but what it's taught me more of is you get more of that direct sense of people's satisfaction or dissatisfaction, or you know, you do have people who really, you know, really love you or really love your work, you know, and that's sort of weird and good, and and yeah, I I I guess it's all part of it, but but um look, there are some really good journalists out there, um, better than me. Uh no doubt about that. And it's a really privileged profession to be in. Um thank God that there's still uh there's still a business model for it, mostly. Uh because I look around and I and and you know, I have a lot of the hero worship for people uh in my profession that uh that you know that you're talking about. Um getting to get to know people really well, like like get getting to know the Kate McClymonts of the world really know it uh really well and and Nick McKenzie and Adele Ferguson and all of these people and Hedley Thomas and being friends with some of these people. You sort of again you should never meet your heroes. Not always true. Um but yeah, people do, you know, I think people do quite often hold journalists up on a pedestal, not always uh correctly, you know, because we're human and we're we we all of us have made stupid mistakes or you know exercised our judgments uh poorly or or whatever, but like people do respect what we do in society.

SPEAKER_01

Totally, totally. There's something so appealing about that person who knows the secret information, and it's only through them that you can get it. And so I think people are always going to be projecting onto the journalists that they admire, you know, whether they're good or bad.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah. And the thing that's changed in the last, I don't know, five years maybe, I don't know exactly, but is you know, there was once upon a time where it was really just your name on the page and the words you wrote, at least in a or you're on the television screen in a very sort of you know pre-packaged way. Um you know, now you're doing podcasts like this, people um are understanding the your thought processes uh as the words fall from your lips. Um they're they're they're you're writing in a more in a more casual way in a news, you know, in a newsletter product. Um so that there's all these and and more more journalists are doing events as well. So so the audience is getting a more uncurated version of the journalists that they used to get. And I don't know what the which one is the cause or which one is the the effect, but what has really increased in the last few years is the audience's hunger to have a direct relationship with the journalist as opposed to the masthead.

SPEAKER_01

Does that increase the pressure on you? The fact that there's more velocity of content, but also more improvised versions of the content, and therefore you need to feel more on and more sharp. And the Joe Asin they're seeing the page, they want to hear him speak out loud at real time at an event as well.

SPEAKER_00

Um well, they'll be disappointed, won't they? Because uh I can tell you it takes me a long time to get a paragraph right, you know, to get a to get a gag to come off. It's uh it's not like I just yeah, AA Gill was one of the greatest ever. And he never wrote, he just transcribed all of his columns on the phone because he was um he was um dyslexic. Dyslexic, exactly. That's what this means. Yeah. So I'm not I'm not like that at all, I can tell you. I I labour over every paragraph and I go back and back and back and just change and edit. And so, yeah, I I'm not the kind of talent that just gets up and is a natural on stage. But I do I feel pressure about that? Not really, because I mean you just have to you just sort of have to get up and do what you you know, be be who you are. Um it's is it pressure? I don't I I sort of think of it as more of an opportunity um to improve, to get feedback, to I mean to get to to get access to the people who are interested in what you have to say directly. Um I didn't have that when twelve, fifteen years ago when I s started at the AFR. I didn't uh no one was gonna come and see me talk, that's for sure.

SPEAKER_01

I think you're selling yourself short. I've listened to a lot of your podcasts and Uh, think you come across similarly the same type of style or tonality or wryness. Um, but that's just an observation. I mean, obviously you take it or leave it. I'll take it. You mentioned that going from the AFR to Rampart, it's removing the masthead in between. Yeah. What have you noticed? It it it it Rampart is a masthead, but I hear what you're saying. Yeah. Well, yeah, the institutional masthead, now it's the independent. People know Rampart is Joe Aston, whereas AFR was a lot of things. Correct. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00

Well, yeah, I mean, um it's uh I get a lot of correspondence, you know, like you you email out every store. Rampart um has a very um outward the delivery mechanism is is you know we deliver to you as opposed to you come to us. At the AFR, email the e daily emails are definitely uh have become a thing over the last years, but but really people go to the app or they go to the website and they browse and they choose what they want to read. When a when I when Rampart publishes an article, it is emailed to your inbox. So it's coming to you. And inevitably people reply to that email, you know? And so I talk, you know, I get feedback directly all the time from people that I wouldn't have always got before. So yeah, you you you have and that's quite conversational, as you can imagine. Like if you email me and I reply to you or whatever, it's might be different to like filling out a customer feedback form, you'd have a different, totally different tone and and level of directness, and I don't know.

SPEAKER_01

Is this your first entrepreneurial venture? Yes. And you mentioned before very valuable audience, you must have from advertising rates as high as it gets in the industry. Um, but I want to ask you as the media business models are being recast, you know, podcasting is having a whole bunch of disruption within podcasting for how you can actually generate revenue off your show. Sure. Um, the in-person events you mentioned before. But I wonder if there's anything creative you and your colleagues and you and your mates have thought about that could be a business model for rampant beyond advertising and subscription.

