The Verge’s “Failure” is a Win for Everyone: Talent Networks as Networks

Becca Farsace is a talented young video producer who, until recently, worked for The Verge, a technology journalism website. She’s now gone solo, and put out a video explaining why. It’s worth watching. Farsace is open and honest about the challenges and loneliness of remote work, and the friction creative people can feel in large organizations. Her reasons for leaving The Verge are good ones.

But they’re not reasons that make The Verge look bad, even though that’s a narrative spinning up in some corners. She wanted independence, and control and ownership of her creative output, and she couldn’t get it within The Verge right now. That, by itself, is unremarkable—even if Farsace’s talents are. What’s interesting about the narrative framing isn’t the particulars of Farsace’s leaving her employer for the better part of a decade for something new, but rather how the framing reflects the way people tend to view networks and markets from a narrowly focused and static perspective, a perspective that obfuscates many of the benefits of dynamic markets as networks, instead of as individual transactions.

As an example of this narrative, here’s Liz Kelly Nelson, writing about the departure: “What the trend in video makers leaving brands to be in control of their content, and their destiny, tells us, though, is that media companies may need to rethink their willingness to share ownership, and profits, with the highly creative content producers like Becca Farsace for whom the old rules just aren’t good enough anymore.” When Nelson shared this post on Threads, she added, “What does it mean when the networks that invest in growing strong talent just can’t seem to hold onto them?”

I was struck by the wording. The Verge failed to hold on to Farsace, true. But did the network that grew her talent? It depends on how broadly you zoom out, and how expansively you think about what it means for a network to invest and to benefit.

The Verge is a business, and it operates in the market—broadly, but also in the narrower market for technology news and analysis. The Verge hired Farsace because, as a business, it expected earn more from having her on staff (e.g., from advertising revenue on the videos she produced) than it cost to have her (her salary, benefits, and use of various other corporate resources). And it’s possible, in making the decision to hire a 22 year old, that they expected the balance there to not be in their favor for some time. Young and inexperienced workers are typically paid less than their older and more experienced colleagues because they are less productive. They produce less value for their employer on, say, a per hour basis than someone who’s been doing it longer and has developed their skills. So when you’re hiring young and inexperienced employees, you’re typically banking on them becoming more productive as their skills develop.

But it is also the case, when you hire young people fresh out of college, that you’re unlikely to have them forever. Very few of us stay with the same employer from just after graduation through retirement. Part of that is when you’re fresh out of college, you’re still figuring yourself out, and still working through what it is you actually want to do long term. Maybe you switch industries entirely. Maybe you just decided that, while you thought you wanted to shoot videos, what you in fact really want to do is manage a production team—and there’s not an opening at your current employer. Or, as in Farsace’s case, you decide you’d like to strike out on your own.

That this latter happened doesn’t mean The Verge has screwed up in retaining talent. Or, at least, it’s not ipso facto evidence of that on its own. Some employers are bad at talent retention because, for example, they’re toxic workplaces or don't pay well, and so when employees grow their skills enough to have other options, they jump ship. But it doesn’t sound like that’s what happened at The Verge. Instead, Farsace’s talent outgrew what The Verge could reasonably offer her.

And, as someone with a lot of experience hiring and managing young people fresh out of college, let me tell you that, when you’re a manager and that happens, it’s actually pretty awesome. You obviously want to keep great people, because great people contribute greatly, and they’re also usually a lot of fun to work with. But you can’t always do it, because an organization has needs beyond “keep everyone who’s great,” and so keeping them would mean either giving up things you can’t give up, or it means doing that person a disservice. Because if you’re a good manager of young talent, your first responsibility is to be their biggest fan. You want them to succeed and to grow. That benefits your organization while they’re there, yes, and so managing them well, from the perspective of the organization’s interests, means giving them what they need—including direction and mentorship—to achieve it.

But you also want them to succeed even if that success means outgrowing what it is you can offer them. The first reason for this is ethical. It’s good to want others to succeed, and it’s good to delight when they do so. I’ve accomplished a lot in my career, and have many personal accomplishments I’m proud of, but nothing has made me prouder than when a young person I gave their first career opportunity to goes on to awesome things. I’ve had interns or first job employees who are now prominent think tank scholars and tenured professors. That’s incredible and rewarding, and I couldn’t be happier for them—and they wouldn’t have done it if I’d “retained” their talent. Because, at the time they were ready to take that next step, I didn’t have a path available that would get them to where they had decided they wanted to be, or where they ultimately deserved to be. To begrudge them leaving, or to see it as a failure of the organization I was with at the time, would’ve been to fail to take seriously my role as their mentor, friend, and biggest fan.

The second reason gets to the problem with framing a situation like Farsace leaving The Verge as “the networks that invest in growing strong talent” failing when they don’t “hold onto them.” Because “the network” isn’t The Verge, it’s the pool of talent in video production, and the pool of talent for organizations like The Verge. When you invest in young talent, you benefit your company for as long as you have that talent on staff, and you benefit that young talent by paying them a wage and helping them develop their skills. But you also create positive externalities. Other people, who aren’t you or your organization or the employee herself, benefit from that investment. That employee is creating products of value to others (many, many people love the videos Farsace made for The Verge), and they will continue to create value wherever they go next.

“But that’s not value for us,” you might think. If we invest in someone and they leave, sure they’re creating value elsewhere, but we’re not gaining from it. And that’s true, if you take that narrow perspective. If all you look at is the immediate transaction between you and the employee, or between your customers and that employee’s output. If you zoom out, however, and think about “the network,” then you recognize that you’re not the only one doing such talent development. Whoever ends up landing that person when they leave, or whoever benefits from their solo output, is gaining value. Because you’re part of that network, if you cultivate a culture of developing young talent and cheering them on as they grow, then you’ll be able be able to find new talent yourself that has been similarly developed in other organizations sharing a similar culture and values. When Nilay Patel, Editor-in-Chief of The Verge, celebrate’s Farsace’s new solo venture, he’s not just doing right by her, he’s contributing by example to a community that will bring him and his organization talent in the near and long term, and is telling future Becca Farsaces that The Verge is a great place to get your start.

So one way to read Farsace’s exit is that The Verge was incapable of holding on to a talented contributor. That’s the static and narrow view. The other is to focus on The Verge giving a young and raw talent a place to earn a living while developing her skills to the point where she could strike out on her own, and then publicly cheering her doing so, and that this contributes very much to the network The Verge is a part of and benefits from. That’s the dynamic and broad view.

Markets are such powerful forces for good because they give us incentives to blur the line between self-regarding actions and other-regarding ones. It was in The Verge’s interests to hire Farsace when they did. It wasn’t an act of charity. But by following that interest, they launched the career of a tremendous talent, and contributed to a network that will do more of the same. This wasn’t a failure, but the best kind of success.