Tyler Cowen: Why I’m Joining The Free Press

The Free Press is where I have decided to make my new intellectual home.

In a rapidly changing world, I feel The Free Press is the correct base for me, and it has the audience I wish to reach.

First, The Free Press is a start-up.

And because The Free Press is a start-up, it can fail. Many people do not like that fact about start-ups, because they do not want to be part of a possible failure. It means disruption, and also the paycheck stops coming. But I enjoy the risk appetite. It is precisely because it can fail that the people here will work harder, and likely smarter, than the competition.

That it is a start-up is not only true in fact, but you sense it the moment you walk into the newsroom, which I did for the first time recently. The place has overwhelming vibes and energy, and you can feel those in each and every person on the floor.

I think we are entering an era where “floor energy” will matter more than before. It will motivate, define, and lift some institutions well above the others.

A lot of The Free Press is charisma- and personality-based. Much of that comes from Bari Weiss, but there are numerous strong personalities on the roster, covering a wide range of topics, and I know they are keen to bring on even more. I expect the importance of charisma- and personality-based content to rise sharply in the near future.

I don’t know if The Free Press knows this yet, because they tend to be old-school, but pretty soon quality AI programs will write better columns than most of what is considered acceptable at top mainstream media outlets. Of course those columns will not be by human beings, and so those writings will not be able to contextualize themselves within the framework of what a particular individual thinks or feels. That kind of context will be all-important, as impersonal content, based on broadly available public information, will be outcompeted by the machines.

I believe The Free Press intellectual and business model is well-positioned to handle this transition. At The Free Press, and for Free Press readers, the individual writer and personality truly matters, and will continue to matter.

I have written for about 10 years for The New York Times and about eight years for Bloomberg Opinion. Both were wonderful experiences, and I worked with great people and benefited enormously from those relationships. But I am now oh, so very excited about this next step.

Stay tuned for my first official column this Thursday. Click here to make sure you get my work delivered directly to your inbox.

Last but not least: Join Bari and me for a livestream Q+A only for paid members of The Free Press. Come to our website on Thursday, April 3 at 4:30 p.m. ET to watch the conversation.

See you then!

Tyler Cowen is part of a new lineup of Free Press voices you’ll be hearing from more regularly. For more information on who else you can read in our pages, or hear on our podcasts, read Bari’s note to readers.

And to make sure you can read everything Tyler writes for The Free Press, become a paid subscriber today: