Larissa Padden 00:01
Hi everyone, welcome to Cogcast, Cognito’s podcast, where we speak with journalists and media pros on the latest happenings in the media and PR. I’m Larissa Padden, your host this episode, and a former journalist turned PR professional.

Today we are joined by Michael Thrasher, a reporter that has dedicated years to covering the asset management sector and most recently founded Modus, a newsletter that covers the intricacies of the family office space. Michael sat down with us to talk about the decision to strike out on his own, how he works with PR as a founder versus a reporter, and how media has changed since his days at a daily print newspaper in Ohio. Please enjoy this fun episode.

Hi Michael, thanks for joining us today and coming in to meet with me.

Michael Thrasher 00:42
Thanks for having me.

Larissa Padden 00:44
Sure. So we at Cognito are very aware of who you are, and we have pitched you many times before, but just in case anyone listening is not familiar, can you tell us a little bit about your background, your focus, and what you’re working on now?

Michael Thrasher 00:57
Sure. Okay. I’ll zoom through my professional history. I’ve lived in New York and I’ve been a journalist for most of this time, about maybe, like, 11 or 12 years now, maybe 11 years. The reporting I’ve done has always been on some part or parts of wealth and asset management. And I was most recently working at Institutional Investor magazine, writing about asset management.

And over, like, I would say, especially the last year or two, I was coming increasingly, I was just sort of, like, crossing paths randomly with people who were either going to work for a family office or were part of either a formal or even a very informal, I guess you could call it, like, investment committee, just sort of, like, a catch-all for what they might be doing with a family.

And out of my own curiosity, I was just sort of getting to know them a little bit more. I didn’t know a ton about this group of investors. And then one of the things that I realized is that they felt a little journalistically underserved. I just thought that was really interesting because this is a huge group of people, professionals, that are responsible for and helping manage a huge pool of capital.

Larissa Padden 02:23
A lot of money, yeah.

Michael Thrasher 02:24
A lot of money.

And then the offices by extension with this money have incredible influence, not just in finance, but in other markets, art or whatever, you know, they’re choosing to spend their money on. And then, you know, and then, like, their influence and consequence like goes even beyond that politics and all kinds of other things.

So I just thought that was so odd that they didn’t feel like there was a lot of stuff written explicitly for them. So I started writing just, like, periodic newsletter at II. I sent it maybe about, like, once a month. Didn’t really advertise it much, but it had a little bit of traction.

And the problem was I couldn’t really quit my day job at the magazine to do this full time. And so I still thought that opportunity was there. So I left and I started my own independent media company and weekly newsletter, which is Modus.

Larissa Padden 03:23
So that is interesting. Because I think even here internally, we have a lot of people that work on very financially focused clients, and they still don’t know what a family office is versus institutional investors. So I do think you’re right. There is some room for education within the media, and I’m assuming your newsletter is talking to the industry but also writing for the industry.

Michael Thrasher 03:45
Yeah. I, in a sentence, tell people that Modus is journalism for family office professionals. Like, I’m not day in and day out talking to billionaires and people. I am day in and day out talking to the professionals that they’ve hired to manage their portfolios, the infrastructure for the office. I have to figure out a more eloquent way to put this, but, like, the people that are, like, making the sausage.

Larissa Padden 04:11
Right, right. Working for the billionaires.

Michael Thrasher 04:13
Yes, exactly.

So that’s the group. And I think just to sort of answer or to comment, it wasn’t really a question that you had, but a lot of people don’t fully understand what a family office is. And that’s because it’s this sort of like amorphous term, but people don’t know it because the definition changes depending on who you ask.

A lot of people, a lot of especially, I think, like, people in asset management, you know, a lot of the family offices they’re working with, depending on, and especially, I think this is especially the case for, like, the investment banks, when they think of a family office, they think of a potential client, if not an existing one, and most of those are pretty large and have pretty sophisticated investment staff.

