About this episode
Jesse Thorn has been podcasting for so long it was called radio. Over time he turned his career into a business - Maximum Fun, a network of eclectic pop culture shows like Bullseye; My Brother, My Brother and Me; and Judge John Hodgman — and relied primarily on listener donations to fund it. But, as Thorn tells Vox’s Peter Kafka, running a business was running him down, and he didn’t want to sell the company to a Spotify or Sirius. So he found a unique solution: He turned Maximum Fun into a worker-owned co-op. That means Thorn still owns a piece of the company he built over two decades, but so do his former employees, who are now his co-workers. And he thinks other media companies can and should do this, too. Featuring : Jesse Thorn ( @JesseThorn ), Founder of Maximum Fun Host : Peter Kafka ( @pkafka ), Senior Editor at Recode More to explore : Subscribe for free to Recode Media , Peter Kafka, one of the media industry's most acclaimed reporters, talks to business titans, journalists, comedians, and more to get their take on today's media landscape. About Recode by Vox : Recode by Vox helps you understand how tech is changing the world — and changing us. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices