Can Puck’s CEO reinvent the news business for the influencer age?

Sarah Personette is the CEO of Puck, a media company that's been around for about five years. Puck hires big star reporters who write newsletters as part of a subscription bundle. Those newsletters are often must-reads in their industries, and those reporters get equity in Puck and a share of the company's revenue. It's a place where the financial incentives of the influencer economy crash right into the rigors of traditional journalism — and as regular Decoder listeners know, I have a lot of questions about how those two things work (or don't) in the modern media landscape. Read the full interview transcript on The Verge. Links: Puck buys Air Mail in deal valued at $16M | The Wrap The man yelling ‘iceberg’ on the Hollywood Titanic | New York Times Sarah Personette joins news startup Puck as CEO | Variety Are we past peak newsletter? | New York Times Two new newsletters bet they’ve got Hollywood covered | LA Times

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Can Puck’s CEO reinvent the news business for the influencer age? is an episode from Recode Decode, hosted by Kara Swisher by Vox Media Podcast Network.

This episode is 74:57 long.

This episode was published on Apr 13, 2026.

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