That’s not to say all of them are, but that sort of might be who that person’s picturing versus, you know, if you’re somebody who is just helping a very wealthy person manage their cash flow, and that person might be worth, you know, 50, 100, 200 million dollars or whatever, and that person employs one or two people to help them manage that and their business and all kinds of other things.

They don’t really have like a full-fledged office like you’d think, a bunch of people, but, you know, they do have a family office. They employ someone to, you know, they might have set up an entity, and like that is technically also an office, and then there’s obviously like everything, everybody in between.

And I would say that Modus is doing its best to do journalism for all those professionals regardless of the size or type of office.

Larissa Padden 05:52
Right. Putting some kind of, like, I don’t want to say standardization because there is none, but kind of, like, putting some clarity on kind of what that kind of encompasses.

Michael Thrasher 05:59
Yeah, I think that’s a good characterization of it.

Larissa Padden 06:04
I wanted to ask a little more about Modus. I know you kind of answered some of this up top, but I wanted to ask about your decision to launch a newsletter specifically, why you decided to go out on your own, and kind of what that process is like and how difficult it can be.

Michael Thrasher 06:20
I think it was, like, November 12th that I actually turned on the website, and I left the institutional industry at the end of October, and I had kind of an intention to take a break.

And then somebody, as I was sort of halfway out the door, somebody asked me basically if I wanted to attend a conference for family office professionals, explicitly actually, like, CFOs in Los Angeles. And I was like, “Oh, I don’t work at the magazine anymore.” So I don’t know if that matters or not.

And they said, “Well, you should still come, even if you aren’t going to be working there anymore.” It’s in a couple weeks. Like, if that works out, great.

So I had to, like, stay on the company and the website up at, like, breakneck speed. Which was good, like, you know, deadlines exist for a reason. Because otherwise, like, no story would be written or nothing would get done, I guess.

So I was, I think, literally sitting on the airplane when I hit the on switch for the website. Yeah, which I think, probably scared my developer that I just decided something while I’m on an airplane, but the developer I’m working with. But that was the day it started. So it’s got to be maybe more than 60 days, but, you know, less than three months, I don’t know exactly.

To answer one of your other questions, so I’ve hired a couple people, just freelancers, to help me, not reporters or writers, but developers and people to just sort of help me get it off the ground and as best as I can make some decisions about, like, the logo and the colors and, like, so many of those things that I feel like are largely intuitive if you work in news or pay attention to the news, but that’s also not my skill set.

I don’t spend all day thinking about that. So there’s definitely like some ways to trip up. And I also felt like there was just a really good opportunity to try and make, I think, that the journalism will be high quality, and I wanted a brand and something that felt—

Larissa Padden 08:24
That matches that.

Michael Thrasher 08:24
Oh, yeah. That felt like a premium one, I think.

And it’s just me for the moment, which has been the biggest challenge. I’ve worked at small companies and for startups in the past briefly, but it’s definitely different when you’re the only person. It’s like the true—

Larissa Padden 08:47
It’s all on you.

Michael Thrasher 08:47
It’s literally all on you. It’s like the true definition of wearing all the hats. Like, there are literally no other hats.

Larissa Padden 08:52
And that can be scary.

Michael Thrasher 08:54
Yeah, it was a little scary. I mean, I felt confident about the idea. I feel really good about the name and the website and like all those things. I guess I had a lot of anxiety in November, I mean, because I didn’t even start sending the newsletter until December. And then I guess through up to, I guess, about this point, because you never really know how something’s going to go until you actually do it.

But the readership, you know, continues to grow. Largely, I sort of on its own. I mean, I share stuff on LinkedIn, but I don’t have any, I’m not spending any money on marketing or anything. And there’s been, you know, I guess it’s technically like a micro audience at this phase, but it’s one that I know a lot about the readership.