SPEAKER_00

Well, advertising is not our business, like advertising is the bonus. Exactly. Because that's the that's that's the um that's a more sustainable model. I mean, it everything from Netflix to the New York Times is that's the kind of to SAS, like everyone wants subscription revenue because it's recurrent. Um obviously subject to churn, which is my my sort of biggest problem. Well, it's not my biggest problem yet, but it's sort of my big biggest prospective problem. Um coming up in the anniversary. Um but so so to be very clear, we're subscription first, and then that builds the audience of high value, and then um to the extent that we're able to uh you know offer that access to that audience to to premium advertisers, that's that's great, that's a bonus. We don't really we we will at some point think about doing events, but not not in a in a in a really dominant way. Like the AFR has a conference every other week, and and I've been quite public about the fact that I think that that's too I can understand why they do it, you know, they make ten million dollars a year or something out of their conferences, but I I I I think it distracts the journalists too much from chasing the stories that are out there that are that that really if all things were equal, their their readers would want to read about, as opposed to the story of who's saying whatever on the stage because they paid to be there. So, like obviously, we're a business, we'd we'll probably do a conference at some point or a or a lunch or a breakfast with a ticketed event. But yeah, that's that's not really uh my priority. I mean, the scalable thing is the content, is the journalism. That's the thing that everyone knows has a long pedigree of and they know is of high value and will pay for.

SPEAKER_01

And how did you settle on the price for the subscription?

SPEAKER_00

I made it up. Okay, yeah. I I I thought, well, the AFR, I was originally gonna do a little bit cheaper than that. Like in the so the the annual subscription for for uh annual subscription for rampart$680. That's including GST, the corporate, the group subscriptions from companies, they don't pay the GST obviously, but um the um I was gonna I was originally gonna do more like$500 and something, but I went to see someone who I really respect in New York who's given me a lot of advice that has saved me from making some big mistakes. And um he said, Well, whatever you think you can charge, just charge a little bit more because you can always have a sale. What you can't do, what you can't do is say, Ah, I uh this is too cheap. Uh uh people are just would have been willing to pay more than this. I'm gonna increase my my price by 20 or 30 percent. You just can't do that in one hit. So I did that, and it was a get it was sort of a guess, and it's the bet probably the best or one of the really important decisions that I got right. Because yes, there's people sitting on the sidelines who are like, I'm not paying that, but no, if it was 580 or 480 instead of 680, would those people pay? Probably not, you know. And say it was half the price, say it was 340. Would I have twice the number of subscribers? I'm not convinced that I would. So, I mean, the problem is that there's there's a a lot, it's such an inexact science, but there's a lot of people who would have paid a thousand or two thousand dollars. Like they genuinely are. Um, but then you have a really small, you're getting smaller and smaller, but that's getting more into like the equities research model. There are chief economists uh on Substack from former investment banks who charge$50,000 a year, and they then they they only need 30 clients, uh 30 subscribers, and and that that works great for them, right? Um yeah, I I thought the AFR was putting up its prices into the 700s. I was like, well, you know, I believe I was the best, consistently the best thing uh that you could get in an AFR subscription when I was doing really, you know, in my on my best months. Um, so I'm just gonna charge a little bit less than that. And and that's turned out to be a good decision.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, unbelievable. I'm really happy to to hear that thought process behind as well, because it's so true. We're at 350. Because I said to you before we started, I haven't paid because it's so expensive. But the truth is, we're at 350, would I have immediately paid? It probably I would have had the same thought, I reckon. It's like if it's above$20, you're probably thinking um it's now an actual expense that I need to think about.

SPEAKER_00

And there's people who will pay, and yeah, there's just people who will never pay. And so you you can't set your price for them.

SPEAKER_01

But uh something about that was uh you dropped the James Packer interview, and most of it was behind a paywall. Is it that under that same subscription you would get access to that? Yeah, because in the discussion of whether there's creativity around different business models, you know, can there be the proper sell side analysis that goes out for 10,000 years on rampant and you've got one guy who's really good at that, and that's a salary employee, plus maybe the podcast has its own different subscription. Does it just start getting too complicated? It does get too complicated, yeah. It really does.

SPEAKER_00

I think simplicity, I don't have again, I'm not a I'm not a uh I'm not a McKinsey guy, I'm not, I'm not a you know, I'm not someone out of um Sequoia, you know, I'm not I'm not a genius at this stuff. I'm totally an amateur, and I'm just going by what my experience is so far in a with a very short record. But I do think you can overestimate people's appetite for complexity. You have to keep things really simple. I mean, I'm just amazed at how many people struggle with my beloved audience struggles with the instructions to log in or to get the special RSS feed. Yeah, or any of that, yeah, exactly. You just sort of go, imagine if I was offering five different price points for different types of product. So we thought about that, but it's just too hard. The other thing is you don't want to unbundle. Like for the same reason that Netflix doesn't let you just what didn't let you watch House of Cards for one dollar a month. You know, like people say, Oh, can't I just buy one article? Well, I mean, sure, if I was a charity, if I was a not-for-profit, I'd let you buy one article. But like the whole point is you've got to bring you the economics only works by bringing people into the whole show via one article. Um so that that's the I that's why, for instance, we we thought about but very quickly said no, we're not letting people just say we're not letting people subscribe to Ramp Up for the podcast only for a cheaper price. Because that's what what's to say a whole bunch of people wouldn't switch to that from what they were on now.

SPEAKER_01

Totally. Um yeah, that's a really good point as well. So I guess the podcast is sprinkles on top, essentially.

SPEAKER_00

It is, but it's uh well, it it is sprinkles on top, but it's brought in hundreds of new subscribers, paid subscribers. But the other thing is fantastic for the people who are already subscribers, um, I hope it drives retention because it's it's we're growing into the price, you know. At this at the at the start, all you were getting were my articles. Now you're getting Ivor Reese once a week as well. He was the probably arguably the greatest or one arguably definitely one of the two or three greatest Chonticle columnists ever. He he you get one column a week from him, and now you even get a uh you know an hour podcast, an hour interview with James Packer, and on Sunday an hour interview with Gil McLaughlin. And and and you you might not have signed up for just for the James Packer thing, or just for but those are new and now added value that you're getting for the price that you paid. So we're trying to show people that we're that that we're giving them more, and hopefully that that that makes them want to stay.

SPEAKER_01

The attitude in the written pieces is confrontational a little bit. Do you feel like when you go into the podcast, it has to be a different type of content completely?

SPEAKER_00

Definitely. But the and and in in many ways that's the point of the podcast to show that I'm not one-dimensional, you know, that I people have this confirmation bias because all they ever do is see articles by me tearing someone's throat out because they've, you know, because they have, by my uh estimation, um fallen short of expected standards. What they don't see is all the uh articles that I don't write about, you know, the CEOs who I think are doing amazing jobs, or or the investors who've who've played a blinder, because I'm not writing that article because there are there are journalists all over town who only write who only write how great people are. Um, and so why would I be another one of those? And people sometimes say, oh, you should be more positive, and you know, so that you don't seem too negative. And I I hear that, but I've I do sort of have always adhered to the George Orwell um line that you know journalism is writing something that someone doesn't want published, and everything else is public relations. So that's always been my uh attitude to columns. But with with a podcast, what it does is allow people to see uh just a little bit more context, you know, in an hour of talking to someone, you can, you know, these are people with really incredible careers, you can go through their mistakes and you can press them on their mistakes, as I have um uh with with these subjects, and I think people will be, you know, will see that very soon. Um, but you can also talk about what they did right and what they uh what they're the best at and their big successes. And all of the people I've interviewed in the pock in in the podcast series so far have been people who have made big mistakes, and we've talked about them. Um, you know, even James Packer saying he counts himself as a five out of ten in business. Um with people who who've done amazing things. Um, you know, Brad Banducci coming up, the former CEO of Woolworths, turned around Woolworths when it was at its, yeah, it was on its knees when he became CEO and he did an amazing job. And then at the end, he sort of fucked it up, frankly, you know. Um and he accepts that. And it's really um you're able to explore these ups and downs and recognise them and celebrate them and and contemplate them without you just can't capture that in a thousand words.

SPEAKER_01

To tag on to the George Orwell quote that you brought on, you were once you once said less than 10% of all journalism produced every day in Australia is actually courageous or speaking to expose the truth. Do you still stand by that?

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, I mean that's not um I I haven't that's not based on quantitative research.

SPEAKER_01

For sure, but like it's a finger in the air sort of guesstimate. Yeah. But principally you think a lot of it is just PR work for a while. Oh, yeah, definitely.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

Uh by volume, yeah. George Orle also once said, I think um he never wanted to go to lunch with someone that he would later write about because he was afraid they might charm him or or emotionally feel connected. Do you have the same feeling?

SPEAKER_00

Or are you still happy to meet with someone, talk to them, and then you know, expose whatever I think I'm ethically obliged to engage with people that I'm going to criticize. I do. Um and and one of the great difficulties in journalism is that you develop relationships with people because you're a human being, you know, and that's complicated. And we all live amongst each other. We're neighbours, you know, we have kids that that play together, or or we um, you know, uh our our our parents know each other. Like that it's it's it's not actually a big place, Australia. So that's the the social implications of doing what what we do in journalism are really easy to dissuade you from doing what you do well. And I know so many good journalists who just they just give up, they just go, I'm I can't be mean to people anymore. I'm I'm gonna write for my contacts, I'm not gonna write for my readers. I've seen it, you know, it's I've seen friends and and lots of people do it. And that's to me at that at that point is the point I want to get out of journalism, not hang around and turn into a publicist pretending to be a journalist. Um so uh which uh to be honest, I now can't remember what the original point was, but um oh yeah, like meeting people, but I can prompt it further. Uh no, no, no, I I I I I sorry, I do know exactly what I was gonna say. Like unless you're a sociopath, and there are plenty of them, um we're not wired uh to get up every day and fight with each other, you know, we're not wired so that we to enjoy conflict, and so what you're being asked to do, which is to tell the truth about people, um, or what you see as as you know, to give people a very public performance appraisal that may not be um to their liking, is a really socially unnatural uh job to do and task to complete. And uh and as I say, living in a small town, um, even Sydney's a small town, Melbourne's a small town, that that that gets in like life gets in the way of that. So that's a huge that's something I really struggled with. And to be honest, one of the things I drank too much over, like when the when I first started, the phone would ring in the morning and it'd be someone screaming at me. I'd and I was also sloppy, you know, because I was because I was drinking so much, I'd I didn't double check that fact, or you know, and and the fear of the blowback from people who didn't like what you were saying about them really uh filled me with dread. And I was a really conflict avoidant person in a really conflictual job, right? And so what I had to do is get really comfortable with conflict, um, which sometimes maybe makes you seem like a psycho uh because you're looking someone in the eye and you're saying, Look, I'm gonna say that you fucked this up and I think poorly of you. Um, and that's not done very much because you're that direct, people sort of feel like it's a bit psycho, but you do, you just have to be prepared to have the conversations with people in a really honest way and have really clear boundaries about what's personal and what's not personal and the basis on which you're criticizing them. Um and and that process is really constructive as well because quite often, you know, as you know, George Orwell was absolutely correct to be afraid of it because you go into that conversation with certain views and you come out of that conversation sometimes with different views. And that's not to say that you call someone up and you hang up the phone and you go, Oh, that person's a legend. I'm not writing that story at all. Like the facts don't necessarily change all that much, but you they give you your perspective. Sorry, they give you their perspective, and you're then able to walk in their shoes for a minute and go, okay, well, look, I might just add a paragraph in there that says if you look at it this way, or you may say, Well, I I'm not gonna say that thing anymore. Like there are the three things that I thought that they stuffed up. That first thing, I'm not sure that that was fair, actually. So I'm just gonna water down the second one, but I'm I'm I'm just as convinced on number three, and I'm gonna go just as hard. So, and I think that's a really valuable process to go through, and it definitely makes the journalism better. The other thing is that they then don't go off their tree like as much because you're not ambushing them, right? You know, like they they they're waiting for it, sort of like a with often with great trepidation. You must fill them with dread. Yeah, I don't know. I mean, I haven't been in the situation myself, but um yeah, that's so that's that's but that's definitely the hardest part of the job.

