Open Tab

Substack

A Media Founder Show by Substack on.substack.com

Episodes

  1. 3D AGO

    Open Tab: Esther Perel

    The psychotherapy room is, by design, one of the most private spaces in human life, but Esther Perel has devoted much of her career to opening the door. Addressing relationships, cross-cultural psychology, and the contours of belonging, she brought therapeutic ideas out into the world through a body of work that spans talks, books, and her hit podcast Where Should We Begin?, which has reached millions of listeners across nearly a decade. In her Substack publication Entre Nous with Esther Perel, she says she’s found a gathering place for it all: “I always talk about how I wanted to bring the therapeutic ideas into the public square,” she told us. “Now I want to create a public square.” On the day of the 20th anniversary re-release of her book Mating in Captivity, a cultural touchstone on the topic of desire, we’re sharing a conversation between Esther and Hanne Winarsky, Substack’s head of new media, recorded at Temple Bar in SoHo, New York. In this second episode of Open Tab, Esther discusses how she hires and has built her businesses, how work has replaced religion as a source of meaning, whether AI can give good therapy, and how she’s made it her life’s work to re-create the proverbial village online. New episodes of Open Tab drop weekly through June. You can watch on YouTube, listen wherever you get your podcasts, and always find the full series on Substack. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit on.substack.com

    54 min

  2. MAY 7

    Open Tab: Emily Sundberg

    For our inaugural episode of Open Tab, we knew we wanted to speak with Emily Sundberg. Emily’s the founder and daily writer of Feed Me, a business, tech, and culture newsletter that’s been described as “must-read (and much-read).” She publishes almost every weekday— something like 250 sends a year—covering everything from DTC darlings and media industry churn to New York hospitality and new world etiquette. In the process, she has been profiled by the New York Times and Air Mail, becoming known as a “media it girl” and “one of the most talked-about writers in business and culture journalism.” Emily has worked in media and tech but built her current audience of over 10,000 subscribers natively on Substack, post by post. She told us she sees Feed Me as a studio, with extensions like a podcast, job board, and thriving subscriber comments section where she’s “never scared that anything bad is happening.” Substack co-founder Hamish McKenzie sat down with Emily at Old Town Bar in Manhattan’s Flatiron district to talk about building her independent media business from scratch and the glimmers of hope she sees for media on Substack and beyond. Location: Old Town Bar, Flatiron, NYC. Order: 1 Guinness each This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit on.substack.com

    55 min
  3. Introducing Open Tab

    MAY 6

    Introducing Open Tab

    Most of what we hear from media insiders is a story of decline: collapsing economics, algorithmic chaos, layoffs, and LLMs nipping at journalists’ heels. But a new class of independent media founders is creating powerful businesses around their own work and direct relationships with readers, listeners, and viewers—highly-profitable, multi-format, and built without first raising millions of dollars or a complex infrastructure stack. They’re finding ways to make creative livelihoods that don’t depend on the goodwill of a platform or a print masthead. Open Tab is a new interview series hosted by Substack co-founder Hamish McKenzie and Head of New Media Hanne Winarsky, who sit down with a different independent media founder each week to ask them how they did it. Every episode of the show is filmed at a neighborhood bar, restaurant, or café where the guest likes to spend their time. And in each conversation, Hamish or Hanne joins with, “I’ll have what you’re having.” Episode one comes out tomorrow, May 7. The guests are writers, editors, and creators who have built thriving media businesses and communities from the ground up. Among them: a techno-optimist with a thousand-year view, and a relationship therapist with a warning about AI’s impacts tomorrow. A journalist who wrote the definitive book on Elon Musk—before, he says, Elon tried to buy up every copy. A tabloid insider who spent years protecting a secret source and then became a whistleblower himself. Internet natives and legacy media icons who have reported on power and celebrity from up close. Some built their audience entirely from scratch; others arrived with a career’s body of work and found a home for it here. We kept returning to the unvarnished reality of building something on your own: the appetite for risk, the rewards of independence, and what it means to do this in a time when a single person with a point of view can rival—and often exceed—the reach of the most storied media institutions. New episodes of the show will drop weekly through June. You can watch on YouTube, listen wherever you get your podcasts, and find the full series here on Substack. The most ambitious media founders in the world are building on Substack. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit on.substack.com

    1 min
  • 3 Episodes

Ratings & Reviews

About

A Media Founder Show by Substack on.substack.com

Information

  • Creator
    Substack
  • Years Active
    2K
  • Episodes
    3
  • Rating
    Explicit
  • Copyright
    © Substack
  • Show Website
    Open Tab

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