“What has helped me through my long career is to try to navigate with some moral compass.” - Amy Astley

Check out this week’s episode of the #NoLimitsPodcast featuring Editor-in-Chief of Architectural Digest, Amy Astley:

On today’s episode, Amy Astley has had a nearly three decades long career inside Condé Nast. From her first job out of college at House & Garden to Vogue to becoming the founding Editor-in-Chief of Teen Vogue. And now, she is the head of Architectural Digest, but her storied career isn’t the only thing I find really interesting about Amy. Amy grew up in the Midwest. She had zero connections here in New York—that’s her own words—and she says she was clueless, but one thing she did have was a strong work ethic and it caught the eye of a very important person when Amy was just starting out: the one and only Anna Wintour. Here she is to tell you her story.

RJ: Amy Astley, welcome to No Limits! 

AA: Thank you, Rebecca. 

RJ: Thank you for having us to your beautiful offices. One World Trade Center. I'm looking at—is that the Hudson?

AA: Yes. 

RJ: That’s gorgeous. 

AA: You're looking west. I wish that everyone listening could see it. 

RJ: We’ll take a picture and post it to Instagram so you can take in what we're experiencing and I like how you come into this building and it's Architectural Digest, Vogue.

AA: Yeah. 

RJ: These feel like pretty important headquarters. 

AA: The New Yorker. 

RJ: The New Yorker, yeah.

AA: GQ. Let's not forget. Vanity Fair.

RJ: There's so much here. And you've been here now, inside of the Condé Nast empire for—it’s almost three decades at this point. 

AA: Yes, that's right. In three different buildings! 

RJ: In three different buildings. 

AA: I started at House & Garden straight out of college. My first boss who has a new book out—it's called May I Come In—and her name is Wendy Goodman. It was five years, it was great training. I love the shelter category. The magazine was closed in 1993 when Mr. Newhouse who owns the company bought Architectural Digest. So that is ironic. I was 25, 26 years old. He closed House & Garden to focus in on AD which was then based in LA and I didn't have a job. Somebody on the team, very senior, recommended me to Anna Wintour the same day that the company closed House & Garden and I was called by HR to come and meet with her that day. And I remember sort of like, “Oh can I come tomorrow and get my outfit together?” “No no no.”

RJ: I was going to say what were you wearing? 

AA: “Today. Right now.” I was wearing a little Agnès B. t-shirt, little black cigarette pants and I had a brand new pair of Chanel ballet slippers on, which cost a week's salary. And this is a long time ago and I would remember the day they closed the magazine, I was looking at those Chanel ballet slippers and I was thinking, “Oh my god, I never should have bought these and now I have no job and it's my rent for the month. Can I put them back in the box to take them back? It is carpeted here.” But I did have to go see Anna right then and I think she noticed the slippers. 

RJ: They were a good buy.

AA: I guess so. And she gave me a copy test and I met her. It was a surreal day to have the magazine closed and to go in and meet her the same day, but I was just young enough that I was still kind of clueless. And really my plan was—the person who recommended me was someone senior on the House & Garden staff who I had always sort of tried to assist this man because he had no assistant and I thought he was so talented. His name is Charles Gandee and people in the design industry know him. And I sort of idolized him. And I would—we had Xerox machines at the times, we had to stand in line. So I'd take his papers and Xerox them for him. I wasn't his official assistant, but I liked him and I used to just help him out. And he thought I was a good kid with a good attitude and some talent and he recommended me to Anna Wintour. So, that's why I say to people, “Don't manage up.” He wasn't my boss. I didn't have to help him. I thought he was the bee's knees. I thought he was super cool and I was like, “Oh, why does Charles have to stand in line at the Xerox with the likes of me?” And you know, I just helped him, just do stuff for him and he appreciated it. And he really did me a huge kindness when I had no job. And Anna obviously said to him, “Is there anyone young at House & Garden who I might like?” He's like, “Yeah, you might like Amy,” and I was Wendy's assistant and Wendy was very much from a fashion family. Her sister Toni Goodmans worked at Vogue for a long time. So, it was—the connections were building without me necessarily being born into having any connections. So, I ended up going to Vogue the same day basically that House & Garden closed.

