Monday 24th July: Skift founder Rafat Ali on choosing the slow path to growth

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Big Noises: Skift founder Rafat Ali on choosing the slow path to growth

Lots to mull over in this latest episode of our Big Noises series. Skift founder Rafat Ali tells us about why he decided on eschewing the rush for VC funding in favour of more sustainable growth, how the travel information site is using AI in a practical way, and where so much of the media industry goes wrong when choosing priorities.

He says there’s virtue in knowing your own limits when deciding on which sectors to invest in: “I’m not a multi-sector entrepreneur; I can go deep into one sector… the only way I can describe it is, if I can put my arms around a sector I can build a business around it. I love eating but do I care about the business of restaurants beyond a certain point? No. And so it’s just that I have to be excited about a subject.”

He also tells us about his lateral moves from tech expert to Paid Content specialist into founder of a premium B2B travel site — proof if proof be need be that that there’s no one-size-fits-all way into the media industry, provided you have a specialised interest and the drive to pursue it.

Not very long ago — in this very newsletter — I asked for feedback on the L.A. Times launching a free-to-access Latino-focused vertical. Well, it looks like we’ll be having a much more far-reaching conversation about free-to-access digital news from legacy publishers (and what it does to the definition of ‘quality’) in the near future, as the Salt Lake Tribune is also experimenting with the idea.

Good long read here. It takes a look at the decade of Bezos ownership of The Washington Post — which is on track to post a $100m loss this year — and both the internal and external changes that have happened to the paper since. Lots of insight into the past ten years but, more importantly, what’s likely to come next.

Not content with driving off 50% of the advertisers and implementing a pyramid scheme designed to get people to subscribe, Elon Musk seems poised to kill off Twitter — both for real and as a brand. The rumour seems to be that Twitter, a memorable if twee little name, will be rebranded to ‘X’ or something, which is a name only a 14 year old boy in a grown man’s body would think is cool.

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