A Victim of the ‘Elon Musk Playbook’

Alison Gerber, welcome to The Kicker.

It's great to be here, Megan.

Thank you for inviting me.

I'm so excited to have you.

We'll talk about this, but I have a connection to you and the Times Free Press.

But I want to talk about your whole career.

But first, I want to ask, I have also lost my job in a very public way.

It is extremely disorienting.

This happened to you not that long ago.

So first, just how are you doing?

I'm actually doing fine.

I mean, I'm honestly one of those people who, this might sound goofy, but I believe that everything happens for a reason.

And sometimes I worked somewhere for 23 years and maybe it's a good thing to be pushed out of my comfort zone and to learn to do new things and try new things and have new adventures.

I love that.

And what... what has your last month six weeks uh been like what have you been up to

so you know when bad things happen to you there are always like silver linings and one of the silver linings of this is that i've heard from so many people across the industry people i worked with years ago people i know from just you know it's a small industry people i know from the news industry at other newspapers and people I know through like professional boards and associations who have all reached out.

And that has been like so heartening and, you know, it makes you feel like you're part of a community and it makes you feel really valued.

And like the work you did was, was recognized and valued.

So that's been really great.

And, you know, that's been kind of like the best part of, of the last month.

It's, it's, It's been sad to not be around the people I worked with every day because we were a pretty tight team and we were a pretty good team.

And I think we had a lot of talent.

So, you know, that's kind of been the downside part of it.

Mm hmm.