<ul class="summary-list"><li>Founded in 2013, <keyword id="1965228" type="PERSON" weightage="60" keywordseo="Ben-Thompson">Ben Thompson</keyword>'s $120-a-year <keyword id="10375240" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="stratechery">Stratechery</keyword> newsletter is beloved by tech executives and venture capitalists in Silicon Valley and reaches subscribers in more than 80 countries.</li><li>By one estimate, Thompson's solo-media enterprise is expected to generate more than $3 million in revenue this year.</li><li>Yet as a raft of big-name writes leave their jobs to start their own <keyword id="1590971" type="PERSON" weightage="60" keywordseo="Newsletters">newsletters</keyword> via the "pivot to <keyword id="1615482" type="PERSON" weightage="60" keywordseo="Substack">Substack</keyword>" trend, Thompson's success will be difficult — if not impossible — to replicate.</li></ul>Primarily working out of Taipei, Taiwan, Ben Thompson sits some six thousand miles away from his adoring fanbase of techies in California.His Stratechery newsletter reaches subscribers in more than 80 countries, but his most rabid readership is in Silicon Valley where has built a large following of tech executives and venture capitalists including Upfront Ventures' <a href="https://twitter.com/msuster/status/1181661445953425408">Mark Suster</a> and Facebook top brass Andrew Bosworth. The co-founders of newsletter platform Substack even cite Thompson as the <a href="https://thegeyser.substack.com/p/interview-a-co-founder-of-substack">inspiration for starting their business</a>. Thompson's prolific daily analysis covers the intersection of <keyword id="6355118" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="technology">technology</keyword>, business and society and digs into companies ranging from Apple to Zendesk. Often accompanied by hand-drawn doodles, Thompson's missives are focused around catchy concepts like "<a href="https://stratechery.com/2015/aggregation-theory/">aggregation theory</a>"<a href="https://stratechery.com/2015/aggregation-theory/"></a> and "<a href="https://stratechery.com/concept/disruption-theory/">disruption theory</a>."Thompson has <a href="https://www.producthunt.com/live/ben-thompson">said</a> one of his favorite published pieces was a <a href="https://stratechery.com/2013/clayton-christensen-got-wrong/">2013 take</a> on what his "intellectual hero" Clayton Christensen, the late academic who came up with the business theory of "disruptive innovation," got wrong.For $120 a year, or $12 a month, subscribers get access to the daily update and its archive of articles. Fans can also pay $5 a month or $50 a year to subscribe to the "Dithering" podcast, which he co-hosts with John Gruber, author of the popular tech blog Daring Fireball. Thompson also pumps out one free article a week to lure in potential new members. By one <a href="https://medium.com/hyperlinked/ben-thompsons-stratechery-should-be-crossing-3-million-in-profits-this-year-c146433f0458">unofficial estimate</a>, Thompson's newsletter is on track to rake in over $3 million this year.Read more: <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/why-ad-tech-stocks-soaring-ipo-returning">Wall Street is in love with digital ad stocks again — but investors could be missing a big blind spot</a>Thompson is perhaps an unlikely leader of the solo newsletter pack. By contrast to the recent raft of writers leaving salaried journalism jobs to create their own individual <keyword id="6354777" type="COMPANY" weightage="100" keywordseo="Media">media</keyword> empires — Casey Newton from the Verge, Matt Taibbi from Rolling Stone, Emily Atkin from The New Republic, to name a few — Thompson has never been on the masthead of a newspaper or magazine.The "<a href="https://stratechery.com/about/#:~:text=Ethics%20Statement,any%20company%20I%20write%20about">ethics statement</a>" on his site says he hasn't taken "consulting or speaking arrangements" with the companies he covers since 2016. And unlike many big-name tech thinkers, he rarely schmoozes on the conference circuit."He's found this perfect spot in between [sectors] where he has a refreshing outside perspective," said