RJ: What was the meeting with Anna like? 

AA: Quick. She's very quick. She's amazing. I don't manage in the same way that she does, but I've learned a lot from her. I think she's decisive and she's quick. I’m much slower—

RJ: Do you remember what she—

AA: I like to talk to people. 

RJ: Yes.

AA: I don't remember what she was wearing. 

RJ: Do you remember what she asked you?

AA: Barely barely. I remember her handing me—Anna is very intuitive about people. To be honest, I think she got right away that—look, Charles had vouched for me, Wendy Goodman, I had my little Chanel shoes on. I think she got that I'm very visual and that I'm a storyteller right away because she handed me the copy test and it was a picture of Shalom Harlow and Amber Valletta who were two big models in the 90s and they had this little short like Mia Farrow kind of haircut and I had the same haircut because I was copying them and she said, “Here's the copy test, it's a Vogue story on these two girls and their little short haircut.” And then she looked at me and she said, “Like yours.” And she handed me the thing and I was just like, “I think we're speaking the same language here.” So, I don't really remember a question. She might have asked me what I like to do on the weekend or something, she probably asked me about House & Garden. I think the closest I can come is that I would convey to her that I'm obsessed with style and personal style. So, how people dress, but also the home. For me it's all one. One thing when people say to me, “Oh, you're an architecture expert,” and I'm really about style and putting together a magazine that tells a story. So, I think she got that vibe quickly. She's quick, she's very intuitive.

RJ: And she's a mentor to you.

AA: Yes!

RJ: And has been mentor to you throughout your career.

AA: All those years.

RJ: And a friend. 

AA: Yes, absolutely. Half my career. She sees things about you that you don't see in yourself. She always was giving me more opportunities and more work. I think she could see, maybe because I'm from the Midwest and I was a worker. I just wanted to work, I didn't want to gossip, I didn't want to socialize and schmooze. And there's a place for all those different kinds of people in organizations and definitely within a creative business, you need people who go out all the time. I actually do go out all the time. But I think she saw that I was just going to work and produce and be that storyteller. So, my career was able to keep growing there, but when I first went I thought, “Oh I'll stay here for a year, maybe two years.” I'm a shelter person, which is what we call the whole interiors category, shelter.

RJ: Not sheltered.

AA: Shelter. Not sheltered. Shelter, interiors. I just wanted to get back into that world and I really thought, “While I work at Vogue for the famous Anna Wintour for a year or two years. I'm young,” and I ended up staying almost 10 years there because I was able to keep growing. It was a very vibrant print place from the mid-90s to early 2000 when I was there. I think I left in 2002 to launch Teen Vogue. It felt like the center of the universe, which you know it wasn't and it isn't. But it had a feeling of being very dynamic that I loved and the energy was very high and there was so much work to do that basically if you wanted to do it, there was a lot of opportunity. 

RJ: And you're a worker so it worked out. 

AA: I’m a worker. I really enjoyed it. And always tried to steer clear of gossip, drama, things that derail people's energy from their work. 

RJ: So when you look back, starting out just out of college what was your biggest misconception about this whole world? 

AA: I didn't really know what I was doing except that I was interested in storytelling. I was your classic English major, bookworm, writing, reading, devouring stories, writing my own stories, and I was also simultaneously a very visual person. My father was an artist and a professor of art and I grew up in the art world and in the ballet world, so I was very visual and I was just looking for a way to meld the two things and tell stories and I actually think that is what magazines—that's really what they, in their purest sense, should be about. So maybe I had that right and I didn't have a misconception, but when I started, I think that my biggest—it's not a misconception—but I thought once I got started I thought, “I'll never make it. I'm so not important. I'm a girl from the Midwest. I don't have any family connections, no pedigree.” It wasn't a misconception. I was clueless. And I started and after I had been working at House & Garden for about a year I thought, “I have no connections.” I mean it probably hit me faster, but you're sort of happy you got a job straight out of college and then reality starts to set in. And I thought, “Uh oh, is this going to work out for me?” 

RJ: That’s so funny I thought that. So I'm also from the Midwest. You’re from Michigan, right? 

AA: Yes. Yes.