SPEAKER_01

And do you feel that sometimes even now you walk into a room or a conference, and you know there are several people in there who just hate your guts and everyone's got an opinion about you. Can you can you get over that self-consciousness? Yeah, especially I can understand why you'd be wanting to be boozing during that. It makes you feel way better about everything.

SPEAKER_00

It's just a laugh rather than Yeah, well, it just it just loosens the that that disinhibits you, but there's other ways to do that, and and the the more mature way is just to be in the moment and just accept what's going on around you. The the um the fact is that the that I do wander into rooms of hostile uh that include hostile people and sometimes lots of hostile people. Um it's never like something I enjoy, but it's definitely something you get accustomed to, and uh equally it depends on the day. Some days it doesn't bother you, and just occasionally it really does just get on top of you, and you just can't deal with it. Um that's very infrequent. I mean, one of the reasons I resigned from the AFR when I did, you know, I was obviously wanting to do my own thing, um and so I I had to go at some point. But the reason I sort of pulled the pin at that exact moment was I went to the as I I think this was on the last page of my book, The Chair's The Chairman's Lounge. I wandered into the AFL Grand Final Olympic room, which is the the the um the the luncheon at the AFL Grand Final that's hosted by the AFL Commission. And it's like as I've written before in the AFR, if you if a bomb went off in that room, there would be no one left to run Australia. You've got the Prime Minister, the premiers of multiple states, the che the chairman and CEOs of all the media companies, all the major sponsors, all the club presidents who are in are in bit major positions themselves, multiple billionaires, so on and so forth. And like I wanted in that day, and of course Richard Goyder was at that time the chairman of the AFL, and he was still for a couple more weeks uh going to be yeah, he was the he was still the chairman of Qantas, and I had been savaging him in the AFR day in, day out, saying he has to resign. Of course, the invitation, my invitation to that lunch had already gone out, so they couldn't they well they they chose not to withdraw my invitation and I turned up and it wasn't just him and his wife and his supporters who were like death staring me, but there were in fairness, I shouldn't say that he was death-staring me, he wasn't, but there were there was just so much hostility from his camp, but then you look around and there's all these other people who I've savaged as well, and that was sort of this moment where I was just like, oh, this just feels horrible. Like, I don't need this shit. Um and and that and so I resigned on uh on I resigned on the Monday. That that was on the Saturday. I resigned on the Monday, yeah.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, that just must have felt devastating.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, I thought I couldn't take it anymore, but really what I realised now in retrospect is I could take it. I just needed a break from it.

SPEAKER_01

Almost here is one of the great perks of having been in the position that I've brought myself up into. AFL grand final, maybe you had really good seats, you get to go to a very exclusive room and you don't feel welcome in it. Yeah, or but maybe that's a different thing.

SPEAKER_00

But I'm an like I'm an outsider. Like, yeah, I don't think I don't think of it like um you know, it is it a perk it look, it is a perk, it is definitely a perk. The first AFL grand final, the first Formula One Grand Prix, the first the first uh you know, Melbourne Cup, the first, you know, all of those things that you go to, you do sort of go, wow, how good's this. But after a while, it's it's really just a job.

SPEAKER_01

Really, okay. Yeah. Are you still invited to the cricket? Have you mended your relationship with cricket?

SPEAKER_00

I have, yes. They've been very kind to me. Um, as I've disclosed on my disclosure log uh on Rampart's website, I I I was invited by Cricket Australia to the Perth Ashes Test, to the Brisbane Ashes Test, and um I'm off this week to the Adelaide Ashes Test.

SPEAKER_01

These are perks of the job.