media analyst and Stratechery subscriber Thomas Baekdal. Thompson rarely grants interviews, and declined to participate in this article."I have been fascinated by the technology industry from a young age, and feel very fortunate that the same forces I am interested in writing about have also made my business possible," Thompson emailed. "While I am honored that you are interested in writing about Stratechery, my focus continues to be on the arguments and analysis, not publicity for myself."Thompson may well be one of the most lucrative one-man newsletter outfits, but as other writers flee their salaried jobs to start their own, they'll find his success hard — if not impossible — to replicate. <h2>From humble beginnings to a newsletter nobleman</h2>Born in Michigan and raised in what he has described as a <a href="https://conversationswithtyler.com/episodes/ben-thompson/">blue-collar upbringing</a> <a href="https://conversationswithtyler.com/episodes/ben-thompson/"></a>in Wisconsin, Thompson graduated with a BS in political science from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where he <a href="https://stratechery.com/2016/the-real-problem-with-facebook-and-the-news/">contributed to The Badger Herald student newspaper</a>.He <a href="https://www.producthunt.com/live/ben-thompson">went on to spend</a> six years teaching English in Taiwan, where Thompson met his wife. They now have two children.He gained an MBA from Northwestern's Kellogg School of Management, focused on marketing and strategy, and an MEM in design and innovation, and many of his bigger-picture themes are rooted in business school concepts.Thompson spent a relatively short time actually working in the tech industry that he writes about so prolifically, first as an intern at Apple University in Cupertino, then as a product manager on Microsoft's Windows app team in Redmond, Washington, for about two years. He founded Stratechery in 2013, while employed as a growth engineer for WordPress.com owner Automattic. Read more: <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/18-companies-powering-amazons-2020-advertising-and-seller-business-2020-5">Meet 18 firms solving companies' giant problems selling and advertising on Amazon</a>Thompson was relatively unknown on the tech and strategy scene when renowned tech blogger John Gruber — who Thompson has said was one of the inspirations to start Stratechery — gave one of his posts ("<a href="https://stratechery.com/2013/apple-rejects-google-now-eu-to-investigate/">Apple Rejects Google Now; EU to Investigate</a>") a <a href="https://daringfireball.net/2013/04/if_not_for_android">shoutout</a> on the Daring Fireball blog. "I went from 500 to 1,500 Twitter followers in a day," said Thompson in a <a href="https://www.producthunt.com/live/ben-thompson">Q&amp;A on the tech website ProductHunt</a> three years ago. Stratechery's paid-for daily update newsletter was introduced the following year; the annual price was increased from $100 to $120 in 2019.<h2>A vital weapon in the Silicon Valley toolkit</h2>Some Stratechery subscribers say the newsletter and the vast archive of content have not only become part of their daily morning routine, but fundamental to the way they do and think about business.Keith Rabois, the famed venture capitalist, claims to have been one of the first "three to 50" people to sign up to Stratechery and has met Thompson in person "a few times" over the years. The newsletter, Rabois said, has shifted his perspective on subjects like net neutrality, where Thompson took a more nuanced view to much of Silicon Valley.<div type="image" title="keith rabois" height="1995" width="2661" msid="79551199" hostid="261"></div>Rabois, currently general partner at Founders Fund, said he filters prospective interview candidates based on whether or not they read the newsletter.<blockquote class="pullquote">It shows you're intellectually bankrupt if you're not reading it. – Keith Rabois</blockquote>In venture and tech, "it shows you're intellectually bankrupt if you're not reading it," said Rabois during a Zoom video call with Business Insider. "You really cannot compete if you can't understand the concepts described in Stratechery."When Rabois was single, he'd even send Stratechery articles to his dates.But, he added with an impish grin, "It was more successful with my chiefs of staff."