Liz Hoffman: Anecdotes and Insights on Her Journey from The Wall Street Journal to the Global News Start-Up Semafor

Press Profiles: What's their story?

Liz Hoffman established herself as a leading reporter during nine years at The Wall Street Journal. Now, she is ready for her next adventure joining the global news start up Semafor where she will lead their business and finance coverage. On this episode of Press Profiles we cover the dark art of M&A reporting, all things Goldman Sachs, dressing up as a Hershey’s character, the Cape Cod Baseball League, how Semafor plans to differentiate itself in the media landscape and of course, a whole lot more…

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Russell Sherman

Welcome back everybody to Press Profiles where we sit down with the top reporters, anchors, editors in business news and, quote unquote, turn the tables. These are the people used to asking the questions, and today they are answering them. Liz Hoffman has been a fixture at the Wall Street Journal for about nine years. She joined to work on the M&A beat and quickly established herself there breaking news about some of the biggest deals out there. Then she went on to cover the banking industry, in particular Goldman Sachs, where she reported on nearly everything happening at the venerable investment bank, even when they changed the type of coffee or something that they served, she was probably covering it. Is that an exaggeration?

Liz Hoffman

Yes, that was quite the scandal. I've been to Goldman probably like 100 times and I don't think I've ever been offered a cup of coffee, I have to say.

Russell Sherman

So, we will talk about her reporting at Goldman Sachs, and now she is ready for her next challenge. She's making the jump to Semafor, which is a new global media startup. We'll talk about what prompted that decision, we'll talk about what they're hoping to accomplish there, we’ll also dive into the archives at the Wall Street Journal to discuss some of her favorite stories, her roots in Pennsylvania, what it was like to cover the Cape Cod baseball league. All that plus a whole lot more, here now is Liz Hoffman on Press Profiles.

Russell Sherman

Liz.

Liz Hoffman

Hey, Russell.

Russell Sherman?

Good to see you.

Liz Hoffman

Good to see you. We're doing this in person…

Russell Sherman?

In person!

Liz Hoffman

Thrilling.

Russell Sherman

Love in-person interviews. So many questions – let's start though with the Wall Street Journal.

Liz Hoffman

Sure.

Russell Sherman?

You joined in 2013, you had spent about two years at Law 360. You join the deals team at the Wall Street Journal covering mergers and acquisitions and your job there is to break news. Figure out what deals are about to happen and report on them, get the inside scoop, be the first one out of the gate. I would think as a young journalist, that's a little bit of a difficult assignment to be thrust into.

Liz Hoffman

I think it helped that I didn't really know what it was. You know, the M&A team at the Journal is kind of the tip of the spear over there, and I sort of fell sideways into it. Jamie Heller was the M&A editor at the time, and she was a lawyer herself and so had like some affection for the kind of, kind of wonky technical corporate law stuff I'd been doing at Law 360, and give me just huge break, put me on the team.

Russell Sherman

How helpful was it to have that Law 360 sort of background?

Liz Hoffman

It was super helpful. I mean, in general I think trade publications are great places to start. They're really good proving grounds for reporters. It's like a weird thing, because your readers and your subjects and your sources are all the same, and so you actually really need to know what you're talking about. That's obviously different at the Journal, which has a much more general audience, and I found early on, there were things that were just a little too wonky for the journal. But it was a great team, I learned the dark art of reporting from sitting next to Dana Cimilluca all those years.

Russell Sherman

Take us inside. Give us some view into the dark art of reporting.

Liz Hoffman

You know, it's funny thing, like, there's no one way to do it, everyone does it a little bit differently. I think you kind of have to work with, you have to do what works for you, and everyone's got a different shtick. But I think, especially M&A, where it’s so high stakes, and it's, it's not like parking garages, but it's like it sounds kind of close to that sometimes, and it was just it was a hugely valuable learning experience.

Russell Sherman

What do you mean by parking garages?

Liz Hoffman?

At like the end of the day, someone's telling you something they shouldn't. Right? Probably.

Russell Sherman

It’s that scene = in All the President's Men when they're like in the corner of the parking garage.

Liz Hoffman?

Yeah, exactly, that’s why we all went into this.

Russell Sherman

Got it. Got it. Okay.

Liz Hoffman?

No, M&A is funny because it's like most stories are basically one fact, but that fact is really hard to get, and you really have to get it right. It's a unique kind of reporting, I think

Russell Sherman

Sometimes I think reporters employ the two truths and a lie. They you know, they're working the sources, and they can throw three things out of them. Well, at least one of them they know is not true, but if they can get them to say no on that one, though, they'll know the other two are correct.

