Jonah Peretti Didn't Come To Talk About Any Of It
The founder of The Huffington Post and BuzzFeed sent Nike a letter that changed the internet, built two media empires, and now has one more thing to conquer: gold in the 400m
Jonah Peretti didn’t come to talk about BuzzFeed. He didn’t come to talk about The Huffington Post, or the OG viral Nike letter he wrote in 2001 (look it up!) or the years he spent rewiring how information moves through culture. OK, well we talk about some of it. What he really came to talk about sprinting. Specifically the 400 meters. And when I asked him what running gives him that building things never could, he didn’t hesitate.
LISTEN HERE: Salt & Flickers Podcast Season 2, Episode 3: Jonah Peretti
“Work can be stressful. Running is the ultimate stress relief. It is a way to turn off my brain and feel like I’m flying.” - Jonah Peretti
From the man who essentially invented internet virality, hearing that from Jonah hits differently than it would from anyone else.
It was, he told me afterward, the first time he’d ever spoken publicly about his passion for sprinting. The first time. Think about that for a second. A person who has given thousands of interviews, who built two of the most influential media companies of the last twenty years, who sent a single email to Nike in 2001 that became a masterclass in culture jamming for the social media revolution and the thing he never talked about, in all this time, was training for and racing 400 meters. Until now.
Move over Nicholas Thompson . The line of media moguls just got longer. And considerably faster.
Also from Salt & Flickers:
our Adidas x Satisfy aka The Gathering of The Neck Tattoos that went far beyond our small Salt & Flickers world. Can’t use the word viral here because you know, see above, but it lit up our DMs with colorful words and comments :) Check it out and let me know what ya think, too.
If Run Brands Were Bands (Part 1), and yes, Satisfy comes up again because when you get in the pit and try to love someone, the jokes just write themselves.
Salt & Flickers Signals are being sent out in to the world. Start with Signal 1 and scoot around the Salt & Flickers posts to find the rest. The art is by the co-creator of Salt & Flickers, Eric Junker. Can’t wait to share more about where it’s all going.
xoxo,
Howie