I probably know more about my readers than most other small publications do. Even maybe some medium-sized ones. So it’s a small audience, but one that is nonetheless valuable. And I’m pretty sure, I’m pretty certain I’ll be able to, like, monetize pretty quickly.

And so that’s sort of a snapshot of how the business is going so far. I think one other thing I thought of when you were asking me some of those questions is it’s just, like, what it’s like starting an independent media business and, like, a newsletter.

The newsletter is sort of an obvious place—at least to me, it was an obvious place because you’re engaging directly with the audience. Like, the newsletter is great because you have so much optionality. Like, you could open out a newsletter and it could be, like, you’re reading an article on any news website.

You can open that newsletter and it can be something that is a little bit close. It can be a little more voice-y. It feels more appropriate for that medium, I think, when people think of news versus just the article you’re reading right along time on a website.

And it’s also like, frankly, it’s just easy, like, commercially. The newsletter is sponsored and that’s it. If you’re going to be a one-person shop, that’s a good way to like start simplifying things for yourself.

Larissa Padden 11:13
Yeah. And it does seem that’s kind of the way that media is going, and people want to consume their media. They want it in their inbox, and they want, like, little bits.

And if there’s something they want, correct me if I’m wrong and yours works differently, but if they want to dive deeper, you know, they can go either look up that topic and learn a little bit more. They can move on to the next item or there’s a link that they can go read something. But it does seem like people are consuming their news in much smaller bites these days.

Michael Thrasher 11:36
Yeah, totally. I think that a variety of different medium, and people are always, readers have always been interested in making the most out of their time, but the mediums that they’ve gravitated to have evolved for a variety of reasons.

And I think newsletters are entering, if they’re not there already, like, a new phase. Some of the most popular newsletters are not ones that hit your inbox every day. And there’s a reason for that.

I mean, I think if you’re going to be sending someone something every day, you know, everybody’s inbox is only getting more—at least mine is, like, only more cluttered. You know, that problem is exacerbating. And so if you’re going to be sending someone something and you’re going to make a business out of that, it has to be pretty worthwhile.

If it’s just me trying to send email every day, I think, like, the most I could hope to do is, like, share some details, maybe interview somebody or a couple people once a week or each week and really, like, aggregate stuff that’s out there already.

And that’s just, like, really tough. Aggregating information and being, like, the value being just, like, the disbursement of information that’s already out there. It’s really, really tough to make a business out of that. That’s, like, an increasingly competitive space.

But if you’re doing, you know, journalism in its purest and best form, which is telling people something that they don’t know already and can’t find someplace else, or you’re doing it in a way that is actually interesting, then that’s something that you can build a business around. So that’s how I chose the weekly cadence.

I had just a handful of, like, super informal conversations about raising money for Modus and hiring reporters and, you know, having a more full-fledged media organization, like, right from the start. For a variety of reasons, that wasn’t a good fit. I guess one of them being that the second you, like, take a dollar of someone else’s money…

Larissa Padden 13:57
They have influence.

Michael Thrasher 13:57
Yeah, they had the influence. And even if you’re super aligned, there’s an expectation for that investment.

And I’m not going to, like, slam the door shut on that at some point, but, you know, this is the other thing, it’s so different now. The cost to stand up your own media company has fallen basically to the floor.

So I was like, you know, I don’t want to set up expectations. I want to be able to, like, really focus on the product and the journalism and then reinvest in the company at my own pace and how I thought would be best for it in the long term.

But Modus, it’s not a project that I’m doing with the intent to sell in five years because I want to fund some other project or I want to become a GP and invest in media companies. If it’s just me and Modus, like, write an email a week from my Brooklyn apartment for the next 30 years, cool, great. That’s not my ambition, but…

Larissa Padden 15:08
There’s somewhere in between.

Michael Thrasher 15:11
Yeah, yes. Yeah. Like, that’s not my ambition. My ambition is to grow it. And I think that could happen in a lot of ways, and I’ve set up the infrastructure to do that sort of in case.

