What Does the New CEO of Medium Tony Stubblebine Want From You?

Here’s what Tony Stubblebine said in his various interviews, how you can succeed on Medium, and my analysis.

Tony Stubblebine is the new CEO of Medium.

He’s friendly and chatty, and I would love to shoot hoops with him — that’s my verdict after watching close to four hours of YouTube interviews of him.

In the interviews, he revealed what he wants and how writers — that’s you — can succeed on Medium going forward.

Here’s what he said — straight from the source — and my analysis.

Medium’s past (don’t skip this part, it’s important)

First, to get to the crux of what Medium is looking for, you have to look at its past. Evan Williams, the co-founder of Blogger and Twitter, founded Medium in 2012.

For the last decade, Williams has been fine-tuning Medium by experimenting with different strategies to see what works. In 2014, Williams said this about Medium to the New York Times:

“We want to create a system where the best ideas and stories reach their widest audience. Some of those are going to come from professionals, but it is better as a whole if it has very wide breadth of content. Right now, the Internet rewards speed and quantity, and we wanted to make a place where quality matters.”

Soon after his new role, Stubblebine was asked by Zulie Rayne, a popular Medium writer, to summarize Medium in one sentence, he said: “Best place for the best ideas and the best information.”

As you can see, both Stubblebine and Williams use the same lingo. In that aspect, the original values behind Medium haven’t changed. However, a decade after its birth, it’s becoming clear that Medium may have been an idealistic endeavor.

Medium was succeeding at the start of last year with around 700,000 paid subscriptions, according to the Platformer. It was projected to make more than $35 million in revenue from its subscription plan.

But it also showed that it was not high-quality journalism that was converting readers to subscribers.

It was “random” stories by independent writers who happened to perform well on search engines, similar to the “low-quality content farms of the late 2000s,” according to the Platformer.

My point is, Medium has tried almost everything to uphold high-quality content on its platform, but it’s not there yet. It wants to be.

Now it’s Stubblebine’s time to shine. I’m sure he doesn’t want to let his boss down or the writers, and especially not the subscribers who feed Medium.

With that in mind, let’s get to the meat of the matter — what does Stubblebine want and what can you do to succeed on Medium, going forward?

Subject-matter expertise & raising the bar

In all of the interviews, Stubblebine repeatedly talks about subject-matter expertise as a crucial ingredient for succeeding on Medium.

There are two types of people who may benefit from Medium —professionals and beginners, says Stubblebine in an interview with Sinem Günel, another popular writer on Medium.

Professionals: Say you’re a marriage counselor looking to drive traffic to your business. Outside of Medium, you counsel couples. Medium provides simple and free publishing tools to blog your knowledge to a broader audience than you would have on your own, thereby enhancing your reputation.

Beginners: Most beginners want to write on different subject matters, which is good, Stubblebine says, to get the “writing muscle flowing.” But once you pass a certain level, it’s good to have a niche. Actually, he says to write with a book in mind.

I’m a former journalist turned nicheless writer. I like it that way because I get to write about things that intrigue me. There are subjects I find myself writing about more frequently, e.g., social media, culture, and mental health, though. Perhaps those are my niche.

In any case, he told Zulie Rayne in an interview that:

“I don’t think you can write on all topics and readers don’t want to read necessarily the same author on all topics.”

No doubt, specialization is beneficial. Going deeper into a subject allows you to have credibility. But one of my favorite writers on Medium is nicheless. I read him because of the way he writes and he surprises me with his next subject. With 74K followers, he’s very popular on Medium.

So whether you need to have a niche or not, I’m not so sure. But there’s no doubt that Medium is heading that way. I just read an article about a writer contemplating how to narrow down his niche to fit Medium’s new criteria.

An owner of a publication commented on Stubblebine’s post asking whether as a therapist she’s well-equipped to lead her self-help Medium magazine. Stubblebine said she is.

It’s sad that these writers feel like they need to fit into a box — Medium’s box — to be of value to their readers. Is the future of Medium an advertising hub for courses, coaches, and entrepreneurs?

Medium should retain its origin — the cool kid on the digital writing block pioneering unique voices regardless of their status. Most of all, as writers we shouldn’t trade our unique voice for Medium.

Another phrase he uses often in the interviews is “raising the bar,” which is another way of saying it’s going to take more work to get curated (chosen for further distribution)

There is a treasure trove of talented writers on this platform and I read them religiously to boost my own writing. But there are those who quickly churn out listicles using AI to rank higher on Google’s algorithm — nothing wrong with that, but it makes Medium look like a cash grab.

Raising the bar also applies to curation. Recently Medium got rid of its curation tag, “Chosen for further distribution.” That was like a badge of honor validating that our articles were of high quality deserving of a wider distribution.

But curation was losing its effect. Too many articles were being curated. Stubblebine says in the future fewer articles will be selected for distribution, which means a higher reward if chosen. In this way, raising the bar will incentive writers to produce high-quality work.

For more clarity, I suggest you check out his publication Better Humans for an example of the type of writing that will receive more clout on Medium. Stubblebine said so himself that it will be the first publication on Medium to raise the bar on its writers.

He also encourages writers to submit to topic-focused publications on Medium. It can be used to gauge whether your article meets the high standard necessary to publish on Medium. That’s the first milestone you could shoot for.