RJ: I'm from Minnesota and I remember when I first came to New York and started working for CNBC in business news, I would look around and I would see all of my colleagues on the phone with sources.

AA: Yes. 

RJ: And in my head I was thinking, “How do you get sources?”  

AA: Yeah, I have no sources. 

RJ: Because they call sources day long and I’m like, “I don't know one source!”

AA: Yeah, exactly. I mean well said. And then you start to realize over the years you're building connections and contacts and sources. My job is all about sources too. The number one thing people ask me in this job is, “How do you get the houses?” And I'm telling them, “That's the job.” 

RJ: The celebrity houses.

AA: All the houses. Any house—they’re our sources. You develop connections, lots of them. And my connections now three decades in, run really deep. I have connections in the art world, the social world, the fashion world, a little bit in the finance world, definitely in the design, decorating, architecture, garden. You start to really build and for me, in many different spheres, which is why AD's the perfect job for me three decades on, because I had a rich network of what you’re calling sources and I'd say connections in so many fields to draw on. But it's a process to develop your sources. It's a process to develop your connections. It's a process to develop your career. It certainly doesn't happen in a week, or in a month, or even in a year. And I think that's probably one of my biggest messages to young people who I talk to and who I am raising myself. I have teenagers at home and I founded Teen Vogue and spend all my time talking to young people. It's a process. Life's a process, your career’s a process, and people who think or put pressure on themselves or have an expectation that things are going to happen very very quickly are usually disappointed and it's the rare person who breaks out of the gate in anything and is a superstar. And we see them because they get a lot of press, because they're unicorns, they're extraordinary. And people think, “I need to be like that. Why isn't my career amazing? Oh my god, I'm 26 or I'm 32,” or whatever, but it takes time. 

RJ: Yup. And there's always that feeling when you are 26, 32, 35, 38, 40 whatever, that you're running behind. 

AA: Yes. 

RJ: So how did you deal with that early on in the career?

AA: Well, I think comparing yourself to other people, while it can be motivating and it's not a bad thing and it can get people up off their behinds. There's no problem with that. But this is like kindergarten advice, you have to be your own person. You have to know who you are. You have to know what speed you run at. Are you hot or cold? Are you fast or slow? Early bloomer, late bloomer. Do you need more time to yourself? People are different. Again, this is like kindergarten sandbox stuff, but it's true. And I think comparing yourself endlessly to other people, it tends to make people miserable in all things. There's always someone smarter, skinnier, richer, prettier, better school, it goes on and on... It's just a veil of tears. You know what I mean, you can't win. So, I actually kind of realized that young because I came from the Midwest and I could see that I didn't really have any of the things that here, especially on the East Coast, especially back then, that people thought you needed to succeed. And when I meet other young people today who have obstacles, which we all do, I always tell them,”You do have to believe in yourself and not let things that other people perceive as barriers to your success hold you back.” And coming back to your question about comparing yourself as well, if I compare myself to everybody else, I should go home. I don't have anything, you know. So I started to focus on what I had that was unique. That was different from other people. And it's actually that thing of embracing where you came from.

RJ: Yep. 

AA: Actually being from the Midwest was my totally unique thing. Nobody else was from there. And the world's changed. People move around more now. We have the internet. We didn't even have internet. We didn’t have cell phones. It was a much bigger deal from someone from Minnesota or Michigan to end up on the East Coast. Now that doesn't seem so unique or such a challenge, but I realized I should use all my qualities that are very different from other people's to my advantage and I did that. I was trained in ballet, and I realized it's an art, but it's also being an athlete. And again, I was never the best one in any class and I pushed myself to train here in New York City with people who were much better than myself. And it was really—I learned, “Don't compare yourself too much. You're probably—it will stop you from moving forward.” It's just that process of working on yourself and not comparing too much to other people.

RJ: So, you're working with Wendy Goodman back in the day.

AA: Back in the day! Straight out of college, she was one of my first bosses. I had a lot of great bosses there. I worked there for five years and I was trained there and great men, great women. But I have to say, the women really made my career. One man. 

RJ: How so? 

