The Profile: The former VC who won two Olympic gold medals & the founder building a new media empire

This edition of The Profile features Bari Weiss, Kristen Faulkner, Nate Silver, and Darren Star.

Good morning, friends!

I got hit with a bad virus last week and was struggling to write in-between fevers, brain fog, and asking ChatGPT to share “natural ways to stop uncontrollable coughing” 😅 But I’m feeling much better now, and I’ll be publishing a new article mid-week.

In the meantime, I hope you enjoy the profiles below as much as I did!

— Polina

PROFILES.

— The founder building a new media empire [**HIGHLY RECOMMEND**]
— The former VC who won two Olympic medals
— The man who predicts the future
— The master of compulsively watchable TV
— The hottest party app

PEOPLE TO KNOW.

The founder building a new media empire: Bari Weiss, a former New York Times opinion editor, started a newsletter four years ago that eventually grew into Free Press, a new media company with ambitions to overtake the old media. Even though this is a bizarrely written profile, you still get a good sense of what Weiss has built. “She’s just unafraid, and I think that confidence scares a lot of people,” said Jeff Zucker, the former CNN president and avowed Free Press supporter, saluting Weiss’s antenna for “how a huge swath of this country feels.” Here’s how Weiss created an independent media empire in just four years. (The New York Times; if you can’t access the article, try this link)

“She’s an extremely gifted ideological operative.”

The former VC who won two Olympic medals: In 2021, Kristen Faulkner left her job as an investor at Threshold Ventures to become a professional cyclist. Now she’s a two-time Olympic gold medalist at the just-finished Paris Olympics who sees parallels between her venture career (which also included three years at Bessemer Venture Partners) and how she cycles, especially when it comes to her high-stakes closing move: the “last-minute attack.” (FORTUNE)

“I love to catch people by surprise. I love catching people off guard, because it’s a mental game, too.”

The man who predicts the future: In his new book, political-modeling wizard Nate Silver chronicles this quantitative revolution by interviewing some of those who led or benefited from it — including poker sharks, professional sports bettors, and venture capitalists. Silver divides the world into two types: those, including himself and the people he interviewed in his book, who live in what he calls “the River” and those who live in “the Village.” This is a fascinating profile on the man who has made a living making predictions. (If you can’t access the article, try this link)

“Politics and the media and the internet are combat, and I am a fighter.”

The master of compulsively watchable TV: For about as long as any millennial has been watching television, Darren Star has been making it: Beverly Hills 90210, Melrose Place, Sex and the City, Younger, Emily in Paris. His hits span four decades and various business models in the medium — broadcast, cable, streaming — all known for their compulsive watchability. Here’s how he’s managed to create hit after hit. (New York Magazine)

“I’m a shark. I like to keep looking forward.”

COMPANIES TO WATCH.

The hottest party app: Partiful is a mash-up of social media and your most active group chat. Now an app, the platform began in a web-based format. Invitees receive a link that transports you to the "party page." There you can find a title for the event, usually accompanied by a photo, a brief description and a date and time. Once you enter your name and number and select "yes," "no" or "maybe" you can see who else is attending. Here’s how it revived the “evite.”

“They’re using lots of cool signifiers, the language that they use is much younger.”

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