So that’s another way of how I think about just, like, the weekly cadence. If you start taking investor dollars and you have to get on that, you start meeting growth expectations.

Like, one of the first things people say is like, “Why would you only send us weekly? Why don’t you send it twice a week? Why don’t you do this?” And I’m like, “Well, I’m just, like, doing too many things.”

It’s really easy, especially when you’re small to be, like, well, you could, like, basically double your ad real estate to sell people. And it’s like, yeah, well, like, if the quality falls off a cliff and nobody gives a shit and they’re not opening it, and you don’t have a business in the first place. And I was like, there’s too much uncertainty about that right now.

Larissa Padden 15:59
I was just having a conversation with a former colleague of mine that I used to work with when I was a reporter. And that’s always the question for reporters is the quota that, you know, how much are you going to ask of them on a daily and weekly basis? And what’s the quality you’re going to get based on that.

So I remember, you know, kind of joking with an editor once that if you want to double my quota, you’re about to get a lot of really just-okay articles. And so you do kind of have to find that balance between quantity and quality. Make sure that people are reading quality, and they want to come back to you.

Michael Thrasher 16:28
Yeah. I think that there’s a lot more people that are going to think a lot more of that going forward, especially because of AI, because that used to be a pretty good, you know, you think about even just like the wire services, there used to be a whole group of people used to cover, like, an individual bank in a paper or a small short list, right? And they covered their earnings and they wrote, you know.

Well, now, like, much of that information is just totally commoditized. It’s like, it doesn’t make sense to have a person doing that kind of stuff. And then that was like a phase for a little while.

Now if people want to know just like general information about most things, that’s at least, like, directionally correct, they put it into Google and then they aren’t going to a news article page, right? Like, these results are being created for them via the language models and AI.

So now, like, that’s sort of, like, so-so article that might be getting some kind of mile wide or some width, breadth but not a lot of depth. That used to be a thing of content that was useful to readers like that. I think that’s also basically, if it hasn’t like technically already, that’s going to be commoditized, which I actually think is ultimately a good thing, by the way, as weird as that sounds.

I’m sure there are, like, some journalists or people listening to me say that and are like, “Well, it’s like software that’s our jobs.” And I do think I am like somebody that’s, like, a proponent of these companies, like, paying for the intellectual property that they’re using, right? That’s sort of, like, its own separate thing. I am, like, on the side of, like, the news organizations and all these discussions.

But what I mean by this is ultimately going to be better is it’s going to really force reporters and organizations to focus on what is actually new and the best journalism because there is an appetite for that. And people are willing to pay for that. You can build a business around that if that’s really the thing that you do.

Larissa Padden 18:44
Yeah. I do want to get into some bigger trends that maybe you’re seeing or anticipating this coming year. But before I forget, how can people sign up for Modus?

Michael Thrasher 16:28
Oh, it’s easy. modus.news is the website.

Larissa Padden 18:44
Okay. And I think I saw a link through your LinkedIn.

Michael Thrasher 18:59
Yes. I’ve tried to put links everywhere.

Larissa Padden 19:01
Okay. Speaking of finance, from the timeline you gave around your starting your career and being in New York, it sounds like you started around the time of the recovery from the great recession. Things have really changed and evolved since then. That’s around when I started as a reporter in New York as well.

And so I wanted to ask, it sounds like it’s going to be an interesting year for finance and investments and the economy. So where are you anticipating seeing any changes or movement, whether that’s the family office interest or the market itself and what are some of the larger trends you’re looking out for in 2025? If that’s not too big of a question.

Michael Thrasher 19:43
No, no, no. I’ll answer that at least with family offices in mind. Many family offices are heavily invested in alternative investments, which means all kinds of, you know, things. And a lot of them are investors in alt funds. And just, like, the biggest institutions, they have been waiting for some liquidity. There’s this, like, tension that’s been sort of building.