AA: There was a lot less talk or none about feminism back then because it wasn't a word people wanted to associate with. But what I saw was women who were really really—maybe they saw themselves a little bit in me, but they were very willing to give me a hand and to teach me things. I could go on and on with examples, but I've tried to pay it back too. I’ve tried to pay it forward I guess is what I’m saying. In my whole career to see and men too, absolutely, young people really is what I'm talking about. But when I was starting, there was a different culture around women in the workplace. My top piece of advice to young women and all women is that you do need to try to bond together at work instead of being pitted against each other. Try to help each other. Support. Promote each other and you see examples of it in our culture and you see it on Instagram too. And then the other thing I feel is that people sometimes tend to manage up in their jobs, but it's better to manage peer-to-peer because you are ultimately going to be the one—if I want to promote somebody in my organization, it's happened, I'll go and ask their manager about people at a lower level, at a more junior level. So, sometimes when I see people trying to manage up, it just rings a little false. 

RJ: Absolutely. Yeah. That always just trying to please whoever the superiors are and not thinking about the people who are getting the work done on a daily basis. 

AA: Bingo. Yeah.

RJ: I actually I've thought a lot about this, and I don't know if you have any thoughts on it, it's sort of a diversion, but I think that one of the most harmful things actually to women and women in the workplace is this idea when companies say, “Okay, we need a very senior woman,” and they immediately say, “We must look outside of the organization.” And to me, what's so problematic from that standpoint is it's often they bring in somebody from the outside. That person, whether they like it or not, is going to have to spend a lot of time initially getting to know the senior team which is already predominantly men. And then, women who have been working very hard in the company feel like, “Well, no one even recognized that I was working hard. What's the point?” 

AA: Right. 

RJ: At the same time, I do think that it's so important what you're talking about. Working on nurturing talent from within and letting people know and showing them through action that there is a pathway to the higher up jobs. 

AA: Yes. 

RJ: And you don't have to just quit and go somewhere else in order to get there. 

AA: I mean, well said. Everything you just said I've seen it, I've experienced it, I reject it. I loved to promote from within. I've done it in my career for years now. I've been an Editor-in-Chief for about 15 years now. 13 years at Teen Vogue and 2 years here and being an Editor-in-Chief at Condé Nast is a very entrepreneurial experience because we're not heavily managed or micromanaged. You're sort of free to sink or swim and make your business the best that you can or more—or not, you know, and then you'd be failing, but I have always tried to hire and promote from within and it's worked really well.

RJ: Which I—that's an awesome thing to hear. 

AA: It raises morale. Then the whole team feels like there's a future for me here. I won't always be in this widget corner, you know, that they feel that there's a path. And I think having good morale and having people feel happy in the workplace is totally critical.

RJ: So let me ask you this because I'm not a big—I don't love the gossip, I don't like getting dragged down into that world and it kind of makes me feel icky inside, but I think especially when I was starting out it was—you know, when you find yourself in a conversation sometimes it's a conversation with somebody who's senior who's talking. 

AA: Yes. 

RJ: And it can be a really complicated thing.

AA: Yes.

RJ: Because you don't want to play into it, but at the same time you don't want to undermine yourself in their eyes by sort of taking a back seat. 

AA: Right. 

RJ: How do you manage that?

AA: I mean office politics are the worst. 

RJ: Yeah.

AA: You know, you have to engage as little as possible. It does suck you away from what you're supposed to be doing. Eventually it catches up with people that they're not actually producing anything that they just gab and talk a lot. So, I think disengaging as much as possible. You really at work have to be very careful with what you say. People repeat it. They twist it. It's really difficult. Another thing that's worked for me is, and I don't always abide it, try not to say anything that you wouldn't say to a larger group of people. If it's something that's sort of secret, really think about why you’re saying it and who are you saying it to and is it necessary to say and weigh it out. And sometimes it is. You know, sometimes at work you have to declare where you stand on things and people. What has helped me through my long career is to try to navigate with some moral compass so that people know. When your words get twisted, someone will say, “That doesn't sound like her. I don't think she said that. Are you sure she meant that?” And then if something does happen that's a little whacko someone will go, “I don't think she said that. She didn't say that. That's not her.” You know. You have to earn that, you know. 

RJ: As you’ve made choices in your career to move, how did you make the call that that was the right moment for you to seek something else? 