Liz Hoffman

I would never bluff.

Russell Sherman

How do you, when you move into a role like that, how do you start to establish sources? Maybe you brought some over with you, but I would think it's, uh, it's a game about really developing sources. It's interesting, we had David Faber on, on Press Profiles recently, also a tufts graduate….

Liz Hoffman

Yes – go Jumbos.

Russell Sherman

We have a string of Tufts grads on the show. He talked about just establishing relationships over a long period of time and sometimes even sitting on stories so that he didn't burn a relationship. Is that some of the same things that you've done over your years?

Liz Hoffman

Yeah, at the end of the day, people have plenty of reasons to talk to reporters, but they have to trust them, and you build that over time. Yeah, I think sometimes it's a valuable, it's an iterative experience, right? It's valuable to have someone tell you something and then not see it in the paper, and then they sort of understand, but I think it's really just important to be really transparent and clear about what ground rules you have when you're talking to someone and kind of what the goal of a conversation is, but yeah, this stuff is all built over time.

Russell Sherman

I know the Wall Street Journal has a policy: no surprise journalism.

Liz Hoffman

No surprises.

Russell Sherman

I would assume that's helpful from a reporter standpoint, in the sense that you are going to lay it all out there, you don't really have a choice, it's not a gray area, it's pretty black and white.

Liz Hoffman

It's really helpful. There are times that it's sort of like painful because you really have to go point by point. I mean, you sleep so much better at night before a story goes out, because you know that everyone has had a chance to weigh in whether they wanted to or not, and sources really appreciate it, because, you know, the worst thing that can happen is if you open the newspaper, and there's something about you that you didn't know was coming. And so, we – the Journal, I say we – no surprises, that's the rule.

Russell Sherman

You'll break that habit eventually.

Liz Hoffman

I guess I'll have to.

Russell Sherman

But it can be difficult, in terms of no surprises, reading to a source, or to someone who's going to be mentioned in a story, maybe something that's not so positive about them.

Liz Hoffman

Yeah, but I find that if you do it, you know, with no malice, no spite, we're just trying to get it right, people appreciate the opportunity to, to at least weigh in.

Russell Sherman

As you join the deals team and you're trying to build sources, where are the best sources coming from? Are they – generally speaking – lawyers, bankers, public relations executives?

Liz Hoffman

I'm absolutely not going to answer this question, Russell!

Russell Sherman

He says, knowing that they're not public relations executive. But is it just a mix? I guess there's so many different components of a deal, lots of people that are involved in a particular transaction. Is it just trying to get your arms around the ecosystem?

Liz Hoffman

Yeah, I think that's right. And what I always tell people when they get sort of nervous, they say the circle is always wider than you think it is, everyone tells someone, and so you know, sources will say you can't print this only five people in the world know, and I say, that's just not true, like double it at least. So yeah, I think M&A is kind of a weird ecosystem, and it's all repeat players, and so you get to trust them, and they get to trust you, and people have lots of different reasons for talking to reporters. But, at the end of the day, I think as long as you know what their motivations are, and you trust that what they're telling you is right, then you press a button, and that's when it gets fun.

Russell Sherman

Do you remember the first deal you broke? First one, you were really, or at least the one that you were particularly proud of early on?

Liz Hoffman

A big one now seems like a million years ago – Dell bought EMC. It's like three iterations ago, I think at the time was the biggest tech deal of all time, and that was, that was fun.

Russell Sherman

You've done a number of them over the years: Aetna and Humana, Burger King and Tim Hortons…

Liz Hoffman?

Actually, Burger King was a really fun one.

Russell Sherman

Hamburgers and doughnuts, that’s a pretty good combination.

Liz Hoffman

That was really fun, and it was also, if you remember, in the middle of like those tax dodgy deals where people were reincorporating in Ireland…

Russell Sherman

That’s right…

Liz Hoffman?

…and they were reincorporating in Canada, and um yeah, that was really fun. Household names are always fun.

Russell Sherman

But that's right, I recall that, that became a poster child for a little bit of a tax, tax manipulation type deal.

Liz Hoffman

Yeah, no, that was, that was controversial. I mean, it seems like eight scandals ago, but yeah, that was a fun one.

Russell Sherman

You grew up in Pennsylvania.

Liz Hoffman?

Hershey.

Russell Sherman?

Hershey – another one that you covered.