<h2>Calling out the 'Kool-Aid'</h2>Not everyone has their flag planted firmly in Thompson's camp.In an October blog post "<a href="https://superwuster.medium.com/reviewing-ben-thompsons-stratechery-45b545dd959">Ben Thompson's 'Stratechery' Smart, but a little too much Kool-Aid,</a>" Tim Wu, Columbia Law School professor and author of the books "The Master Switch" and the "The Attention Merchants," questioned Thompson's record and expertise in writing on antitrust. "Stated simply, I'd say he's inducing his readers to drink too much of his 'aggregation theory' Kool-Aid, as opposed to encouraging them to think more broadly or read more deeply to understand a slightly messier reality than he presents," wrote Wu.<div type="image" title="tim wu" height="968" width="1936" msid="79551201" hostid="261"></div>Thompson coined the phrase "<a href="https://stratechery.com/2017/defining-aggregators/">aggregation theory</a>" as a framework to describe how the internet giants have dominated and disrupted their industries. Aggregators — which Thompson says include Netflix, Uber, Google and Airbnb — share three common characteristics. 1) They have a direct relationship with users. 2) They incur no marginal costs for serving users. 3) They can be described as "demand-drive multi-sided networks with decreasing acquisition costs." Thompson responded to Wu with a <a href="https://stratechery.com/2020/is-the-internet-different/">blog post of his own</a>, critiquing some of Wu's arguments and disagreeing with the "caricature" that he applies his aggregation theory to everything to boost the brand.Not entirely convinced, Wu replied with a "<a href="https://superwuster.medium.com/ben-thompsons-stratechery-part-2-89f3591d9460">Part 2</a>," asserting once again that while Thompson's work is insightful for understanding tech business models, "when it comes to antitrust, it is on much shakier ground." <a href="https://superwuster.medium.com/ben-thompsons-stratechery-part-2-89f3591d9460"></a> Thompson didn't continue the back and forth.Wu told Business Insider over email that while he enjoyed the exchange overall, he was surprised by how "fanboy loyal" the Stratechery army of followers is to Thompson, judging by some of the responses he received on Twitter."It felt as if I'd dared criticize World of Warcraft, or dared question the church of aggregationology," said Wu. Thompson himself admits he's not infallible. He recently <a href="https://twitter.com/benthompson/status/1320597404580655104">stated on Twitter</a> his aim "is to get stuff right in the long run, which usually entails some degree of getting it wrong in the short run and subsequently changing course."Still, a successful hit rate doesn't hurt."I've come to put Ben into the category of someone who has been mostly right over time, which given the amount of content he generates is pretty remarkable," said Frank Shaw, corporate vice president of communications at Microsoft.<h2>Can Thompson's success be replicated?</h2>Those following the Substack gold rush might see the newsletter route as an easy way for an established journalist to make a living by going solo — or at the very least, shedding the baggage and overhead of a traditional publisher.Substack's most popular paid newsletter, The Dispatch, a conservative news organization founded by Jonah Goldberg, Steve Hayes, and Toby Stock, <a href="https://techcrunch.com/2020/03/17/the-dispatch-substack-1-million-revenue/">told TechCrunch in March</a> it was on track to generate more than $1 million in revenue this year from its $100-a-year subscription, which offers access to newsletters, events and conference calls with its team.Almost all of Thompson's income is derived from his subscribers, according to his Ethics page. He last publicly disclosed his newsletter subscriber numbers in January 2015, when he said Stratechery had 2,000 paid memberships. Germany based product manager and tech blogger Andreas Steggman extrapolated that Stratechery would have just over <a href="https://medium.com/hyperlinked/ben-thompsons-stratechery-should-be-crossing-3-million-in-profits-this-year-c146433f0458#:~:text=From%20every%20additional%20monthly%20subscriber,of%20Stratechery%20for%202020%3A%20%242%2C969%2C766.