AA: Right. Well, I mean my career has been really unique and probably there are—won't be many like this again because of the changes in the print industry. But for me, I never wanted to leave Condé because as a print editor, it was just the best place to be. And now of course our our companies transforming into a digital company rapidly, you know, many of our brands have become digital brands or in the case of Teen Vogue, which I founded, is strictly a digital brand now. So, watching these transformations has been incredible and my point is it's a different company from the one I joined where it's like, “Why would you ever want to leave?” You know, I feel like I've been really lucky that I could transform myself and change within the company and be given interesting things to do. 

RJ: 2002—you found Teen Vogue. 

AA: Yeah. 

RJ: How old were you at that time?

AA: I was barely 35 when I was given the job.

RJ: So barely 35— 

AA: I like I turned 35. 

RJ: And you created it.

AA: Yes. And I was on the verge of having my second daughter when—I mean Mr. Newhouse gave me the job when I was nine days away from giving birth. And I don't know if he noticed that I was hugely pregnant. He's a legendary man. Working for him was huge honor in my life. I'm very lucky. I think I was one of the very last of the younger generation of editors to know him and maybe to be chosen by him, you know. But my tummy was sticking way out and he congratulated me and said, “I want to launch Teen Vogue.” I had been doing test issues. I'd done four test issues while I was working at Teen Vogue which was a ton of work. Killer. And, you know, it was an exciting moment for me. So I had my baby, my child, I had my baby Teen Vogue. I raised them together for 13 years. 

RJ: How did you manage that initially? 

AA: Husband. 

RJ: Partner.

AA: Husband. Partner. Yes.

RJ: That makes such a difference. 

AA: Yes. And again it's something—people who think they can go it alone—some people can go it alone, by the way ,and they're amazing, but help—you need help and a lot of people in my career have looked at me and focused in on me and my outward achievements. But, you know, my best achievement is my marriage, which is a very long one. And my kids. And a lot of credit to my husband, you know, for really. Yeah. We raised great kids together. 

RJ: That’s awesome. 

AA: That's my other piece of advice to young women who tell me, “I want to do it all!” and I'm like, “You're never going to be able to do it all.” Like it's not possible unless you're a robot, you know, which could happen in the future. A.I., the A.I. who does it all, you know. But for me the support for my career, from my kids, from my husband has been amazing. 

RJ: How did you meet your husband?

AA: In college in Michigan. And I moved to New York, a place that I'd spent a lot of time as a kid, and he came a little bit later when he graduated. 

RJ: That's awesome. 

AA: I know—

RJ: My husband and I did the—had the same situation that we met—we met—well we met shortly after college in Chicago. I moved here. We actually did long distance for two years and then he moved out to New York 

AA: You knew—then you knew. You tested it. You tested it. 

RJ: Yeah, yeah. 

AA: These things are—it’s, maybe it’s a little more rare now, but you know I'm, I—again, everything's different from—women have so much put on them to succeed at work, and you have kids, and “oh you're too old to have kids,” this or that. I had my kids really young, which worked for me. You know, I—it worked. You know—

RJ: I'm glad.

AA: It's different for everybody. Everything in life comes down to knowing yourself. That’s it. What do I want. You know, like if you really want kids then you should just focus on that. If you really, really want kids, do that, have the kids. And again, don't get derailed by other people's talk. You know, I mean I was definitely the only person having a kid when I had a kid at Vogue. But I wanted her, I wanted a baby. And it really worked well for me. I have a lot of friends who have them later in life. It comes with its own challenges. You know, both ways, both ways. It's hard for women. 

RJ: There are challenges in everything. There really are.

AA: That's right. That’s right. It's what I keep saying, it's knowing yourself, you know, to cut through all the different choices in life, all the different ways you could be. But how are you really? You know, not what should you want, or how you might behave, but how—what does your—what are you really, you know, your true core. 

RJ: And what is the true core of you, Amy?