SPEAKER_00

They are in what capacity? Uh well I've as invited as as their guest, yeah. Um so I still write a bit about cricket, and I will um look, I've been invited to lots of events of over the years. I don't think anyone can genuinely say if they look at what uh how how I write about things, I don't think that that compromises me. Um I so I just so happen to think that Cricket Australia is being very well run now compared to the earlier years where I was really going at them. Um they had pretty poor leadership um until you know fairly recently. I think Mike Baird becoming chairman of Cricket Australia has made a really big difference and and that your former employer. Uh no, his dad was my former employer. Okay, okay. Yeah. I never worked for Mike, but um I did door knock for Mike in his seat in uh in the in when he first ran for parliament.

SPEAKER_01

You mentioned uh PR, well rather, in discussing PR from the perspective of what a lot of journalism might be, and as well, the George Orwell quote. You came from corporate communications at corners and also the um speechwriter or the CEO of Etihad, so very PR heavy journalists. What did you learn about that industry that informed your journalistic writing?

SPEAKER_00

Well, I learned how to lie. Yeah, really. And I learned how to spin. I mean, that's what PR does. And um, yeah, I wasn't bad at it, by the way. So um, but um uh what did I learn? Well, I learned it wasn't for me. And um I think an anti-authoritarian streak has been running through me from the very beginning, and and I struggled in corporate life because I was the person in every meeting who would say, Well, that's just fucking bullshit. Um when it when it wasn't appropriate to say that. And I and that was almost a compulsion. Um, and you don't climb the ladder in corporate Australia by telling people that they're full of shit or that they're stupid, um, or they're not very good at their job, or you know, that they're duding themselves, and and that was just sort of something that I always wanted to do or felt like I had to do. And so I I got spat out pretty quickly because um I wasn't getting on with anyone and I didn't enjoy so you were let go? Uh no, no, no. I wouldn't say I wasn't let go. I resigned from uh from I was never let go. I resigned, but I I but I just you know wasn't satisfied and it was clear that I wasn't you know uh I look put it this way, I don't think anyone cried their eyes out when I left. Um like the no one sort of begged me to stay. Um but yeah, I was also young, very impatient, and like it's clear that there was some immaturity, you know, going on, no doubt about that. Um but there was also just a bit of a character type going on, and that's why journalism, you know, being a misfit is is is is what draws well sorry, journalism is you know the the natural um the the natural home of misfits, and so that's what how I got drawn to it.

SPEAKER_01

It also feels like journalism is an owner-operator type of job, even though you have an employer, you are sort of salaried to meet your own targets and expectations and so forth.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, I don't that really is dependent on the job on the job. I don't think you can say that as uh uh uh with broad brush, but what what it is true is that it's a very results-driven job, and corporate big corporations are not. You you get judged on how much workflow you can create for the sake of it, you know, because it makes you look busy. You can you you can hide and not do anything, and how people feel about it, yeah, and just and kiss people's asses and and and go to a lot of meetings. You're not really being judged on your output, you're just sort of being judged by how you make people above you feel. Whereas if you're a journalist, you are literally judged on your work every time, and you're only as good as your last story. So I I really like that because you know, where I felt frustrated that I I couldn't get anywhere, yeah, and I I in fairness didn't give it more than five seconds, but I didn't feel like I was going to go anywhere in a corporation. I did feel like I would go somewhere in journalism because people would not be able to miss you know what I was doing, uh, and and its value would speak for itself.

SPEAKER_01

Uh the speech writer for the CEO jumps off the page at me in terms of a resume. Were you living in Abu Dhabi the whole time? Yeah. Uh was the CEO English speaking?

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, he's Australian. No way. Okay. He was a he was ja his name's his name was James Hogan. He was from Melbourne. Um, he was an ANSET, um, former ANSET executive. Um, and uh he and and of course Eddie had was in partnership at that time with Virgin Australia. John Borgetti ran Virgin Australia, and I'd worked for John, not directly, but it had a lot to do with him at Qantas because he missed out on the job at Qantas to Alan Joyce and then went and ran Virgin. So it's a very small pond, aviation, um, which hilariously, you know, 15 years later I've wro written a book about. But exactly yeah, so um he he was an Australian, and you've got to remember like most big company CEOs don't need a full-time speechwriter, and even most airlines don't need a full-time speechwriter. Um, but if you are the CEO of a there's a difference between a hub and a spoke airline. So if you're Singapore Airlines or your Emirates or Etihad or Qatar, like you're you're in the middle of the world and you're just you're the hub for people, you fly to like I think we flew to 60 countries or something like that. And it'd be more. Uh Qatar would be like 80 or 100. So think about that. Qantas probably flies to 10 countries, uh, 10 countries. I mean, I might I might be a little bit off, but so if you fly to, if you your business operates in 80 different countries or 60 different countries, you've got 60 different sales teams, 60 different government regulators, 60 different media um uh uh markets, and you've got to go and see those people. So you've got to make a speech um at the press club in Europe and in and in New York and in Asia and in Barbara, and you've got to do all of this every year. And when you go to London, not only do you need to speak at the at the aviation club, you've also got to go and meet with the government, and you've got to do a thing for the media, and you've got to meet all your corporate clients, and then you've got to and that's just in London. And and so actually, it was multiple speeches a week, and sometimes multiple speeches a day. And don't get me wrong, you had a stump speech and all of that that you evolved. And I also wrote their annual report, if you could call it an annual report, it didn't have real numbers in it, but um, yeah, so uh it was it was um it was a good opportunity, um, but the other thing you need to have is a good uh a speechwriter has to have a good fit with the with the speaker that you're writing for, and and you have to like the person, work well with the person, um, and and have a similar sort of vibe. And and it was apparent from very early on that that I didn't have that with Jane Togan. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

It would just imagine, like you say, 60, 80 countries, multiple speeches a day, you get the opportunity to inject whatever the cultural flair is and the particular context of all the different places that you're going. Yeah, it would be you'd learn so much.

