Meredith Klein of Meredith and the Media spoke with Dynamo CEO Nicholas Carlson about his time at Business Insider.
Here is an excerpt:
You were part of Business Insider’s founding team as its first chief correspondent, and you managed major launches, including its tech news division, sports and entertainment sections, and INSIDER in 2015. With such impressive achievements, what were some of your most memorable experiences?
- Early in my career, I got access to Mark Zuckerberg’s college instant messages—you know, the ones where he mocks Facebook’s early users and describes his plans to screw over the Winklevosses and push a co-founder out of the company. I remember the night we published that story vividly.
- It was 3 a.m., and I’m on the phone with my last source, and the source finally came through. And my boss, former BI founding EIC and CEO Henry Blodget, got off the phone after one last call with Facebook, and then we published it. I remember leaving the office and taking a cab home and feeling completely exhilarated and exhausted. I like that combo.
- Recently, I was reading a Financial Times story profiling Zuckerberg, and they quoted the instant messages I uncovered in my story without attribution. I wasn’t irritated, though: I realized the words I revealed about what he had said were now part of the historical record, and I had written his history in a way that is etched into the way we understand him. That story changed the reputation of Business Insider in a big way and set my career in a different direction.
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