AA: I think—I think I'm probably maternal and creative. You know, my whole career has been creative, and hugely—I'm hugely proud of the teams I've built, and the people, and the careers that they have, and the work that we've done together. You know it's, again, it's not just me who made Teen Vogue or, or made AD, but I will say I'm a good leader and a creative spirit, you know, and I have a strong creative vision and then I'm able to hire people who can execute on that and take us to greater heights—together. We’re at our best together. So, in the groups that I put together, I've attempted to cut through the gossip, and the time waste, and the time suck by making people as happy as I can get them. You know, there's always conflict with human beings, but trying to get them feeling that they're respected, that they're heard, they're supporting each other's careers, there's a path forward, you're not going to be stuck, your work is noticed and appreciated. And I really want people to stay focused on building our businesses. You know, Teen Vogue was a business I was really proud of. AD, we're transforming it into a digital business with great success. And then I plan to launch new businesses off of the digital platforms that we're building. When I got here two years ago, we barely had a digital business. This is all from getting people working together and not wasting their time gossiping or backstabbing or being confused, like, “What does she want? I don't know.” You know, it's really about building teams that are functioning, you know, at a really high level and being really productive. That's what a boss should be doing, you know.

RJ: In terms of the changes on the business side of things with AD, Architectural Digest becoming a digital brand, talk us through that transformation and what it means from a consumer experience, but also from your business, the magazine business.

AA: I mean, the amazing thing, special thing about AD is that it's a great print business in a time when print is very stressed, and it had so much opportunity to become a great digital business. So when I accepted the job two years ago now, I could see all of that. You know, it felt like a sleeping beauty to me. The magazine needed to be refreshed and made more—more relevant, and more part of the conversation. The current conversation of the times that we're in. So, I've just—I worked sort of fast to change the way the magazine looks and feels. And that was a total pleasure. And then it takes more time to build a new digital product. But we've achieved so much. I mean, all our numbers are up, the audience, the traffic, all the platforms have grown like crazy.

RJ: Which is unheard of, by the way—

AA: It’s unheard of.

RJ: In this industry, so bravo. 

AA: Yes, yes. I mean, in a—in a way I was starting from not so much, you know, it was a very small website with a very limited amount of traffic. The social platforms were small, you know. Now our Instagram platform is at 2.9 or 3 million. When I started here it was under one million. So, you know, the growth has been extraordinary. And I just knew that we needed to have AD reach new audiences and not be perceived as something for just older people, or something your mother read, or your grandmother read, or your grandfather. We have a nice male/female audience. I felt that it had to be something that reached younger people. So, of course that was by building a vibrant website, building the social platforms, and just the content that people will see there. I mean, we've had a huge success with a video of a young DJ named Zedd who—I think we've done 50 million views on YouTube—incredible. And all these young people saying hey, you know, and subscribing to our YouTube channel because of Zedd. We did Wiz Khalifa’s house tour a couple weeks ago, just breaking the mold of what people expect they're going to see in AD. I mean, I think that's a little bit of a—I don't want to say kiss of death, but you have to have a sense of surprise if you're in the entertainment business. So people don’t go, “I know what's in there. I'm not going to look,” you know. Surprise them with different voices and different people, both in the magazine and on the digital platforms. And then on AD.com we started Clever, which is a vertical meant for millennials. So it's focused on people renting, people scraping together deposit for their first home, and people doing DIY. And that's the point of view we come at it from. We expect that they're renting, we expect that they're broke, we expect they're struggling—maybe to buy something. Or we've done just the ABCs of what you should know if you want to buy, you know, what you need to know. And these are not things that you would associate with AD at all, because people say, “Oh AD, it's for older people and wealthy people.” Well, I think AD is for anybody interested in design, so I've tried to break through some of those myths about who it's for. But also build things that are clearly for a different reader, which is what Clever is about. 

RJ: What's been the toughest lesson you've had to learn along your career?

AA: Oh, definitely that not everybody's going to like you or wish you well. And some of the female competitiveness that I experienced, I don't feel I was equipped for it, because I thought, “Oh, you go through life, you're nice to people and they're nice to you.” Wrong. You know, and don't be so naive and don't be so surprised by that, you know. And that took me a long time to realize, “Oh, that person doesn't wish me well. Why? I was so nice to her.” And it's like, okay, “Grow up, girl. You know, like it's just something that slowly dawns on you. Like there's no reason, but not everybody wishes you well. And you kind of have to come to grips with what that means and how you push forward working with people like that, and to stop trying to always please everybody too, or be everybody's friend. I think that was something that I experienced throughout my career. You know, in doses, that were not, you know, tragic or anything like that. But overall, I mean, I've had a great career just by following my own radar, which said, “Keep focusing on the work. Keep focusing on the work.” And when I meet people who are not able to focus on their work, I think they're doing the wrong work, and they've become sidelined by office drama, trauma, gossip, people, you know, that kind of thing. 

