“While Axios had a product-focused mission, had product execs from the start, and built its own content management system, tensions arose between people on the technical side and the founders over how that mission would get carried out, three former employees said.” Completely unrelated, I’m sure, is
this Nieman Lab prediction from Alexis Lloyd and Matt Boggie, two of those three exiting execs: “In 2018, we’ve seen the acceleration of trends in which older, advertising-centric, scale-driven media models are becoming less and less sustainable, while user-centered, product-focused approaches gain traction…This shift has been challenging for many media companies because they tend to be led by people with backgrounds in editorial and advertising — practices that are inherently reactive, opportunistic, and ephemeral.”
—JB