&amp;text=We%20now%20have%20data%20to,which%20launched%20in%20May%2020202020">26,000 paying subscribers as of May this year</a>.This somewhat correlates with a datapoint that used to be publicly available on the The Stratechery Forum — for which each paying subscriber is automatically assigned a username — which stated in February there were <a href="https://twitter.com/AnthPB/status/1230510555343052800">25,189 members</a>. <div type="image" title="Stratechery Subscribers" height="1855" width="3000" msid="79551203" hostid="261"></div>Factoring in Dithering — the <a href="https://twitter.com/ysamjo/status/1268210782497648640">co-hosts estimated the podcast had 6,000 subscribers in June</a> this year — Stegmann estimated Thompson would be on track to <a href="https://medium.com/hyperlinked/ben-thompsons-stratechery-should-be-crossing-3-million-in-profits-this-year-c146433f0458">generate more than $3 million</a> in revenue in 2020. Thompson has never got in touch to confirm or correct the figure, Stegmann said.Stratechery benefits from having a clearly defined focus in tech analysis and an audience that is more than willing and able to pay for information they think might give them an edge at work."It's the cheapest course in any business school in the world," said Business Insider alum and former Recode editor-in-chief Dan Frommer, a Stratechery subscribe. He cites Stratechery as an inspiration for his own business, The New Consumer, a website and newsletter about the intersection of technology and consumer brands. It is monetized entirely through paid memberships that start at $200 a year, or $60 a quarter."I saw Ben Thompson and I said, 'OK, this model makes sense'," said Frommer. "I don't need to be Ben, I just want a model that works for me and the math is simple: Get a couple thousand people to pay you a couple hundred dollars a year and you're in good shape."Plus, Thompson's appeal extends beyond tech — not least as he mostly writes about large public companies."Anyone at a mutual funds manager, or a hedge fund, if they can get a tiny nugget of insight that they wouldn't get from a piece of sell-side research, they only need to read one insightful line in three years in order for [their Stratechery subscription] to pay for itself," said Axios chief financial correspondent and Stratechery reader Felix Salmon.But anyone looking to mirror Thompson's success will be entering a crowded and competitive space while facing the prospect of newsletter fatigue. Take Alex Bazin, a UK-based technology strategist. Aside from a subscription to National Geographic magazine, Stratechery is the only other written content pays to read."I know with Stratechery that I get some work-related value out of it and some personal value and though I don't expense it, I think it's [a justifiable expense]," said Bazin. "That's going to be the tough thing for everyone following [with other subscription newsletters]: For the average consumer, how many subscriptions are they going to be prepared to pay for?"<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/59YduAYbhEQ" frameborder="0"></iframe>Thompson's distinctive voice and personal touch are also key to his appeal."His voice is utterly unique. I don't know if the model itself works for things that are in competitive fields — sport, finance, tech — without a very unique voice," said Rabois. "Lots of people cover sports, but there's only one Bill Simmons."Successful newsletter entrepreneurs have to build a community of members who not only find them valuable enough to pay for, but also want them to succeed and grow, according to Frommer."I do not think it's the future of business for everyone," he said. "It is for certain people who have the ability to create excellent differentiated content who want to run all aspects of the business, which also includes operations, and legal, and customer service and — by the way — you'd be alarmed how many people's credit card number changes every year."

