Business Insider founder Henry Blodget launched a new publication on Wednesday, his first venture since stepping away from his former company last November.
His new venture, called Regenerator, debuted in a limited form on the newsletter platform Substack. Blodget will run the publisher as a solo operation at launch, with plans to add staff and eventually debut a freemium model.
“We’re for people who want to build a better future,” he wrote on LinkedIn. “We analyze the most important questions in innovation—tech, business, markets, policy, culture, and ideas.”
Blodget, who founded Business Insider in 2007, is regarded as one of the few digital media pioneers to enjoy a successful exit from the business. In 2015, he sold Business Insider to the German media conglomerate Axel Springer for around $442 million, and has been a thought leader in the space for nearly two decades.
With Regenerator, Blodget aims to provide a “rolling analysis” of broad, timely subjects, such as the trade war, stock market fluctuation, future of Google, and durability of the artificial intelligence hype cycle.
In his first story, Blodget compiled a list of insights he has collected from the trade wars initiated by President Trump.
The piece repeats the phrase “We’ve learned” to list a string of observations, such as, “We’ve learned that Pres Trump will meet retaliation with retaliation.” He then offers a suggestion for what Trump should do next, saying a postponement of all tariffs would lead to the best possible outcome.
The informal language and subjective style suggest that Regenerator will hew more closely to the style of a blog, rather than that of a more traditional news structure. Blodget originally launched Business Insider as an unpretentious alternative to standard business reporting, and his first entry to Regenerator would suggest he is repeating the formula.
Blodget joins Business Insider alumnus Nicholas Carlson, who served as its editor in chief for seven years, in launching a new venture after leaving the outlet.
Carlson left Business Insider last July, several months after the outlet published a story accusing the academic Neri Oxman of plagiarism.
The piece prompted an outcry from her husband, billionaire businessman Bill Ackman, which led Axel Springer to initiate a formal investigation of the reporting process. After review, the German ownership sided with Business Insider, but the scandal drew widespread attention across the media and financial sectors.