RJ: That is a very good point. I think when you start to have, when you start to feel things, or have emotions that are kind of like, they’re not about the path in front of you—you're taking your eye off of it, that means you're not intellectually challenged by the thing, you're not lit up by the thing. You might have been at some point but you're not anymore.

AA: Not anymore. And if you are in a position where you have options and you can change, you should. I also realize I'm speaking from a point of great privilege. A lot of people in the world and in our country, work is something—you clock in, you do a grueling job that isn't fulfilling, and probably also doesn't pay very well, and then you leave, you know, and I think I'm also aware of that. So, I try to keep feeling sunny positive vibes about the fact that I have a great job in a creative industry and not ever get dragged down into feeling too negative or anything like that because I'm still—and everybody I work with, we’re really, really lucky compared to most people. 

RJ: What's the worst advice you received along the way?

AA: You don't need a lawyer. 

RJ: When did someone tell you that?

AA: I won't go into it, but you know, you, women— 

RJ: You did need one, which is why you can’t talk about it.

AA: Yeah, that's my shorthand for saying, “Look out for yourself.” You know, and really that is shorthand for look out for yourself. Remember that you are at work. This is not your family, no matter how cozy it feels in your job, or how dysfunctional it may feel, you know, family dynamics should not be part of the workplace. It really is a place to produce some product, whatever your product is, whether it's the new, or it's a magazine, or it’s a website, or it's a car, you know, coming off a factory line, and I think trying to not be too emotional about work is good advice, and to look out for yourself is good advice too. And it is just hard—it's harder for some people than others because they're so disenfranchised in their jobs, you know. And power structures do exist to protect power. So you have to work within that, too, and that's something young people have to come to grips with. You know, how do you succeed within a structure. 

RJ: Yeah, I think one of the—speaking of things that sort of like, I was naive about to some degree early in my career, and different people handle it differently, but there are definitely people who are clearly your friend, they are really, actually your legitimate friend, but you work with them, and they separate and distinguish between being your friend in life, and then there's a business relationship—

AA: Right. 

RJ: Not everyone treats it that way, by the way. Some people, they’re your friend, and as a result they're your buddy in a work sense as well, but that realization that just because you have a cordial relationship—and it kind of relates in my head to the idea of getting a lawyer—just because I have a cordial relationship doesn't mean I still shouldn't have an advocate for myself in a negotiation with the company, you know, the big umbrella of company, because at the end of the day, they're protecting—

AA: Their interests.

RJ: They’re trying to spend as little money as they can. They're protecting their interests.

AA: Right. I mean these are all things that young people don't always sort of—it's a lot to come to grips with. But I think again, people have to understand, “What is my value? What am I worth?” And, and I mean, you always—every women's magazine says, “Go in there and negotiate and push for yourself.” And you know, it's true, but it doesn't always work.

RJ: Right. 

AA: And, and there's also a point where people have to understand, “This isn't going to work. This isn't the right place. This isn't the right time.” And make their decision, “Am I going to continue to push, or I'm going to back off, or am I going to go somewhere else?” Because in the end, work is work, you know, and you are being evaluated. You were talking about buddies and friends, but it's a job, and you're getting paid to produce some product. And I just try to keep bringing people back to those realities, you know. But I think, you know, protecting yourself, advocating for yourself, knowing your own worth, these are really important things that again aren't necessarily part of how women are raised, and it's important to try to turn that around. 

RJ: Well it seems like you are doing a great job of helping turn that around with the people who are in your universe. 

AA: Thank you. Yes.

RJ: So, thank you for having us, Amy!

AA: Pleasure.

RJ: This was great.

AA: Thank you.

RJ: Great conversation.

AA: Thank you. Nice talking to you. 

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