Actually, some of this has lightened a bit actually recently, but there was, like, that phase where that money was locked up and you as an investor weren’t getting that back in many cases. Just because to sell those assets and have that be realized was just not going to be ideal.

Okay. So that was already sort of changing. And then now with a new presidential administration that is, you know, extremely favored by business, not surprising a lot of people think that there’s going to be more deals and valuations are going to continue to creep up. It’s just going to be a more favorable environment.
And so families, just like those big institutions, are going to have money returned to them and be a little more active, I think, just like everybody else.

Larissa Padden 21:18
So in terms of the actual media landscape itself, doing our research, we saw that before New York, you started at The Suburbanite, which was a weekly newspaper in Ohio. And then The Athens Messenger, that’s a daily print newspaper. That’s a very different world than the one you’re navigating today.

And I think this evolution of media has been fascinating for good or bad. Even most recently, we saw the TikTok drama over the weekend. Maybe I shouldn’t assume, but I assume that’s not a big focus for Modus.

But what was interesting is amidst all that chaos, creators were pushing people towards other forms of non-traditional media like Substack or Reddit. And we’re kind of seeing, at least for younger generations, the traditional media becoming less important to them.

So, overall, over the past decade, how has the way that media changed kind of changed how you report as a journalist and how you’ve had to work?

Michael Thrasher 22:15
It’s definitely changed in a lot of ways. Honestly, I think the biggest change is, and this is maybe partly the beat. I wasn’t writing about financial services for the publications in Ohio.

I mean, it feels like virtually everybody has a LinkedIn now. You know, like, I think just how you research to find people and social medias. I don’t know if I’ve spent enough time or I’ve spent too much time fussing around on platforms and using them journalistically, but I’ve tried. I think I don’t know as well as most people to leverage that.

Larissa Padden 22:58
Yeah. I actually think that’s quite normal. And we’ve told clients, you know, if you’re not out there to be found, how is the media supposed to know about you? And I do think that translates to CEOs and investors being much more accessible.

I’ve found the majority of my sources towards the end on LinkedIn. Whereas before, you call investor relations, you talk to a comms person, you put in a request. And now it’s just like a direct line to some of those people you want to interview. So I do think that has been a major shift, even in just the past five years.

Michael Thrasher 23:27
Even the timesaving of, like, okay, I’m writing a story about an asset manager, whatever. And if it’s a small company, you can go on LinkedIn and look at all the employees, or at least people that have LinkedIn, which in many cases is most, I feel like. I don’t know today. I’d love to know if there’s any research about that.

But, like, instead of emailing IR and explaining your story, or an idea you have, or just, like, why, or whatever, “I’m going to be two blocks from your office. Is there anybody there that wants to just get a coffee or something?” You can actually go on LinkedIn and be like, “Oh, there’s this person explicitly that I’m interested in.”

It sort of helps you skip, like, four emails with that person. So there is, like, even just sort of a time-saving component. I don’t think you’re actually learning necessarily anything new. It’s just, like, a more efficient way that journalists have captured.

One thing I’ll add, though, is that there’s an entire generation of journalists. I feel extremely lucky, actually, that I worked briefly—

Larissa Padden 24:25
Oh, I wonder if I know what’s coming.

Michael Thrasher 24:27
At those places, yeah. Because, I mean, I was basically, like, part of a two-man Metro desk at The Messenger. And so I was, like, in court a lot, writing about mostly criminal but civil cases and all kinds of things, a little bit of local government.

All the things that if you feel like you think about what a Metro desk writes about and if you just give all those responsibilities to two people, that’s the variety of stuff that you’re writing about, basically.

And, like, Athens, Ohio is in part of an impoverished region. There’s just so many stories and things. It’s just so completely different than what I do now.

I can do most of my job from a desk in my home in the city. And for so many reasons, that other job, you could not do that. That was just not possible. You actually had to, like, go out there into the community.