SPEAKER_00

I really did, yeah. I learned a lot, and it's it's nice to be outside Australia and and sort of realise how Australia-centric Australia is. If you if you're a comp if you're a company like that operating, you know, as a as a small player in in many, many markets, you get you have to just be a bit more deferential about other cultures and and that forces you to be more open to open your ears.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, and understand there is wildly different sensitivities than the ones we grew up with here. So then you uh not directly after, but during your time at the AFI, you spent three years in Los Angeles. Yeah. First of all, why LA?

SPEAKER_00

So I met my uh girlfriend uh who lived there. Um she worked for Qantas. And um you and Qantas have such an incestuous history. Correct. Correct. Um uh and uh so I moved there and um and then as I say, when COVID happened, it was just too hard to be in the US. It was pretty, pretty ugly in LA. Like uh in the middle of COVID before the vaccines came out, it was it was really pretty scary. Um our street was was being um it was being uh well there were refrigerator trucks of dead bodies right up and down the street um because we were pretty close to the Cedar Sinai Hospital. Um and um and then there was the National Guard on on their trucks with all these, you know, National Guards with machine guns and there were cars on fire being overturned. It was a crazy time.

SPEAKER_01

Um yeah, so three years in LA is a is long enough. And we we mentioned very briefly before we started recording but um how living abroad maybe made you think a little bit differently about Australia. Can you bring to the surface actually what were the observations and reflections on your own home and country that you had from spending so many years abroad from it?

SPEAKER_00

It's interesting, isn't it? Because it's hard to say, but yeah, I know you'll feel like it's hard to put into words. It made me miss Australia, it made it made me appreciate all the things that we have that that we take for granted. Again, I feel like this answer is going to be it sound like it could have been generated by AI because everyone sort of says the same thing, and sometimes you have to accept that the reason everyone says the same thing is because it's true. Um and um I I you you just like the you're being able to go to a functional hospital or um you know being able to go to Service New South Wales and and get your your driver's licence renewed easily. Like the things that don't work in America are just crazy. Um the banking system, the paper-based banking system is just a joke. But uh and and LA, you know, it's just it's such an empty place. It's so funny. Um I I I I I have affection for it, but I do sort of really yeah, there's been some great, great culture created about how sort of soulless LA can be. Uh that that brilliant we lived right near the Chateau Marmont, which is a place I used to just go and stuff before I lived in LA, I would go and stay for you know extended periods of time and and never leave. Um and my my room service bill would just be horrendous. But um there's a great movie about it that uh with Stephen Dorf as the main character, I think it's called Somewhere, and about him just living in the Chateau Marmont and having this really empty life. And I I went back, I was in LA for three weeks last month, sorry, in October, and um and I was driving around and I'm like, there's yeah, it's sort of a nice place, but there is, there's just this sort of weird emptiness about it, and it was a good time, I enjoyed it, but I was quite lonely and um professionally in particular, because if you what I should have done is quit the AFR and got a job at the Hollywood Reporter or the LA Times or you know, whatever, but um and met some people who you know and and communicated with people about stuff that is of interest to them. But sitting in your apartment in LA on the phone to Australia writing about what's happening in Australia, um, and even smaller than that in corporate Australia. Well, not only do you yeah, not only do you feel far away, but you then meet people. You don't meet anyone locally, so you and then when you do meet people, they'll be like, Oh yeah, so you're a journalist, who do you write for? Like, what do you write about? And and and corporate Australia, yeah. Like, well, this guy Alan Joyce, who runs an airline you've never heard of, like well, they probably heard of it on Rain Man, but you know, you you don't people just look at you blankly, you you don't have anything in common with anyone. Um so that's sort of that was a learning, and if I I'd because I would love to live abroad again at some point, but I would I would want to do something in market.

SPEAKER_01

Okay, where it calls out for you. I love New York.

SPEAKER_00

Okay, I love New York, I love London. I mean they're they're with that language barrier, I think they're the obvious places. If I had to work, um, who knows? Rampart International. Hey, there's an idea.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, so what's your ambition for Rampart? What do you want it to be?

SPEAKER_00

I want Rampart to just be the place where you get the best analysis of Australian business and eventually I hope politics. Um very simple. I I looked at um I looked at uh American models of of journalism businesses that are uh that are digital only and fairly new, and there's a lot of them doing really innovative stuff. And uh and I I think there's a place for that sort of all-star team of of the best writers and the best um the best commentators that Australia has. Now I've got to find the those people who are willing to join me. Um and that's hard because Australia's a small market and and journalists are not as a rule particularly entrepreneurial people. They like big newsrooms and they like the safety of their of their you know office in a big company, you know, with their union negotiated pay rise every year and their and their and their sense that I'm surprised to hear that, actually. Yeah, I was surprised too at how um especially f business journals, right, who write about risk, who are supposed to understand risk and reward calculations, and yet that they have zero appetite for any risk themselves. And sh should understand as well, like what they're what they could make, you know, if they were part of a of an ascendant enterprise. And they and they get in early. But yeah, like that's just what I've had to um like it's not any huge setback. You just it'll just take time to figure out, you know, who's the right fit, and and I'm I'm looking forward to growing very incrementally because I don't want to change it radically for people. I don't want every someone to wake up tomorrow and all of a sudden they're getting bombarded with stories. Like it's also people sign up for a certain thing and it just has to evolve as opposed to um you know become uh you know, you don't want to give too much people too much stuff. You don't want to be a problem.