Liz Hoffman?

Yeah, it was a hostile takeover attempt of Hershey. Sort of like going after the – an icon.

Liz Hoffman?

It was funny, that was my last M&A scoop. I was, I think I joined the banking team the next week. We'd been chasing that for a while. My recollection is actually that we nailed it at like 10 o'clock in the morning in the middle of day or something, and I remember Faber was on – former podcast guest of yours – was on and the thing about television is if he has a tip he'll just like say it oud loud, and I remember like some breaking news chyron came on and Dana Mattioli and Dayna Cimilluca and I were all just like utterly terrified that it was just gonna slip through our fingers. But that was really fun, and it was, you know, most reporters don't like rely on hometown roots to write stories, but Hershey was a weird company. It's a company town, it's controlled by this trust, like there was just a lot. That was really fun. I knew that deal was never going to happen. Hershey was never gonna sell.

Russell Sherman?

Who was going after them? I forget.

Liz Hoffman?

Mondelez.

Russell Sherman?

And so, you grew up how far from the Hershey factory?

Liz Hoffman?

Oh, like a mile maybe.

Russell Sherman

Really?

Liz Hoffman?

Yeah. It really does smell like chocolate.

Russell Sherman?

I'm jealous.

Liz Hoffman

I think I've lost my sweet tooth.

Russell Sherman?

But do you feel, in a story like that, do you feel a little, I mean, they're going to have to your hometown icon, which feels a little bit, I know it's never personal, but that at least it makes it more interesting from that perspective.

Liz Hoffman?

There's a line in the story about you know, the streetlights in Hershey are topped with Hershey Kisses, like this is, the company is the town. It was, that deal was never going to happen, and that was a little fun. I think, if I remember right, we were having trouble getting someone at Hershey to like acknowledge that we were doing this and I called from my personal cell phone, which is a 717 number, and I don't know if I just like caught someone at the right moment, but it's my recollection that they picked up because it was a local number.

Russell Sherman?

Did you know people that work there over the years?

Liz Hoffman?

I don't think so. I mean, I worked at I worked for Hershey Entertainment. It was my first job. I put on one of the big chocolate suits and would take pictures with tourists. Terrible job.

Russell Sherman?

That's awesome. Their version of the Disney characters.

Liz Hoffman?

Yes – miserable job.

Russell Sherman?

Pretty cool though. Lots of chocolate, I'm sure.

Liz Hoffman

It’s a fun story, people like it.

Russell Sherman

So eventually they move you from the M&A beat to cover the banking industry. Was that essentially just Goldman Sachs plus, given that how much news Goldman seemed to make?

Liz Hoffman?

It was Goldman and Morgan Stanley, you know, the sort of two legacy investment banks, neither of them are still investment banks. They're all big banks...

Russell Sherman

Bear Stearns…

Liz Hoffman

Bear Stearns, RIP…

Russell Sherman

RIP.

Liz Hoffman

My condolences. I mean, yeah, I ended up in part because of, Goldman’s a fascinating place, I also caught it at a really interesting time. You know, I think for probably the four or five years before I started covering them in 2016, it was kind of boring, I think, right? Like Wall Street was kind of limping out of the crisis, and it just didn't feel, it wasn't a lot to grab onto, but I got, I think the third story I wrote at Goldman was that Gary Cohn had sort of tired of life as like the Prince Charles of the place, and was, was thinking about leaving and then succession kicked off very quickly, and they were also in the midst of this big push on to Main Street, which is just like Goldman Sachs comes to Main Street with hilarious consequences, just like a great story to cover for five years.

Russell Sherman?

I made a joke about covering everything and anything at Goldman Sachs, even the small stuff. So the biggest story you covered there, I assume was David Solomon's ascension, when Lloyd stepped down.

Liz Hoffman?

Every beat when you come into it has like one story that if you do not break it, your life will be very unpleasant. And, I think Lloyd had been in the seat about 10 years when I started, and it’s funny, I went back and read that story the other day in anticipation of this, and it's like remarkably thin, but it was a big deal at the time. I think we said he was gonna retire by the end of the year and I think he left in October of 2018-19, it all blurs.. But yeah, that was fun. And I mean, Goldman’s such like a hilariously political place that, you know, the machinations of that were really, were really fun to cover.

Russell Sherman?

You report that he's going to step down, and then I would assume the race is on to figure out who's going to replace him and breaking that story as well.

Liz Hoffman?