How Stratechery founder Ben Thompson built a one-person newsletter that generates about $3 million and became the envy of journalists

<div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image on-image"><img src="https://static-ssl.businessinsider.com/image/58a6319d549057dc008b5343-1600/2017-02-15t173943z1lynxmped1e19hrtroptp4usa-trump-flynn.jpg" alt="robert harward" data-mce-source="Sgt. Shawn Coolman/US Marines" data-mce-caption="Vice Adm. Robert S. Harward, commanding officer of Combined Joint Interagency Task Force 435, speaks to an Afghan official during his visit to Zaranj, Afghanistan, in this January 6, 2011 handout photo." />Sgt. Shawn Coolman/US MarinesVice Adm. Robert S. Harward, commanding officer of Combined Joint Interagency Task Force 435, speaks to an Afghan official during his visit to Zaranj, Afghanistan, in this January 6, 2011 handout photo.</div></div></div>The retired admiral President Donald Trump wants to replace Michael Flynn as national security adviser has turned <a href="https://www.ft.com/content/e89c64b8-f494-11e6-95ee-f14e55513608" target="_blank">down the job</a>, Financial Times reported, citing two sources familiar with the matter.Trump offered the position to retired Adm. Robert Harward on Monday, <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/trump-robert-harward-national-security-adviser-flynn-2017-2">according</a> to Tom Ricks at Foreign Policy. At the time, the former Navy SEAL commander told the president he'd need some time to "think it over."Now Harward has apparently said no to the offer, and Trump has asked him to return to the White House to see if his mind can be changed, according to FT's sources.The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.Two White House officials <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/amphtml/news/powerpost/wp/2017/02/14/harward-emerges-as-front-runner-to-replace-flynn-following-talks/" target="_blank">confirmed</a> to The Washington Post that Harward was at the top of Trump's three-person short list to replace Michael Flynn, who abruptly resigned from the role <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/how-michael-flynn-got-caught-2017-2">after it became public</a> that he had discussed sanctions with Russia's ambassador to the US before Trump's inauguration. Flynn <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/michael-flynn-resigns-as-national-security-adviser/2017/02/13/0007c0a8-f26e-11e6-8d72-263470bf0401_story.html?hpid=hp_rhp-top-table-high_flynnresigns-1138pm%3Ahomepage%2Fstory&amp;tid=a_inl&amp;utm_term=.f89b1e73ab2b">reportedly urged</a> the ambassador, Sergey Kislyak, not to overreact to the latest round of sanctions imposed by the Obama administration, indicating that incoming administration might be more inclined to roll them back.Harward, a former Navy SEAL commander <a href="http://www.navy.mil/navydata/bios/navybio.asp?bioID=338" target="_blank">who rose to deputy commander</a> of US Central Command before retiring in 2013, would most likely bring in his own staff for a "housecleaning" of the National Security Council, according to Ricks.In that role, Harward would have a close ally in <keyword id="6354810" type="ORGANIZATION" weightage="100" keywordseo="Defense">Defense</keyword> Secretary Jim Mattis, whom he served under at Central Command. He also has NSC experience, having served on the council during the George W. Bush administration.One of FT's sources said Harward was concerned about whether he could carry out his "housecleaning" of NSC staff, many of whom were loyal to Flynn. Retired Army Gen. Keith Kellogg is currently serving as acting national security adviser. <div class="margin-top"> <h3>NOW WATCH: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/trump-600-million-off-f-35-most-expensive-weapons-system-program-cost-2017-1">Trump says he shaved $600M off America's most expensive weapons system</a></h3> <div> <div> <script src="http://player.ooyala.com/v3/6e12e8b3387a44daacfb73afba25a76e"></script> <div class="ooyala-video-player" data-video-autoplay="false" data-video-id="l1ZGthOTE6HAQz0nVGSX8BckMtBPb1Pm" data-player-variable="ooyalapopvideo" id="ooyalaplayer_popvideo" style="width:1280px;height:720px"></div> <script> if (typeof RunFunctions === 'undefined') { var RunFunctions = []; } RunFunctions.push(function() { var ooyalapopvideo = OO.Player.create('ooyalaplayer_popvideo', 'l1ZGthOTE6HAQz0nVGSX8BckMtBPb1Pm',{ autoplay: 'false' }); }); </script> <noscript><div>Please enable Javascript to watch this video</div></noscript></div> </div> <script>(function() { function createPlayer() { OO.ready(function() { RunFunctions.forEach(function(ooyalaFunction) { ooyalaFunction(); }); RunFunctions = [];}); } createPlayer(); }()); </script> </div>

