The CEO of Medium called it quits
So what does this mean for the rest of us?
Yesterday, I came across a news article published in The New York Times that detailed the resignation of Evan Williams as CEO of Medium.
Williams, who is also the co-founder of popular social media site Twitter, has decided that he will be moving on to new ventures. His reported next move in business will be in the field of research and holdings.
On July 12th, Williams posted an article here on Medium where he proudly states that the end of an era is also the beginning of a new chapter for him. August 2022 will make ten years since Williams has been working at Medium. In the ten years since he has been working at the company, Medium has amassed a user network of over sixty million active users.
Williams reminisces on a statement he made in 2012 while foreshadowing the future of his career endeavors:
“Now that we’ve made sharing information virtually effortless, how do we increase depth of understanding, while also creating a level playing field that encourages ideas that come from anywhere?”
Similar to Twitter, Medium is a space where people from all over the world can share ideas. The philosophy of Medium is based on the idea that people have important things to share, and the world would be improved if writers were given a platform to do so. Williams is a propeller in the space of creative ideas and expression through the medium of writing.
The former CEO also boasts (rightfully so) about the protection of users’ data in a time when they’re often used as pawns for corporations.
Writers across Medium are largely sad to see the leader and community member step down as CEO, but he assures everyone he will still be serving as chairman. The spot of CEO will also not be vacant for long. Williams has seemingly appointed his long-time colleague Tony Stubblebine as the new chief executive officer.
Which leaves many Medium users to wonder: who is the new guy in town?
Tony Stubblebine, CEO of Medium
Well, Stubblebine isn’t new at all. At least not to the platform.
He’s an avid writer and creator of big publications, including Better Marketing, Better Technology, and Better Humans. All of the publications have grown a community of collectively seven hundred thousand followers plus.
Impressive, to say the least.
Williams places much of his trust in Stubblebine, who is also referred to as Coach Tony.
They met almost two decades ago at Odeo, a company that worked around podcast publishing and aggregation. Instead of joining Twitter, Stubblebine went on to run engineering at Odeo.
He writes of his decision to choose Stubblebine as if it was the one true option by saying:
“In thinking about who might replace me, Tony was one of the first people that came to mind. I then talked to a bunch of other people…and came back to Tony. He has deep knowledge of Medium from running some of the biggest publications on the platform. He understands the network and what creators need to succeed better than almost anyone.”
In an interview conducted by Sinem Gunel at Medium, users get to learn more about Stubblebine and what he envisions for the future as CEO. If you want to learn more about him and his role, you can read the full-length interview here.
Where do we go from here?
Since joining Medium a few days ago, I’ve seen several writers detail their likes and dislikes about the platform.
In his interview published by Ilana Rabinowitz, the new CEO makes mentions making a few changes to the partner program. He speaks to the possibility of increased compensation to writers for external traffic. After all, external traffic does increase traffic to the site overall, which could lead to an addition in subscribed users.
The partner program is largely a mystery to users seeing as there is no concrete public knowledge as to how pay is generated. The most we know is that users were primarily paid based on the number of claps but are now compensated based on reading time by subscribed users.
I would like to see a few changes made to the algorithm so that there is more quality content. Medium seems to award writers for pushing out quantity over quality. My feed is often flooded with people writing about how to increase your views, clicks, and money on Medium. While this is great and necessary for people who are just starting, it becomes overwhelming very quickly.
This isn’t to say those who write these works aren’t good writers (I’ve written about writing on here, too), but it disincentivizes people from writing within their niches. Specifically, those who are writers in the realm of poetry, fiction, non-help non-fiction, and news writing.
I would also be interested in seeing a bigger appeal to writers of the younger generation. I’m almost certain that given the era of the content creator we’re in, it would be massively beneficial to the platform if Medium were to expand its consumer base.
Lastly, it is about time we can write from our phones again whenever we need to send out a quick blog post.
I want to know what the users of Medium think. Where do you see this platform going? What changes do you want to see?