Larissa Padden 25:23
Man on the street.

Michael Thrasher 25:23
Interface with people, you know, or interact with people.

And especially in a small community, you really learn how to navigate and, like, thoughtfully build sources. Because in a small community, the likelihood of everybody talking to everybody is just that much higher. And that has proved so useful writing about family offices.

Larissa Padden 25:57
Well, you’ve been very generous with your time. I just have two hopefully quick questions.

One, selfishly, working in this new endeavor where it’s, you know, totally yours, it’s a weekly newsletter, it’s a very narrow audience. Do you still work with PR and comms? And if so, do you accept pitches? Like, how do you work with PR?

Michael Thrasher 26:17
Yeah, I definitely still. I don’t even know some untold number of relationships with people at tons of firms. I’ve kept in touch with many, many of those people. And we were sort of talking about this earlier. There’s been a little bit of a learning curve.

I think there’s some people who are like, “Oh, we actually know…” It’s oftentimes, actually, I feel like they work with an asset management firm. They know that the owner of the firm effectively has a family office, or they know there’s a ton of LPs in their family offices.

And so they’re like, “Okay, we don’t really, like, there hasn’t been any initiative to talk to reporters about this. But since you’re here and you’re doing it, maybe that’s something we should talk about.” That’s oftentimes how I would say the majority of the conversations begin.

And then there’s tons of people who are like, “Great. Do you want to write about this happening with interest rates?” I’m like, “That’s not really what I’m doing,” you know?

And I think I’ve tried to communicate what Modus is interested in as best as possible. And I’ve got a how to pitch Modus kind of thing on the website and all that.

But my attitude is everybody’s just trying to do their job. If someone’s sending me an email and it’s irrelevant, and I think they keep trying because they’re sincerely trying or they don’t understand something, like, why don’t you just send an email and just explain to them what you’re looking for, so they aren’t wasting their time? Or so they can spend that time actually thinking about what’s going to be most relevant.
I don’t know. That’s my maybe friendlier-than-others attitude about engaging with PR.

Larissa Padden 25:57
Yeah. I’m smiling because you’re in the minority. But that’s great. The majority of what we get is silence, which is better than some of the stories we could tell you off the record.

But my last question is, we try to end with a fun question. And now that I’m of it, this one might not be so fun. But over your time in journalism, you’ve undoubtedly seen a lot of publications come and go. So if you could bring back any publication that no longer exists, which one would it be?

Michael Thrasher 28:36
Oh, man. Oh, I feel a bit bad that I don’t have a specific one. And I think the reason I don’t have a specific one is, like, a lot of times, even if something, a blog stops or a site goes under, there’s usually something that kind of steps into that place.

Larissa Padden 29:00
Yeah, fills the void.

Michael Thrasher 29:01
Yeah, yeah. Like, you know, I read a lot of different stuff. And even though Modus is not doing, like ,page six journalism, like who’s hanging out with who or whose boat is the longest or who owns the most expensive house that was burned down in a terrible fire or fires or whatever. Like, even though Modus isn’t doing that, there’s going to always be a place for that kind of story.

Larissa Padden 29:28
Yeah, there’s going to be interest.

Michael Thrasher 29:30
And I think there’s always people that are trying to think, like, how do we make something engaging and interesting and informative and doing it responsibly or at a high professional level.

And so I don’t know if there’s anything—this is going to sound bad, but, like, I don’t really know if there’s anything that I miss because, like, other stuff has popped up. I feel like Puck is something that I read a lot of and it’s filled, like, some of these, like, maybe voids, at least in some fashion.

Larissa Padden 30:00
Okay. Interesting. I have not read that. I should check it out.

Well, thank you very much. And everyone listening, please go sign up for Modus. Thank you so much for coming in and chatting with us and hopefully you’ll come back.

Michael Thrasher 30:09
Oh, definitely. Anytime.

Larissa Padden 30:11
Great. Thank you.