Times C.T.O. Rajiv Pant Leaves to Join Start-Up Some Spider
In a move that presages more changes within the New York Times’ technology and product teams, chief technology officer Rajiv Pant will leave to take a job at a New York-based start-up, I’ve learned. (Addition: That start-up is Some Spider, headed by former NYT paywall executive Paul Smurl)
Pant, a veteran of four big publishing companies, is moving into a top executive position. He’ll head technology, design and product at the company, which the Times’ internal memo announcing his departure only identified as one that will traverse community, commerce and content. Expect a bigger announcement on Pant’s landing at this soon-to-rise-on-the-radar company within the week.
Pant, a 40-year-old, four-year veteran of the Times, has had his fingers in much of the major transformation the Times has experienced this decade. Some are publicly obvious: the scaling up of the Times’ pioneering paywall, which now counts 957,000 digital-only paying customers, and the NYT 5 website redesign, which embraced visuals, storytelling and speed of loading as primary attributes. Others make differences behind the scenes: the hiring of dozens of digital talents that have deepened the Times’ tech bench; the creation of the Times’ first data science team; mobile expansion; and, most recently, the advent of continuous delivery.
First published at Capital New York
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He’s had direct responsibility for about 300 of the technology staff’s 450-strong complement, a division that his boss, chief information officer Marc Frons, built and expanded, merging traditional print-based tech functions with those of the digital present and future.
“Rajiv came in when I needed to rebuild the organization and he really shored it up,” Frons told me Monday evening. “He amplified the culture of innovation and supported the notion of engineers being peers with journalists. He spurred that innovation and discovery, really embodying it and took it a lot further than I could have done on my own. He will be missed.
Inside the Times, there’s a consensus that those he hired have been pivotal in the company’s digital development.
“Always a magnet for top talent, Rajiv’s protégés can be found in every area of the technology department,” Frons wrote in his good-bye email.
We can expect follow-on staffing changes, given Pant’s departure, which will happen by the end of the month. Frons says some kind of reorganization is inevitable, given Pant’s skill set – and the ever-changing demands of product technology. Pant has owned a big portfolio, with his direct reports including the heads of mobile and web engineering, e-commerce, content management, interactive news, data science, quality, and project management
Of course, the departure comes at an inflection point for the Times. Kinsey Wilson assumed major executive authority a month ago, becoming Executive Vice President for Product and Technology, with Frons’ group now reporting to him. In addition, the Times’point exec for its paywall business Paul Smurl recently left to join Some Spider, web entrepreneur Vinit Bharara’s would-be “digital media empire” as president and COO.
Pant is something of a philosopher technologist, with views and knowledge ranging far beyond engineering and publishing pursuits, as seen in the breadth of his blog. (Interview with Pant as part of Medium C.T.O. series.) I first met him when he was hired the Philadelphia Inquirer and Philly.com, part of (then) Knight Ridder New Media’s Internet network. He attended Temple University and was then scooped up by Philly’s fledgling digital operation. At 26, he became vice-president for engineering at Knight Ridder Digital in San Jose, where I also worked.
After KRD, Pant joined Cox Newspapers in Atlanta and then Condé Nast. There, Sarah Chubb, then president of Condé Nast Digital and now a media strategy consultant, recalls: “You get some C.T.O.s who only want to make sure the engineers are happy. Sometimes that means the business comes in second. Sometimes, it is the other way, a C.T.O. who is only about the business, and they have a real hard time keeping really good engineering talent, which we know is incredibly competitive and is the difference between winning and losing at the business. He’s good at both. That’s his special sauce.”
Pant says he relishes the entrepreneurial opportunity ahead, the ability to build from scratch. For the first time, he’ll be given overall responsibility for product and design as well as tech, two well-matrixed areas at the Times.
As for the tech-building, Pant points to Vox’s Chorus as a good example of what can now be done, with relatively small investment, to build a state of the art digital business from the ground up. That’s especially true if that digital business owns, or plans to launch, multiple brands. He says he’ll focus on hiring data scientists and artificial intelligence experts at the outset. Important to him is to “build the culture from the beginning.”
“We are going to rely on advanced technology to make the business model successful…. Many traditional media companies still haven’t embraced that. Technology, of course, is an enabler, but for a start-up technology it is a key differentiator.”
When Pant came to the Times from Condé Nast, numerous tech staffers followed him; expect to see some movement as well from the Times to Pant’s new company. In fact, the combination of opportunity and power shifts at the Times may drive significant staff change at several levels in both technology and product.
Perhaps Rajiv Pant’s biggest decision as he leaves the Times for the start-up is what to wear on his first day of work. When he became Knight Ridder Digital’s youngest VP at age 26, he endured a meeting with KRD’s Japanese client, Asahi Shimbun. He’d dressed in casual Silicon Valley wear, but that combined with his youth left the visitors wondering when the V.P. of engineering would finally arrive. The lesson he took – and has applied ever since – is to dress well. What dressing well means at New York City start-up circa 2015 though is a bit of a conundrum for a technologist with many views. “I’m still wondering what I will do.”