Fucked out of your own company: The Real Story of JPG Magazine
via Waxy | Derek Powazek | The Real Story of JPG Magazine
In September, 2004, Heather and I went for a walk in Buena Vista Park and started dreaming up a community project. The idea was to create a printed venue for all the awesome photographers we saw online. That afternoon I checked: jpgmag.com was available. A couple months later, we launched the site. ...
Inspired by the amazing growth of the magazine, in 2006, Heather, Paul, and I began discussing what we were then calling “JPG 2.0.”... But once we looked at the spec for JPG 2.0, we realized that, if we built that tool, we could make a magazine on any topic. The opportunity we had before us was really “Magazine Publishing 2.0.” ... Paul wasn’t sure. But all that changed when he met Halsey Minor. Halsey was the founder of CNET. ... The three of us, plus Halsey’s business partner Ron, got together for a steak dinner (I had the fish).
Conversations continued. A few weeks later Paul and I were in a meeting with Ron, who asked, “Which one of you would be CEO?” The obvious answer, as I saw it, was: “We haven’t discussed that yet.”
“Me,” Paul said.
Discussing it later, Paul assured me. “It’s no big deal, it just means I’ll have some extra stuff to do, but otherwise we’ll be equal partners.” I believed him.... After 11 years of working at other people’s startups, I was finally the cofounder of my own. It was a dream come true....
Unfortunately, issue 10 will be the last one that Heather and I will have a hand in. We are no longer working for JPG Magazine or 8020 Publishing....
In one evening, Paul removed issues 1-6 from the JPG website, removed Heather from the About page, and deleted the “Letter from the Editors” that had lived on the site since day one. Paul informed me that we were inventing a new story about how JPG came to be that was all about 8020. He told me not to speak of that walk in Buena Vista, my wife, or anything that came before 8020.