The man Trump wants to replace Michael Flynn reportedly turned down the job

<img src="https://static-ssl.businessinsider.com/image/58bd7e544601782d008b4f9a-2400/ap16343255721863.jpg" alt="carter page" />APthis Friday, July 8, 2016, file photo, Carter Page, then adviser to U.S. Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump, speaks at the graduation ceremony for the New Economic School in Moscow, Russia.Associates of President Donald Trump have worked hard to distance themselves from Carter Page, an investment banker-turned foreign policy adviser whose ties to Russia have fueled speculation that the Trump campaign improperly dealt with Moscow in an attempt undermine Hillary Clinton during the election.But the campaign's descriptions of Page's role - including how he got it and how long he served in it - have varied and in some cases contradict each other. The conflicting explanations have raised questions about why no one seems to know for sure, or at least isn't willing to say, who brought Page on - and why.Page's personal and professional history offers no hint of an interest in American politics or foreign policy, except for occasional blog posts between 2013 and 2014 in which he criticized the US sanctions on Russia as "<a href="http://www.globalpolicyjournal.com/blog/10/02/2015/new-slaves-global-edition-russia-iran-and-segregation-world-economy">sanctimonious expressions of moral superiority</a>" and praised Rosneft CEO Igor Sechin <a href="http://www.globalpolicyjournal.com/blog/02/05/2014/man-overboard-black-sea-cobbling-together-latest-coalition-willing-ukraine">for his "accomplishments</a>" in advancing US-Russia relations.Page lived in Moscow in the early 2000s, when he was an investment banker for Merrill Lynch. He claims to have served as an adviser <a href="http://globalenergycap.com/management/">"on key transactions"</a> for Russia's state-owned energy giant, Gazprom. In 2011, Page set up his own investment fund, Global Energy Capital, with former Gazprom executive Sergei Yatesenko. On March 21, 2016, Trump named Page as a member of his foreign policy team in an interview with The Washington Post, prompting questions about how an energy consultant with no foreign policy experience landed on Trump's radar. The Daily Caller <a href="http://dailycaller.com/2017/04/13/heres-who-introduced-carter-page-to-the-trump-campaign/" target="_blank">reported recently</a> that Corey Lewandowski, Trump's former campaign manager, recruited Page to the campaign. Other reports say campaign co-chair Sam Clovis brought him on.Page served in the Navy for five years after graduating from the Naval Academy in 1993. He drove a Mercedes and "reveled in lavish spending that sometimes seemed to exceed his means," The New York Times <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/19/us/politics/carter-page-russia-trump.html">reported</a> on Wednesday. Page told the Times last month that "the half year I spent on the Trump campaign meant more to me than the five years I spent in the Navy." But the extent of his involvement with the campaign is even murkier than how he landed on it.Page said early last month that he "spent many hours" at Trump campaign headquarters last year, referring to himself in a letter to the Senate Intelligence Committee as a "campaign surrogate." An administration official who worked with the campaign told Business Insider at the time that no one could recall having seen Page at Trump Tower, however, where the campaign was headquartered. But a campaign adviser recently told The Washington Post that Page "was one of the more active" foreign policy advisers on a team that included terrorism analyst Walid Phares, former Pentagon inspector general Joseph Schmitz, international energy lawyer George Papadopoulos, and retired Army Lt. Gen. Joseph "Keith" Kellogg. Page, the adviser told the Post, frequently submitted policy recommendations and requested meetings with Trump that the campaign says were never granted. He attended three dinners held for the foreign policy advisers in the spring and summer of 2016, according to the Post, and met Russia's ambassador to the US, Sergey Kislyak, at the Republican National Convention in July.Page was evidently still meeting with the foreign policy group as late as August 19, Phares <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-election-trump-adviser-idUSKCN10Z2OX" target="_blank">told Reuters</a> at the time. In September, Yahoo's Michael Isikoff, citing a Western intelligence source, <a href="https://www.yahoo.com/news/u-s-intel-officials-probe-ties-between-trump-adviser-and-kremlin-175046002.html">reported</a> that Page had traveled to Moscow in July - a trip that Politico reported was <a href="http://www.politico.com/story/2017/03/carter-page-russia-trip-trump-corey-lewandowski-235784" target="_blank">approved