SPEAKER_01

It's like a newspaper used to be.

SPEAKER_00

Well, yeah, you don't want to in any way compromise on the quality because that's what I've promised from the outset. You'll get the best. Now, I can give the if I give them more, it still has to be the best. So that's so I want to grow but along those lines.

SPEAKER_01

You uh listen to acquired, I'm sure. Yeah. Um they're fantastic. Yeah, and you'd see the Bloomberg stories have these amazing short documentaries that do really well. At my old company, uh, which is a fintech, we were thinking about spending a ridiculous amount of our marketing budget on this exact type of content creation. Really deep, uh narrative-driven stories of companies. So acquired do the best, but a shorter version and video with really good filmography, speaking to the people, so forth, and with a charismatic host that carries the entire thing. I still think that's a great uh whole segment, more or less. It just is does require that serious quality. So you need a host who is actually a nut job for the businesses and gets it and is comfortable on camera and all the rest.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, and and as I've found with the with the video um with doing a vodcast um uh at Rampart is it's really expensive content to make. It's really expensive. I mean, um annoying. Yeah, if you want to do it at a certain, you know, at a certain level. Uh and and so yeah, uh that that's that doesn't make it uneconomic, but it does it's riskier.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, correct. It's riskier exactly. Um Alan Joyce, is he gonna join the pod? Have you reached out to him?

SPEAKER_00

I haven't. I I um I I've I have reached out to him uh to talk generally uh multiple times, and he's got sort of got no interest in um in talking to me, and that's his that's his prerogative. I I get that. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

There will t will there will come a time where he writes a book. Well he is writing a book.

SPEAKER_00

Or then yeah, it's coming out in September.

SPEAKER_01

Next year, Blockbuster Christmas special.

SPEAKER_00

I can imagine he will uh my publish my publisher is very excited because they expect that it will sell many more copies of my book.

SPEAKER_01

So yeah, absolutely. Uh yeah, we'll see. By the way, yours must have been the most sold um airport book this year.

SPEAKER_00

Good question. Yeah, it'd be great to know. It did amazing numbers at the airports. Yes, that is true. Yeah, um, phenomenal numbers at the airports, it's which is only natural given the subject matter. It's funny the number of people who would read it on a pl on a flight. On a quantum flight, yeah. There are even a few people who are members of the Chairman's Lounge who sent me pictures of them reading it in the chairman's lounge.

SPEAKER_01

That's so good. Um there there are so many more I'd like to get to. Let's do one really fast one.

SPEAKER_00

Um, because you don't worry, if it we've run a few minutes over, that's fine.

SPEAKER_01

That's okay. Okay, brilliant. You're clearly someone who's in the markets, you get it, you want to be a part of it. Surely throughout your career, people have tapped you on the shoulder and said, come on as an analyst.

SPEAKER_00

When I left the AFR, I had talks with with people across a lot of different jobs. I mean, I I was even though I pretty much knew that I wanted to do what I'm doing now, um, you know, you obviously want to see what else is out there. And so yeah, I was approached by fund managers and hedge funds, but you know, I couldn't really see it working in practice. You know, it all sounded like a good idea, and in a bull market, they might carry you sure and just say, Oh yeah, he's just the sort of fun, you know, toy. Like our marketing push. Yeah, correct. But I could see when if they're a really serious organization, I just wasn't sure that I would bring enough value to be just you know to justify my presence, and you don't want to feel ever feel like that. So, you know, I don't know that that would work.

SPEAKER_01

And in researching reporting stories, you must occasionally get not insider information, but information that will be tangential in the markets. Are there rules for journalists about trading off information they get from sources in reporting? Well, firstly, the usual law applies, so insider trading laws apply to journalists.

SPEAKER_00

It does, I just don't know, yeah. Um but uh I don't really pay very much attention to what the rules are. Instead, I just don't own any Australian shares at all. Um and I never have. Uh not while I've been a journalist, because it's just too too difficult. Because you know, you that some journos do, and they s and then they have to say, you know, like uh and that's it would just be too hard, and I think it would cause people to falsely um uh assume that I was talking my own book, you know. Like if you if you're writing that you know the CEO of you know Westpac is doing a bad job, just that's a hypothetical. Um, and then you have to say at the bottom, you know, the the author is a shareholder of NAB, you know, it's just it sort of just takes away from what you're doing. And and so it it's of no it's no expense to me to remove all doubt. Um I I don't own any Australian shares. I I used to in my industry super fund, but no one I I don't have I don't know anything, that's all indirect. Um and I just own international shares, and that's then you get better returns from US shares than the other. The growth comes from America anyway. Exactly. Yeah, um, but in fact, I bought I I owned, I remember owning Square and then Afterpay, and then they bought Afterpay, which I've been hammering in the paper. Not not because it was a bad um uh not not for the business model per se, but around some of the governance. And um and it was very funny having to say at the bottom, you know, that the author has shares in in Square, and uh and so yeah, like again, I just knew that I'd made the right decision on the one occasion where I got where it where it was where it was impacted.

