
About this episode
When Brian Lam walked away from a high-profile job at Gizmodo to launch a product review blog, he had no plan for how it would make money. He just knew what he wanted: a user-friendly site with reviews that could be read in a few minutes, with the best products clearly listed, all backed up by meticulous research. But when he launched The Wirecutter in 2011, Brian’s business partners worried that the site’s posts were too brief and too infrequent to build an audience on the web, where clickbait was king. Eventually, Brian’s targeted approach paid off; users trusted his recommendations, he hired more writers, and traffic and revenue grew. In 2016, The Wirecutter was purchased for $30 million by the New York Times, where it was rebranded simply as Wirecutter.
See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
Get every episode summarized
Each time How I Built This with Guy Raz publishes, we email you a written briefing from the transcript — the topics, who appeared, and any specific claims, with the ad reads skipped.
Email me new episodesFree for 3 shows. No card needed.
No transcript yet
This episode has not been transcribed. Request it and it moves to the front of the queue.
More episodes
More from How I Built This with Guy Raz

Room & Board: John Gabbert. A Broken Deal, a Family Rift, and the Birth of a Fur...
How I Built This with Guy Raz

Advice Line with Jonah Peretti of Buzzfeed
How I Built This with Guy Raz

Beautycounter: Gregg Renfrew. She Built Beautycounter to $1B… Then Got Fired Fro...
How I Built This with Guy Raz

Advice Line with David Neeleman of JetBlue
How I Built This with Guy Raz