Podcast pioneer Jesse Thorn built his own business. Now his employees own it.

Jesse Thorn has been podcasting for so long it was called radio. Over time he turned his career into a business - Maximum Fun, a network of eclectic pop culture shows like Bullseye; My Brother, My Brother and Me; and Judge John Hodgman — and relied primarily on listener donations to fund it.

But, as Thorn tells Vox’s Peter Kafka, running a business was running him down, and he didn’t want to sell the company to a Spotify or Sirius.

So he found a unique solution: He turned Maximum Fun into a worker-owned co-op. That means Thorn still owns a piece of the company he built over two decades, but so do his former employees, who are now his co-workers. And he thinks other media companies can and should do this, too.

Featuring: Jesse Thorn (@JesseThorn), Founder of Maximum Fun

Host: Peter Kafka (@pkafka), Senior Editor at Recode

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