by Lewandowski</a> - to meet with the sanctioned CEO of Russia's state-owned oil company, Rosneft. Page has denied those reports, insisting he was only there to give a speech at Moscow's New Economic School. But the trip raised red flags at the FBI, which sought and <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/carter-page-trump-russia-fisa-warrant-2017-4" target="_blank">obtained a FISA</a> order to surveil Page's communications shortly thereafter. He is the first - and, so far, only - member of Trump's campaign to have been placed under direct FBI surveillance as a result of his ties to Russia.The campaign scrambled to distance itself from Page in September. Jason Miller, then the Trump campaign's communications director, told <a href="http://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/297599-trump-campaign-backs-away-from-adviser-suspected-of-ties-to-kremlin" target="_blank">The Hill</a> on September 24 that Page had "never been a part of [the] campaign." Then-campaign manager Kellyanne Conway <a href="http://www.cnn.com/videos/tv/2016/09/25/sotu-carter-page-2.cnn" target="_blank">told CNN</a> a day later that Page was "certainly not part of the campaign that I'm running." But Lewandowski - who was, at least officially, the highest-ranking campaign official until June - told Reuters in August that Page had "definitely" been an adviser. (The current administration official who worked with the campaign and spoke to Business Insider last month said Miller and Conway had never met Page, which is why they downplayed his role on the campaign.)The Page saga took another dramatic turn in January, when BuzzFeed published <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/trump-russia-ties-michael-flynn-dossier-2017-2" target="_blank">a 35-page dossier</a> detailing the Trump's alleged ties to Russia that, among other things, accused Page of serving as a liaison between the Trump campaign and Moscow during the election.The document appeared to corroborate what Yahoo had reported four months earlier: Page took his controversial trip to Moscow, it alleged, to meet with Rosneft's CEO, Igor Sechin. There, Page was offered the brokerage of a 19% stake in Rosneft in exchange for the lifting of US sanctions on Russia, but was noncommittal, according to the dossier.On <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/carter-page-trump-russia-igor-sechin-dossier-2017-1" target="_blank">December 7, Rosneft signed a deal</a> to sell 19.5% of shares, or roughly $11 billion, to the multinational commodity trader Glencore Plc and Qatar's state-owned wealth fund. Qatar's sovereign wealth fund is Glencore's largest shareholder. <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/08/world/europe/carter-page-donald-trump-moscow-russia.html">Page was back in Moscow</a> on December 8 to "meet with some of the top managers" of Rosneft, he <a href="http://tass.ru/ekonomika/3866013">told reporters at the time</a>. He denied meeting with Sechin, Rosneft's CEO, during that trip, but said it would have been "a great honor" if he had.The FBI reportedly used the dossier's raw intelligence about Page to bolster its case for the FISA order, according to CNN, indicating that the bureau <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/carter-page-fbi-dossier-fisa-warrant-case-2017-4" target="_blank">had enough confidence</a> in the validity of the document to corroborate it and present it in court. "In my long experience in dealing with FISA processing, unconfirmed information about a potential target cannot (and has not been) included in the application‎," said John Rizzo, the former acting general counsel of the CIA."So, if the CNN report is accurate, then I have to believe that the FBI and Department of Justice concluded (and the Court agreed) that the info in the dossier about Page was reliable." <h3>NOW WATCH: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/alec-baldwin-mocks-trump-oreilly-snl-fox-news-sexual-harassment-advertisers-2017-4">'Just a loose hunch': Watch Alec Baldwin impersonate Trump and Bill O'Reilly on 'SNL'</a></h3> Please enable Javascript to watch this video

The FBI is zeroing in on a former Trump adviser the White House just can't shake

