Is Air Mail selling to a roofing company?
FWIW they seem like a good one (clients include The Met!0
Good morning everyone. Look at the AI-generated image of me if I get rich/marry someone really rich that my friend made this morning.
Today’s letter includes:
Five media outlets wrote the same story about a paparazzi-obsessed sushi spot
To celebrate Valentine’s Day 🌹❤️ , my friend Liara Roux, a Paris-based sex worker and writer, answered a bunch of reader-submitted questions about dating apps, sex work, and breaking out of a “toxic type".”
The Beverly Hills Barneys is getting a second life tomorrow (including a spa)
MEDIA NEWS
A billionaire roofing family (they literally worked on the roofs of the Library of Congress, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and the DC Metro system) is in talks to buy Graydon Carter’s Air Mail. Standard Industries — whose CEOs, two ex-brothers-in-law named David, are stretching a family business into a wide-ranging financial empire, and they also invested in Puck — is in talks to acquire the five-year-old media company for about $50mm. This story says that Air Mail has 300k paid subscribers, but some people are skeptics about this number (
has 281k subs, and has over 600k so I don’t think it’s that wild). But here are my thoughts:The roofing thing is weird, but it’s impressive that Air Mail is able to exit at markup to their 2019 valuation.
I think Puck has been doing Air Mail better than Air Mail. Puck is timely, the site is constantly updated, their writers have strong personalities and voices, and I generally feel like their work is in front of me more than Air Mail’s is — I’m somehow always seeing Air Mail stories a few weeks late.
Puck got Teddy Schleifer, Julia Ioffe, Lauren Sherman (who I just grabbed a drink with in LA, as whip-smart as you’d expect), and a couple really top notch beat reporters as their founding reporters which was smart. I just heard from someone that they now have an affiliate program for their newsletters, where outside writers (I’m guessing mostly Substack people) can get $$ for new subscribers that they drive to Puck. They’re currently hiring three roles for subscription marketing.
I think a newsletter company founded by a younger reporter who is filing stuff every week, is much more investable than something founded by a rich 75 year old. Not clear why people keep funding the old guys. I guess some rich people like news media. It helps keep the world turning that these are “trophy assets” for some rich guys… maybe Graydon needs a new roof for that Connecticut gem of a house. To be clear, I love Air Mail. I think Linda Wells is doing some of the best beauty reporting on the internet. Their scoops and party reporting is juicy. I think they just need to pick up the pace a little bit if this acquisition goes through, and become responsive as their readers.
launched a Substack this week. I’ve been following her work for years — when I worked at The Cut, she was the Deputy Editor at Lenny, Lena Dunham and Jenni Konner's now defunct newsletter (in retrospect, they were probably ahead of the curve…). Since then, she was the Fashion and Beauty Director at Teen Vogue and the Editorial Director at Topicals. I texted her this morning about why she started the letter, and here’s what she told me: “I worked at Into the Gloss for 3 months and I really enjoyed chatting with people but I always wanted to go both deeper and broader. I also worked at Lenny Letter, which was like a newsletter before the newsletter boom, and I always enjoyed reading and editing the essays. So, think of Ridiculous Little Things as a blend of the two but with a focus on taste, desires, and self-discovery, especially in the realms of fashion, aesthetics, personal style.”
The New York Times wrote about Sushi Park is the hottest celebrity restaurant. Guess who else has written this story?
Celebrities Are Obsessed With This $400-Per-Person Strip Mall Sushi Restaurant - Delish, October 2023
How Did Sushi Park Become the Go-To Celeb Hangout Spot? - Teen Vogue, January 2024
THE NEW EREWHON IS A $200-PER-PERSON SUSHI JOINT IN A STRIP MALL - HighSnobiety, January 2024
Inside Sushi Park, LA’s most discreet celeb hangout - The Face, January 2024
Get that SEO, guys.