I'm going off the record (sort of)

A live episode, exclusively for/with paid subscribers.

August 13, 2008.

A week from today — Sunday, Jan. 4, 2026 — I’m gonna try something we’ve never done before.

The whole reason I started this show in 2023 was to embrace the thing that so many media outlets don’t get to enjoy anymore: actual creative independence.

Anyone who exists online knows how “creators” trade their most critical human advantage — editorial judgement — for What People Have Already Clicked On. Traditional media, meanwhile, keeps getting Hungry Hungry Hippo’d by governments and royal funds and billionaires and conglomerates that want to cripple journalism entirely.

So on the one hand: it is the right time, editorially, to be making something unapologetic and journalistic and new. (Shoutout to The Press Box for seeing the vision at the 38:22 mark of their year-end episode, by the way.)

But on the other hand: if we were to optimize for, uh, profit, PTFO would be extremely different. More predictable. Cheaper. Invested in LeBron’s legacy. Significantly less endangered by potential litigation. And less interesting.

All of which is why I’d like to start 2026 by doing something for the kind people who very generously decided to become Paid Subscribers to this newsletter.