The Slowdown's less frenetic approach to media

Subscribe on Apple Podcasts and Spotify

What a strange end to the year, with Omicron the march, inflation jitters and more unknowns than seemingly ever before. But there’s not the same amount of panic and anxiety as the spring 2020 — positive Covid tests seem to be the new social media flex. Nearly two years into this pandemic era, we’ve grown resilient, whether we dwell on it or not. We have so many more tools and knowledge now than when this all started, and we are also just better equipped ourselves to deal with the ups and downs and uncertainties. 

The last two episodes of The Rebooting Show this year are tied to this theme, considering what we have figured out since the pandemic began. This week, I spoke to Spencer Bailey and Andrew Zuckerman, co-founders of The Slowdown, a media company focused on making sense of the world around us. When the pandemic hit, they started At a Distance, a podcast in which they shared conversations with an array of influential people about how we should rethink the world. The resulting interviews became fodder for a new book. Thanks to Mediaocean, sponsor of these year-end episodes.

Covid was momentous from the start, even if we just called it by the generic coronavirus. Once cities started shutting down, it was clear this wasn’t a passing blip or even a localized shock. It wasn’t 9/11 or the Financial Crisis. The scale was unimaginable. The entire world on pause. For those lucky enough to be forced to isolate — health care and essential workers didn’t have this luxury — the pandemic was a forced period of reflection. Many didn’t like what they saw.

For The Slowdown, just a year old as a company, its bet that the frenetic pace of the world was unsustainable turned out to be on the nose. Without being able to host its intimate conversations for Time Sensitive, The Slowdown’s conversation series with influential figures in business, arts and culture, Spencer and Andrew decided to move to Zoom with a new podcast, At a Distance, a podcast that gathered luminaries to use the forced isolation we all dealt with in order to think big thoughts about what comes next. At a Distance has compiled over 130 interviews so far.

“We realized everyone we were talking to was thinking in a really different way,” Andrew said. “Everyone had permission to think big picture, like this rupture had occurred and everyone was thinking about the world in a very different way and seeing opportunities and the issues were super coherent.”

Finding an intersection

My theory of media businesses is those from the creator or content side typically start with the need to make something they want into the world, then they fit it to the market opportunity and business model. People coming from the business side tend to work in reverse. Both can work. The Slowdown is the first type. “We wanted to make something that we wanted in the world that we couldn't get,” said Andrew.  “So we figured we'd make it ourselves.”

“Our philosophical foundation was not in terms of scale, growth and the attention economy. We didn't see in the world a company that was truly looking at this vector of culture, nature and the future and where that comes together.”

A time capsule

From its start, t