That's right. As I recall, well, what happened was, so David Solomon became the CEO and Harvey Schwartz had been co-presidents for a year or two. And well the way that story got broken is no one broke it – Harvey left. And so at that point, it was pretty clear, it was gonna be David, and then it's all a little bit of a waiting game. Look, anytime you can catch a big iconic company in the middle of like, something like that, like that's a live wire, and if you can grab on to it, it's great, great fun.

Russell Sherman?

I would think it's a little bit similar to the trying to break M&A deals. Obviously, there's people in the know, that you're speaking to, or trying to speak to, and convincing them or at least, trying to get as many people as possible to share with you the what's happening.

Liz Hoffman?

Yeah, succession is tricky because companies hold that so tight, it's such a narrative that they're trying to control. But in the end, it was a pretty clean story. You know, I think that the handing of the baton from Lloyd to David was, and actually continues to be, he's now in year three or four and has really shaken up the place. It's just great yarn.

Russell Sherman?

Well, there's internal dynamic, it's palace intrigue…

Liz Hoffman?

The Kremlinology of Goldman Sachs is wild, and it continues to be like of huge interest. You know, one thing on that beat, because you can put Goldman Sachs in a headline about anything and the Journal will run it, and people will read it, and I tried to be not protective of them, but protective of like the beat itself. And to say, if this were a story about Delta Airlines, would we run it? If the answer was no, it didn't mean we didn't, we always didn't run it, but I tried to be thoughtful about that, because you can, even places fantastic and journalistic integrity as the Journal you can, like there is a click-bait element to Goldman Sachs that will just always be there.

Russell Sherman?

So you didn't report when they changed the type of coffee or some others, or some other minutia within the inner workings?

Liz Hoffman

I don't think so. I feel like there was one point where I had heard that they bought a couple of private jets that didn't seem, Bank of America owns like a bunch of planes, and no one cares. So that was one we passed on. You know, I think as a reporter or beat reporter particular, you don't necessarily want to be liked, but you want to be respected. Actually, you probably don't want to be liked. But I think it was important to me for them to know that when I landed a punch that I thought it was deserved and fair and wasn't just for sport.

Russell Sherman?

You went to Tufts, as we mentioned, then Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern. Always wanted to be a reporter?

Liz Hoffman?

No, I became a reporter by accident. When I got to Tufts, my brother was two years ahead of me there and he was the sports editor of the paper, which at the time, I don't know if it's still true, Tufts was the smallest school in the country with a daily. And so, he was running the sports department and they needed someone to cover women's field hockey, which I played in high school, and so that's, I joined the paper, and, you know, I think by my junior year, I realized that liked that more than anything else I was doing at college and tried to get a job at a newspaper. I graduated in 2008, like got rejected everywhere, no one was hiring. I still have my rejection letter from the New York Times. And so, I was like, oh, I'll just go to grad school for a year, surely everything will be better in 2009. That's why I went to Northwestern, and spoiler alert, things were terrible in 2009 too.

Russell Sherman?

Still not much better…

Liz Hoffman

No.

Russell Sherman

You're based in Boston at Tufts. Is that how you find your way to the Cape Cod baseball league?

Liz Hoffman?

That was like still to date Probably the best job I ever had. That was really fun. Yeah, I had a summer, I think it was a summer between my sophomore and junior year, and I was a sports reporter and wanted to do that, that's why I thought I wanted to do. Yeah, it was great fun. Spent the weekends on the Cape and somewhere in my phone I think there's still like names and numbers of people who are now in the majors.

Russell Sherman?

Yeah, I was gonna say…

Liz Hoffman

Really, it's the wood bat League, so it's like a real proving ground.

Russell Sherman?

One of the top amateur leagues out there and obviously a meaningful part of any Cape Cod summer.

Liz Hoffman

It was great.

Russell Sherman

Remember any future major leaguers that you followed over there?

Liz Hoffman?

It might have been Ryan Howard that summer. I’m trying to remember, it’d be 2006. That was before his rookie year, might have been him. But I covered teams in Wareham and born the Bourne. The Bounr Braves and the Wareham something. It was really fun.

Russell Sherman

So you decided not to go into sports full time, though?

Liz Hoffman?