SPEAKER_01

Um and you wrote you spoke with Doug Tynan about the how much you love luxury goods and how they increase in demand as they increase in price. Yeah. But for rampant, is it just your reputation and the quality of your writers that is that artificial scarcity? Is there any way to introduce that to a media business?

SPEAKER_00

The idea of a Homez tie or bag or whatever that that you know the the more expensive it is, the more people want it. I don't think applies to a media publication, no matter how exclusive it it is. I I mean maybe there are exceptions, but I don't know them. Um I um I think there's yeah, so I I don't know that there might be, I wouldn't try and draw an analogy. Um but in terms of our when you're communicating with the market about about your product, you I sort of we definitely take an unapologetic approach. And I I've I've had communications with site sh with with our subscribers because we did some um customer research, we did a read it survey, and everyone came back and you know everyone told us the things that they liked and the things that we they wanted us to change, so we've changed them, and the except the one which is it's too expensive. And so the people that on the on the free list, which outnumber the people on the paid list by four to one, they said, Well, I'm not subscribing because it's too expensive. And sometimes you have to be honest with people and say, Well, then I'm sorry, like the one thing we can't do is change the price because that the price is what is enables us to invest, and see and and and that's that that underpins the economics of this very small enterprise and this very labor-intensive um enterprise. So I just had to be straight with people and say, We're not reducing the prices, and that's that's gonna be the case. But what we will do is increase the value of what you get um for the price, and I got some really good feedback on that. Like there are a lot of people who said, Yeah, I really respect you know, I respect you for being honest about that. Um now, did those people all decide to change their mind and pay? No, of course not. But you sort of got to know who you yeah, I think it maybe it's a lesson in in knowing who your customer is and who it isn't. That's um I mean that that there is an analogy there between luxury companies and something like what I'm doing. But I mean, may again, I may be just stretching it, but um you can dilute yourself and and your offering by trying to be for all people, and like all of these luxury houses have had you know diffusions and like you know cheaper labels and all of that kind of thing. I think we just got to know who our audience is and we've got to believe uh in the value of of what they're getting for for the price.

SPEAKER_01

Uh free subscribers outnumber paid 4-1. A 20% conversion on a freemium subsite is is incredible.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, like that's really high. Yeah, the the numbers have been really amazing. Um, I've been uh I have been pleased on you know I've been surprised on the upside. Um and if I had told been able to tell my self my February 2025 self where we would be in in December 2025, I'd be like, thank God. Now again, we we have to get through the the first big churn cliff is in February when when about I think in that first week, maybe about a quarter of the subscribe paid subscribers I have now will be up for renewal. And and you know, will 50% of them re subscribe or will eighty percent of them re-subscribe? The the difference between those two cases uh between those two outcomes is really significant for the ongoing economics of the business and how much I can afford to hire a second person or a third person.

SPEAKER_01

So how are you thinking about anti churn measures, ways to keep them on? That isn't just better content all the time.

SPEAKER_00

It's mostly. It's mostly so so like the the biggest thing is well, let's make sure that they're getting enough content let's make and and that it's at at the same level and that's part of what drove doing a video podcast that's like let let's throw let's put that into the bundle as well and all of a sudden they go oh well I'm getting you know getting this I'm getting that um yeah I mean that's that's mostly mostly it yeah very sappy question to finish it off sure um I insist on keeping it in just because I've asked that in every interview so far. Sure sure sure um and it's quite simply what is the role that serendipity has played in your life yeah it's a good one isn't it I think um uh I I think I haven't thought about this very much to be honest. Uh you're yes there's lots of sliding doors moments though that when you look back you know the the what if I had stayed here and not done that and yeah I mean life could have been so different in so many different ways even um uh my colleague Ivor who writes for Rampart whose work I absolutely love he we had a coffee and um um I never um I almost never sent you know I almost never s sent that email um and then I almost never said to him what would you write something for me and then he said no and absolutely not and then two weeks later he sent me something you know and and and and the first thing he sent me wasn't the best piece that he's written for by far and and I still and and and I went oh no that that's still you know worth that that's still definitely worth running and and then the next one he sent me was like wow that's that's better than anything I've written in a lot you know in ages yeah like so you just um you do have to be but you have to be open to serendipity as well and I I think one of my shortcomings is that I I'm often too sure of my judgment when I hear of something and and I I I could be better and and at being open to giving something a try or someone a try that that maybe I think I am already ready to write off or be too good for or yeah I think there's that and and that that's that's a danger as you get older and more that the more you know the less you're open to accepting that you don't know much at all.

SPEAKER_01

So yeah I think yeah I mean no different to anyone else I think it's about played a big role and we'll continue to lovely thank you so much Joe um rampants in the podcast description I'll do a whole video introduction so people will know everything not everything a lot about and they can join the you know encourage everyone to join that free list.

SPEAKER_00

A hundred percent um you get it you get the beginning of every every article so yeah thanks for having me totally matched thank you so much