Salon CEO: A bad boy dreams
Fed up with the semi-small-time world of San Francisco print media, especially in the wake of an ugly strike at his then-employer, the San Francisco Examiner, Talbot four years ago dared to dream the impossible dream of starting his own publication.
The Web gave him his original launch pad, and with partner and co-founder Gary Kamiya, he set out toward a goal that only hubris could fuel: He wanted to create a New Yorker-quality publication online.
The result was Salon Magazine, a savvy online publication that has won a slew of Web awards, including "Best Web Site" from Time magazine. To the unending ire of competitors at online publications such as Slate, it is often compared to the New Yorker, that holy grail of publishing to which Talbot aspired.
Not bad for a "onetime far-out free-love dude and socialist agitator," as Wired Magazine called Talbot in a profile earlier this year. And not bad for a guy whom much of America's mainstream media loved to hate for most of 1998.
The anti-Salon bile began when Talbot positioned Salon as the lone Clinton defender during Monicagate. It reached a fever pitch after Talbot published a particularly controversial story about Republican Congressman Henry Hyde's 30-year-old extramarital affair.
The new bad boy
Talbot's decision to run the Hyde piece, which had been rejected by almost every major news organization in the country, may have been questionable in terms of journalistic integrity. As a business decision, however, it was brilliant. Salon's traffic shot through the roof and Talbot became a sudden poster boy for nervy, online journalism. Wired, Vanity Fair and Brill's Content all weighed in on America's new national bad boy.
Talbot couldn't have been more pleased by his newfound national rep. For months after the Hyde controversy, he delighted in slamming the "east Coast media elite."
As for what some have dubbed his sensationalistic sensibility, Talbot is unfazed. "It's not a cynical show business ploy on my part to include sex on the site," he told Wired. "I do it because I care about it."
With the launch of today's IPO, Talbot is testing the viability of yet another impossible dream: The capitalization of a content-driven business model. And even though today's IPO fell below opening price, Talbot is still sitting pretty. The stock opened at $10.50, and closed at $10. But even at $10 a share, the company, which netted $3 million in revenue last year, has a valuation of $107 million.
With valuations like that, Talbot and his wife, Camille Peri, editor of "Mothers Who Think," a popular section of Salon, are no doubt still dreaming about what happens "if Salon ever becomes wildly successful and we cash in."