I guess not. I mean, I took, after grad school, I took the first job I was offered, which was at a family owned media company in Chicago that owned a couple of weekly newspapers and a monthly parenting magazine, Chicago Parent, was my first job. I was 22, I had no kids, somehow was like in charge of their website or something very weird. And then, I wanted to come back east and Law 360 was tiring, so I think I interviewed there and maybe Bloomberg, and they offered me a job, and again, like talk about lucky breaks, I think I was hired to cover something terrible, securities litigation or insurance regulators, just something awful, and then my first day they said, well, they had mostly been a litigation newswire covering lawsuits, and they said, well, we actually we want to build out a corporate law vertical. Do you want to cover M&A? And I was like, I don’t know what that is, but sure. And so yeah, it was just a hugely lucky break, because it got me eventually on the radar of the Journal.

Russell Sherman?

Someday, maybe you'll be back, covering sports. Full Circle.

Liz Hoffman?

Honestly M&A is a little bit like sports…

Russell Sherman

It is, it is.

Liz Hoffman?

There’s like two teams on the field, there’s like, here's what's gonna happen, the dynamics are kind of similar.

Russell Sherman?

I remember when I was a reporter, and I started covering politics they said, you're the sports guy, what do you know about politics? And I said, I think they're actually pretty similar.

Liz Hoffman

Blood sport – yes…

Russell Sherman

Let's talk about Semafor. It's being started by Justin Smith and Ben Smith.

Liz Hoffman

No relation.

Russell Sherman

No relation. Two prominent journalists – one at Bloomberg, the other at The New York Times. They've built a global news organization that they're looking to form that they said it would like to tackle the lack of trust in media, and compete for English language readers against outlets like CNN, The Times, The Washington Post, etc. Talk to us about the mission there – what – it's a very crowded space, the media landscape, where do you think the opportunity exists?

Liz Hoffman?

And I should say, like, I have a lot of respect for legacy media. I really, I love the Journal. I didn't leave the journal so much as I joined this new thing, came along and seemed really interesting. I do think there is some eroding trust in institutions of all kinds, which we see in some really toxic ways in politics, but certainly in media. You know, one thing that Ben and Justin are kicking around, have some interesting ideas on, is sort of trying to deconstruct a story a little bit: here's the scoop, here's what I think about it, here's what someone who's smart and disagrees with me thinks about it. I mean to try to be a little more transparent about the building blocks of a story, which I think readers like kind of deconstruct in their own head anyway when they read, you know, an article, I think there's like some opportunities, just be a little voicey-er and experiment with different kinds of content.

Russell Sherman?

I would assume this is a tough decision. You're at one of the most established news organizations out there, you're making the leap and doing something. So, it’s taking a little bit of a chance, obviously, going to a startup.

Liz Hoffman?

Look, it was a hard decision, I really love the journal and I had such an incredible time there – nine years, best journalist in the world, I really think so. This just sounded like fun and I think there's a window professionally where like, you can bet on yourself, but also, the downside is pretty limited. You know, if it doesn't work, life is long, and I believe really strongly in what Ben and Justin are doing, and I'm really excited.

Russell Sherman?

You’re Business and Finance editor, one of their first significant hires, it's a wonderful opportunity. What do you hope to accomplish there as you build out their business and finance coverage?

Liz Hoffman?

Yeah, it's a really big remit. I mean, business and finance, the Wall Street Journal has a couple hundred or more, so I think it's an opportunity to be a little more selective and authoritative and pick your spots. You know, as a reporter, I’ve always just kind of lived off the land, which is you meet people, you talk to them, and when someone says something interesting, then that's what you do, which I think sometimes is a little bit in conflict with more traditional beat reporting, where there's four walls of your beat, and if something happens on it, you have to write it. So, that sounds fun to me. I think it's a really weird moment for the economy right now, business and coming out of a pandemic is a mess, return to work as a mess, a lot of these like culture wars are coming squarely, I think to business and as a business reporter, I don't generally have a lot of sympathy for CEOs, but I actually think their job is quite hard now, and getting a lot harder. So yeah, I think that'll all be fun to cover.

Russell Sherman

And you'll build a team?

Liz Hoffman

Build a small team; they're hoping to launch with 20 to 30 journalists in the Fall, in October. Yeah, we're in the process of recruiting now. If you're interested, come find me.

Russell Sherman

Should we assume it's going to be similar to just a, it will have all the all the different categories and of news and other aspects that we're used to from traditional media outlets?

Liz Hoffman

Yeah, starting, I think, so I'm going to do business and finance, hired a great journalist Reed Albergotti to cover tech, climate is another area of interest, politics, Ben Smith, of course, on the media beat is going to continue to do that, hopefully resurrecting his appointment reading column from the New York Times. So yeah, I think, you know, trying to find places where we can really go deep and where someone can kind of be the axe on that topic, and I mean at the end of the day, if like your sources aren't reading you like, the goal is to have a product that everyone has to read, and that's really hard to do so that's what we're spending the summer on.