Writers? No, Authors

Throughout the interview, Stubblebine uses the word “author” instead of “writer” to describe our profession.

This makes sense. Stubblebine is the co-founder of coach.me, a place to find and train coaches. He’s also the owner of the three biggest niche publications on Medium — Better Humans, Better Marketing, and Better Programming.

Thus, Stubblebine’s interest lies in those who write about personal growth, marketing, and programming — the types of writers who may publish books down the road.

It’s no wonder he doesn’t talk much about writers of other genres — personal essays, bloggers, fiction, and poems, which, by the way, happens to be #1 on Medium’s Top 10 most popular topics in 2022. He admits that he still has a lot to learn about the “other side.”

But he says writing from personal experience also counts as subject matter expertise because “by definition, you’re an expert in your own experience.” Do I hear a collective sigh of relief from the personal essayists and memoirists?

Whatever your style of writing, Stubblebine says there’s an incredible reward in specializing. Writers “should write with a book in mind” and should “think…about using that writing as a path to developing expertise, which then opens up consulting, speaking, book deals.”

My guess as to why Stubblebine is ultra-focused about writers turning into authors is because a credible name brings in more subscribers and thus money.

And it looks like Medium has already started implementing this.

This is a list of recommended writers on my Medium feed yesterday. Note how all of them mention a subject matter expertise, including author.

I’m not against titles. I just think it’s pretentious to assume that someone with a distinguished title or name makes them more worthy of our attention.

I happen to be the type of reader who gravitates toward quality writing that makes me think in new ways. Writers I can relate to are far more valuable than ones with an impressive degree or a published book.

One of my favorite writers is Jessica Wildfire, not because of her big following (121K), but because she’s a damn good writer who’s not afraid to rock the boat. She’s also a tenured professor with a Ph.D.

In one article she sums up what I mean:

“I don’t throw a ‘Ph.D.’ behind my pen name because I want readers to focus on my words…I could’ve gone to an Ivy League university. Instead, I stayed home to take care of my abusive, schizophrenic mom…I don’t just pump out “how to be a millionaire” or “how to think like a stoic” over and over again. I’m a writer.”

Wildfire doesn’t need to showcase her subject matter expertise or a title next to her name. Her writing speaks for itself.

Self-regulating system

It’s well-known that Medium’s algorithm is a mystery.

In 2020, Zulie Rayne wrote this on her blog:

It’s no secret that Medium habitually changes its all-mysterious algorithm. They tweak how they recommend stories to your followers, how they decide to curate stories, and where your views come from. It’s hard to guess what they’ll change next, and it means it’s hard to predict how successful (or unsuccessful) you’ll be.

So what I’m about to say next is in full disclosure that I have no idea how Medium’s algorithm works. How Medium catches trolls and expels them is a mystery. I also wonder how Medium distinguishes writers who are worthy of their platform and those who aren’t.

But let’s say in an ideal world, Medium manages to flush out low-quality articles and promote high-quality ones. Will they promote experts more than nicheless writers? But if the writers choose to stay nicheless and attract a lot of followers, what’s the harm in that?

It’s not hurting anyone, including Medium. Besides, the ball’s in the reader’s court.

Medium, like TikTok or Facebook, is a self-regulating system (right?). If certain writers are well-read and receive plenty of positive feedback through claps or other means, the algorithm should reward that with wider exposure and distribution.

Writers who “don’t raise the bar” would be filtered out automatically since the community as a whole would implicitly tell the algorithm not to consider such writing any further.

As a reader, I can follow and unfollow; subscribe and unsubscribe a writer at my will. I’m in charge of my feed. Just like other social media giants, Medium’s algorithm will probably never have the capacity to completely flush out all “fake” writers, but the system is made so I’m in charge of what I see on my feed (right?).

At least that’s my assumption.

Like I said, Medium is quite secretive about how its algorithm works.

My prediction is that in a few years, Medium will be overcrowded with experts who use the platform for advertising their business to increase their reputation and make money — exactly what Stubblebine said he wants for Medium.

But how’s that sustainable when Medium’s celebrated heroes are part-timers who make a big chunk of their money elsewhere? Aren’t loyal writers who primarily use Medium to publish worth more?

In conclusion

Let me end with a quote by Stubblebine that encompasses it all as a takeaway of sorts. The biggest change we can expect is this:

“Doubling down on the publishing tools and doubling down on the quality of the subscription — those two things are the pillar of our company.”

Stubblebine acknowledges that there’s a lot more Medium can do in terms of fixing bugs and improving its publishing tools for writers.

On the quality front, as writers, we can make sure our work is well-researched and written in the highest caliber possible. If you’re not sure, the best way is to send your article to a niche publication.

Better Humans is a good one since Stubblebine mentioned it’ll be the first publication to raise the bar for writers. Or submit to my publication, The Point of View. We’re picky too, but spend a big chunk of our time helping writers polish their articles.

And for now, it’s safe to say that writing from experience also qualifies as subject matter expertise, so personal essayists and memoirists, rejoice! Verdict’s still out on fiction writers and poets. But, there’s a place for everyone on Medium as Stubblebine said when he announced his new position:

We’ve never taken our focus away from our core beliefs: That people from everywhere and from all kinds of circumstances have valuable perspectives to share and are capable of doing so in thoughtful, articulate ways. And, also, that the world is better if they do so. ~ July 12, 2022

Amen.