How Deadspin's Former Staff Built a Worker-Owned Media Company Without Outside Investors

In April 2019, the private equity firm Great Hill Partners bought Gizmodo Media Group and The Onion from Univision and combined them into G/O Media. Deadspin was part of the deal. That October, editorial director Paul Maidment sent a memo instructing the staff to keep every story connected to sports. Editor Barry Petchesky refused, was fired, and within days the entire writing and editing staff resigned.

On July 28, 2020, The New York Times reported that 18 of the roughly 20 Deadspin staffers who had resigned were starting a subscription media company with Jasper Wang, a former Bain consultant and longtime Deadspin reader, with Tom Ley as editor-in-chief. The company had no outside investors, and each founder held a stake of roughly 5%. Defector launched in September 2020.

In its November 2025 annual report, Defector said it had grown to 27 employees while retaining all 19 original co-founders. Across its first five years, the company recorded a small operating surplus each year, showing that a worker-owned newsroom can pay its staff, keep its core team together, and sustain the business without outside capital.

The Ownership Structure

The founders split the initial equity equally, and every later hire receives an economic interest through a company distribution plan. Selling or merging the business, raising equity or meaningful debt, and hiring or firing executives all require a two-thirds vote of the company, and Ley and Wang can both be removed by that vote. Voting rights belong only to active employees. When an employee leaves, their shares convert one-for-one into a non-employee class with no voting or dividend rights.

The Compensation Structure

Every employee receives the same base salary. Each position has a target salary above the base, within a narrow range, paid out quarterly based on the previous quarter's results. Anything left after targets and reinvestment is distributed evenly as bonuses, and every employee knows what every other employee earns. Owner compensation rose from $1.7 million in year one to $2.7 million in year five, against reported revenue of about $4.65 million.

The structure works because its best-known writers keep their work inside Defector. In early 2020, Drew Magary and David Roth were offered a sizable deal to start a podcast for Stitcher, but they waited until Defector launched before signing the contract with the company. Later that year, Kelsey McKinney tweeted an idea for a gossip podcast and was contacted by a major talent agency within 24 hours. She chose to develop the show through Defector instead.

The Numbers

Defector had more than $1 million in prepaid subscriptions before publishing a single post. By September 30, 2021, it had 36,000 active subscribers, 95% of its $3.2 million first-year revenue came from subscriptions, and renewal among annual subscribers was about 86%. Revenue reached about $3.8 million in year two with 38,000 subscribers, $4.5 million in year three with 42,100, and $4.6 million in year four with 42,500. In year five, subscription revenue held flat at $3.8 million, other revenue grew to $850,000, total revenue came to roughly $4.65 million, and operating expenses came to roughly $4.55 million.

Prices have not changed since launch. A Reader subscription costs $8 per month or $79 per year, Pal costs $119 per year, and Accomplice costs $1,000 per year.

Running Lean

Defector has never employed a product manager, engineer, or designer. The site runs on Lede by Alley. Lede fees were $300,000 in year five, rent was $30,000, and paid advertising was $0. Freelance and reporting spend rose from $100,000 in year one to $425,000 in year five, covering about 150 outside contributors. Sponsors paid a small fixed fee upfront plus an amount for every new subscriber a campaign generated, and the company refused advertising from sports-betting companies. Display ads for non-subscribers arrived in late 2024, after Wang wrote that low single-digit subscription growth could not fund the additional staff the company needed.

The Podcast

Normal Gossip launched on January 5, 2022, created by McKinney and Alex Sujong Laughlin, with McKinney as host and Laughlin as producer. In February 2023, the show joined PRX's Radiotopia network, which handled distribution, ad sales, and marketing while the creators kept ownership and creative control. By December 2024, Vulture reported around 45 million downloads. Podcast advertising helped push non-subscription revenue from $200,000 in year one to $850,000 in year five.

Where Defector Stands Now

Defector enters its seventh year on September 10 with 26 worker-owners and about 40,000 subscribers. In July 2025, the company announced two new podcasts and the acquisition of the basketball show Nothing But Respect. The Span, its first dedicated culture newsletter, launched in March 2026. In July 2025, Press Forward awarded $1.5 million to Start.coop, with Defector as a co-applicant, to build shared back-office services for worker-owned newsrooms.

Defector's lesson is not that every newsroom should become worker-owned. It is that durable media businesses are built when the people creating the audience, the product, and the revenue all have incentives to stay. The result is a business that has grown slowly, but with far less pressure to chase traffic, inflate headcount, or compromise the product to satisfy investors. For an industry that has spent two decades optimizing for scale, Defector is a reminder that a smaller, tightly aligned media company can still be a very good business.

Defector launched with a group of former Deadspin writers, no outside investors, and more than $1 million in prepaid subscriptions. Six years later, revenue is at $4.65 million, subscriptions have stayed around 40,000, and prices have remained unchanged since 2020. Defector spends nothing on paid advertising, has no in-house product or engineering team, and uses a transparent compensation structure across the company. They have diversified into podcasts, live events, newsletters, sponsorships, and display advertising.

The result is a small media company owned and governed by its employees. That has limited how quickly Defector can hire or expand, but it has also allowed the company to operate without outside capital while keeping editorial and business decisions inside the organization.

The model will not fit every publisher, but the underlying approach is to control costs, give your best people reasons to stay, and add new revenue streams without making the business dependent on constant audience growth. See you next week.

If you liked this edition of Growth Curve, forward it to a founder or marketer who needs to stop renting their audience — and start owning it.