Russell Sherman

Here's your pitch. Go ahead, and you know, you can…

Liz Hoffman

Yes, please like, first of all sign up…but no, look, I think there's a certain kind of story that people are always going to want to see in the Wall Street Journal, and I knew leaving that that's a call I won't get and that seems okay to me. But I do think there's opportunities to just be a little nimbler, a little, a little more innovative, a little more thoughtful, and these are all very terrible, buzzy words. Hopefully, I'm walking the party line here. I guess we’ll find out.

Russell Sherman

According to the Bens, they also want to sort of connect the journalists to the readers a little bit more than maybe at some traditional media outlets. They talked about making sure the byline name is as big as the…

Liz Hoffman

I saw a mockup for the article, the byline is very big.

Russell Sherman

…than the rest of the copy. What do they mean by that and what do you think is the advantage if they're able to accomplish that?

Liz Hoffman

I do think they're tapping into something interesting, which is to go back to what we were saying earlier, people have less trust and affinity for institutions and brands, and I think are a little more discerning when it comes to whatever they're consuming. And look, the Wall Street Journal has this incredible brand, and it's 130 years old, and so that's a real powerful draw. Ben and Justin, you know, don't have a brand, they're brand new, and so I think they really need to, they're really trying to lead with reporters, and that's, I think, a really interesting idea right now, because we're all on Twitter, right? We're all like, you can follow me in a bunch of different ways, and whether I'm writing a story at the Wall Street Journal or at Semafor, or at Ben was at Politico, and then BuzzFeed and the New York Times, you know, I think people are pretty discerning about who they're getting their information from.

Russell Sherman

Yes, I mean, I think they make that connection, developing the relationship between you, you know, Liz Hoffman and her readers, and really having that connection, as you said, it happens on Twitter and happens in other places, but this is more of a mainstream media outlet where you can feel a real connection.

Liz Hoffman

Yeah, I mean, that's the idea, to really get as close to readers as possible and be more transparent about what it is that we're giving them.

Russell Sherman

Before we get to our quick hits, I want to ask you about your book coming out, which is kind of cool. Crash Landing: The inside story of how the world's biggest companies survived an economy on the brink.

Liz Hoffman?

Yes, I just got edits back this week. If my editor is listening, I am going through them, I promise. Yeah, it came out of a story that we did, it published, I think, the first weekend of April 2020. It's like a 9000-word story about, and we followed, I think, 20 CEOs, like through the month of March that that was really, you know, the most defining and pivotable pivotal stretch for big companies, and it came out of that. And I said, I don't know, I've never like, some people always really want to write books. I was never really one of those people, but it just felt like a moment that should be captured, and it was a little bit of like, well, if not me who, right? Why not? And, so yeah, it's coming out next March, the three year anniversary, from Crown Publishing, and it's, it's been a slightly soul sucking experience, but have me back when it's out.

Russell Sherman

What are some of your favorite anecdotes that are in there?

Liz Hoffman

Oh, boy. You know, it's funny when you talk to people, because it's amazing how fast stuff moved. It was slow, and then all at once, and so I, like the first 150 pages cover like, like a week and a half. It's really tight. You know, the airline bailout was fascinating how that came together, and so that's, I spend a lot of time on that in the book. You know, financial markets were really weird. They utterly crashed, and then six months later, were at all-time highs, and so there's some fun yards on some investors who called that right. But it's funny when we started, I think like the subhead that we were kicking around was something like failure and fortune in the pandemic economy or something. And then like, last fall, I was talking to my editor, and I said, you know, not as much failure as I thought, we rethought it a little bit, but yeah, I'm honestly shocked that things turned out as well as they did. But yeah, here we are in inflation and supply chains, I mean, it's all it's just like fascinating economic story.

Russell Sherman

Excellent. We look forward to reading that. That didn't come out of A-hed story, that was just a regular story?

Liz Hoffman

No. It was like a 9000-word story that I think was the entire business section on the first Saturday of April,

Russell Sherman

Your favorite A-hed story. Do you have one?

Liz Hoffman

I was actually not a huge A-hed writer. I did a fun one on A&A codenames, which was great. Just like as a side note, reporters love codenames. Like we will always put it in a story, it's sort of catnip. I had a fun one once about the buildings in New York but the lights on the top. There was like a secret app that you could control the color of the lights and it was like the hottest ticket in New York for a while – that was fun. I actually, I love the A-hed and it's a unique thing with the journal does that's just so great.

