Disrupted

In 2012, journalist Dan Lyons, who’d previously been employed as the technology editor at Newsweek magazine, was in his 50s and desperately looking for work. He’d just been fired and was now facing a radically different job market.

He wasn’t alone. The internet-technology boom of the 2000s was causing many older professionals to reevaluate their positions in the media industry.

During the early 2000s, new internet-based tech companies, including Google, Facebook, Zynga and Groupon, were on the rise. Meanwhile, traditional media industries, such as newspapers and magazines, were struggling to survive and adapt.

These newly ascendant companies were offering products and services that were changing central human activities – how we shop and socialize, how we get our news and information.

Instead of relying on newspapers and magazines, readers could now get all the information they needed with a simple click. Print magazines like Newsweek were in free-fall as advertisers began moving to online platforms and people began canceling their subscriptions.

All of this led to Lyons being let go, just after Newsweek – the very company he was working for – published an article entitled “The Beached White Male.” Ironically, it was about a generation of experienced, older professionals who were suddenly finding themselves bereft of work due to company cutbacks.

To find a new job, Lyons needed to reinvent himself – and his attempt at transformation led him to the new world of start-ups.

Lyons was married, had two young kids and was the sole breadwinner, all of which made a steady job and good health insurance imperative.

His first new job took him to San Francisco, where he worked for a tech-news website called ReadWrite.

It was okay, but not ideal, since his family was rooted on the other side of the country, in Boston. However, while in San Francisco, he also got a first-hand look at the booming start-up businesses of Silicon Valley.

This got him thinking: Maybe he could reinvent himself as a writer in the marketing department of a start-up?