Russell Sherman

Again, the A-hed is the front page column in the Wall Street Journal that's a little fun and irreverent and takes a little lighter…

Liz Hoffman

That’s where we let our hair down a little bit.

Russell Sherman

Alright, let's do some finish it off with some quick hits.

Liz Hoffman?

Oh boy.

Russell Sherman?

Can we do that?

Liz Hoffman?

Yeah.

Russell Sherman?

Favorite sport or sports team?

Liz Hoffman

Phillies. It's been a rough stretch.

Russell Sherman

Hence the earlier Ryan Howard reference. How about favorite musician?

Liz Hoffman

Oh God, I don't know. I'm like a real Beatles fan. I'm like very boring and like traditional, I love the Beatles.

Russell Sherman

Phillies and the Beatles. Favorite movie?

Liz Hoffman

Oh, Shawshank Redemption, though actually I just saw the new Top Gun and it is superb.

Russell Sherman

It’s excellent.

Liz Hoffman

Yeah.

Russell Sherman

They did a good job. What’s streaming in your home these days?

Liz Hoffman

I've been on a real like grifter tech founder kick. There have been like, so the We Work one was terrific, the Theranos one is great.

Both

Uber.

Liz Hoffman?

Yeah, so I'm really enjoying those, right into my veins, love that stuff.

Russell Sherman

Other people's pain.

Liz Hoffman?

Yeah. Hopefully one day I will stumble on a store is good as any of those.

Russell Sherman

Is there a dream job out there for you?

Liz Hoffman

Honestly, I think I had it when I was at the Journal and now I think I have it now. I mean, I'm doing what I want to do, which is really fun and a real privilege.

Russell Sherman

Can’t do better than that. Sports, music, literature, art. Where are you spending your free time? I hear you like to play the guitar.

Liz Hoffman

Who told you that? I do play the guitar. Not that well. And actually, I feel like during the pandemic, everyone's like, oh I really thought I would like learn Italian or like pick up the piano and we didn't do any of those things. I read a lot – mostly nonfiction, I’m like a huge history nerd.

Russell Sherman

Favorite Beatles song on the guitar?

Liz Hoffman

Well, Blackbird is a good one. It was one I learned to play early on the guitar. But yeah, favorite Beatle song is definitely Eleanor Rigby. It’s a classic.

Russell Sherman

Besides the Journal, where are you getting your news these days?

Liz Hoffman

Like really boring places: I read The Times, I read The Washington Post…

Russell Sherman

Before Semafor launches.

Liz Hoffman?

I just subscribed to the Wall Street Journal. Yes, exactly. No, I just became a subscriber to the Journal the other day, it's very expensive but worth every penny. So I read, you know, the big newspapers, have a couple of sub stacks that I really like, read Matt Levine religiously as I'm sure everyone in business does, I get a lot of my news from Twitter.

Russell Sherman

Wall Street Journal is not giving you a discount, huh?

Liz Hoffman?

No, full freight, worth every penny thought, worth every penny.

Russell Sherman

Out of sight out of mind. Favorite story you ever wrote If you had to look back?

Liz Hoffman

I had… during the.. you mentioned Aetna Humana there were these health insurance M&A wars for a minute, like everyone was trying to buy everybody else. I think none of them actually ended up going through, but Anthem had gone after Cigna and they had eventually, it was a hostile deal, but they eventually kind of signed a deal, but Cigna like really didn't want to do it. Anyway, they, there were these like, behind the scenes letters that were being thrown back and forth between the two companies that were just like, they started at the chairman level very, like, gentlemanly, and courtly, and then just evolved from there, and it was just it was just one of those great like, this thing is a complete disaster stories. That was really fun. Uh, what else did I do? I wrote a story last year about Colin Kaepernick’s SPAC that I really enjoyed, that was sort of about celebrity and the financial value of that. That that was really fun. I went to Salt Lake City when Goldman was launching their consumer business, they had this big call center out there, like literally on Main Street in Salt Lake City and that was really fun. It was this first big look at what they were up to in consumer banking, which was…

Russell Sherman

Is there an interview out there that you would love to get but haven’t gotten? Faber said Elon Musk.

Liz Hoffman

Oh, that's a great answer. Yeah, Elon is uh, he plays by his own rules, he does not need the press or certainly doesn't think that he does. That's actually a great answer.

Russell Sherman

What's the greatest, if you think back, what was the greatest length you went to sort of chase down a source?

Liz Hoffman?

See, I was listening to your podcast with Greg Zuckerman and he's gonna make me look like such a slacker because that Third Avenue story is so good. Let me think about this. It wasn't a chasing down a source, but I remember David Solomon's first day on the job was I think October 1st of 2019 if I'm remembering right, maybe 2018. Anyway, and he's spending his first day of a job at this Fortune conference out in Laguna, and so like kind of on a whim, I was just like, I'm gonna go, and we're like walking around the lobby of a hotel, and he's like, what are you doing here? I said I go where you go. No, I you know, that I think just sort of, I think the key to reporting is actually just to like, be ubiquitous, just like constantly be there because it sort of normalizes you being there, and then eventually someone will tell you something.

Russell Sherman

And if it's in Laguna Beach it doesn’t hurt.

Liz Hoffman

It was great. That was great fun, yeah.

Russell Sherman

If an executive is going to meet you, they will want to know, they’ll ask us: What’s she like? What's her reporting style? Does she inform, explain, expose, entertain? Like, what's your reporting style? What should they know? Someone told me about you: she writes with style, but not snark, which I liked.

Liz Hoffman

Aw, I'm flattered. I try to do all those things that you just mentioned. You know, stories at the end of the day should inform and explain and enlighten. I also think they should surprise and delight occasionally which is just like, you know, wrote this big story again about Goldman's Consumer Bank, which wasn't going that well, and you know, at its heart, it was like a big corporate story about a high wire act that was not going great. But the thing everyone remembers from it is there was like, they'd hired all these coders and people to come in and one of them had this hoverboard, and he crashed it and the compliance people at the bank took it away. Anyway, so all that’s a way of saying that like every story should have a hoverboard in it somewhere, and those are the things that people remember and honestly make this job fun.

Russell Sherman

All right, final question, sum it all up, we all like thinking about headlines…

Liz Hoffman

Reporters don't write the headline, can I just say that?

Russell Sherman

You still believe that? All right, reporters don't write the headlines, but you are getting the opportunity right now to write the headline on your career. I know your career is still very much in flux, but so far…

Liz Hoffman

Yeah, I hope the best part of it’s ahead…

Russell Sherman

That's right. Give us a headline on Liz Hoffman's career.

Liz Hoffman

Oh God, should it be one of those Times-ian headlines where it's like phrase, comma...

Russell Sherman

You can go New York Times or New York Post. It's up to you.

Liz Hoffman

Oh, god, that, you asked me earlier about my dream job. Like, I would like to spend a brief, like a couple of months writing the front-page headline for the New York Post. That sounds like fun. I don't know this is gonna be really lame, and I don't know, let me think about it.

Russell Sherman

Looking for stories with hoverboards.

Liz Hoffman

Yeah, like, call me with your hoverboards.

Russell Sherman

How about ready for the next adventure?

Liz Hoffman

You know, it's funny, I found myself actually on the other side of a story recently, which is that Axios was writing the story about me leaving and it was very weird, and Ben said, can you give me a quote? I said, for what? He said, for the article. I said, no, I don't do that. I ask for a quote. I was like, trying to come up with something and I was trying very hard not to say like, excited for the next adventure or something. I don't, I think I ended up with something slightly better than that, but yeah, I'm really excited. I think this is, I think what these guys are building is, is really interesting, and they have incredibly good track records, and I am excited for the next challenge, Russell. How’s that?

Russell Sherman

We’re going with that -- excited for the next – this is turn the tables, you know?

Liz Hoffman

I’m like sweating, I’m deeply uncomfortable here.

Russell Sherman?

You did great. You did great. Liz, thank you so much for joining us…

Liz Hoffman

Thank you.

Russell Sherman

…on Press Profiles.

Liz Hoffman

Anytime.

Russell Sherman

Great conversation and good luck on the next adventure. It will be.

Liz Hoffman

Thank you.

Russell Sherman

I’m sure it will be eventful and fun and interesting.

Liz Hoffman

I’m sure I’ll be running into you.

Russell Sherman

On or twice, I'm sure. That is Liz Hoffman everyone, another fun conversation here on Press Profiles. Remember, you can find all of our episodes on pressprofilespodcast.com, or on Apple, Spotify, wherever it is you get your podcasts. If you like them, please share them, and thanks for listening. We will see you next time.