<div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image on-image"><img src="https://static-ssl.businessinsider.com/image/584b31f8a1a45e23028b4df7-2400/undefined" alt="Flynn Trump image" data-mce-source="Lamar Salter" />Lamar SalterMichael Flynn</div></div></div>When Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn, President-elect Donald Trump's pick for national security adviser, was working at the highest levels of the military and intelligence field, he had a reputation as a brilliant tactician.But then, in 2014, <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/michael-t-flynn-fired-from-dia-2014-4">he got fired</a> as the head of the Defense Intelligence Agency. US officials cited clashes over his leadership style, but he claims it was because he took a stand about "radical Islam."Eventually, he <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Field-Fight-Global-Against-Radical/dp/1250106222">wrote a book</a> about how to "win the global war against radical Islam" and became one of Trump's most ardent supporters, <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2016/10/18/what-the-heck-has-happened-to-michael-flynn/?utm_term=.3fb123a81cf0">leading The Washington Post to ask</a>, "What the heck has happened to Michael Flynn?"Some in the military and intelligence communities were shocked to see Flynn encouraging chants of "Lock her up!" at the Republican National Convention, referring to Trump's opponent, Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton. And later in the campaign season, reports surfaced of Flynn clashing with officials who conducted a national security briefing for Trump.Flynn's most recent controversy involved his son, who <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/jake-tapper-pizzagate-michael-flynn-son-2016-12">promoted the "pizzagate" conspiracy theory</a> on Twitter, which baselessly alleged through fake news stories that a pedophilia ring involving high-level Democratic Party officials was operating out of a Washington pizzeria. Flynn himself <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/ap-critics-worry-after-trump-security-chief-fuels-conspiracies-2016-12">has promoted fake news stories</a> on his Twitter feed.Gen. Barry McCaffrey told MSNBC recently that some of Flynn's tweets "border on demented."Daniel W. Drezner, a professor of international <keyword id="6358883" type="PERSON" weightage="100" keywordseo="Politics">politics</keyword> at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University, concluded in his column for the Post that Flynn "should be kept as far away from power as humanly possible."<div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><img src="https://static-ssl.businessinsider.com/image/582e56fde02ba730208b4e3a-2400/ap16317044549235.jpg" alt="Donald Trump with Mike Flynn and Keith Kellogg" data-mce-source="Gerald Herbert/AP Photo" data-mce-caption="Donald Trump with Mike Flynn and Keith Kellogg" />Gerald Herbert/AP PhotoDonald Trump with Mike Flynn and Keith Kellogg</div></div></div>Some of Flynn's former coworkers painted a picture of the lieutenant general that seems to support that concern.Sarah Chayes, who is now at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, was a special adviser to Gen. Stanley McChrsytal, who worked very closely with Flynn, in Afghanistan in 2009. She told Business Insider she shared an office with Flynn for more than a year during this time.She described a "14-year-old disruptive kid" who often contradicted himself."I would put this like - imagine if the kid, the sort of transgressive, fun, energetic, arrogant boy in the back of the class, that that's like who you're working with," Chayes said. "It was very high-energy, it is fun, he's fun to be around, but unbelievably arrogant."Chayes said that when McChrystal's team, including Flynn, who was a military intelligence officer at the time, arrived at a NATO headquarters in Afghanistan, they "blasted in basically saying everything was all screwed up."They said "they were going to, not only they could fix it, they would fix it, but it was like … the implication was very insulting to the entire command and that obviously felt like something that was problematic," she said."It was not only the individual officers being insulted, but countries we're in an alliance with. ... They had put lots of people and efforts and energy and materiel into this fight," Chayes continued.Chayes described a person who spoke in constant contradictions."You listen to him closely for six or seven minutes and he will have contradicted himself two or three times," she said.She also described him as a rule-breaker, which fits with what he wrote in his book about being a "maverick.""There was a sense in that headquarters and with him ... kind of like the rules didn't apply to him," Chayes said.<div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><img src="https://static-ssl.businessinsider.com/image/5729cbaf5124c9b04a8b4567-800" alt="Then Defense Intelligence Agency director U.S. Army Lt. General Michael Flynn testifies before the House Intelligence Committee on " data-mce-source="Thomson Reuters" data-mce-caption="US Army Lt General Flynn testifies before House Intelligence Committee in Washington" />Thomson ReutersLt. Gen. Michael Flynn testifies before House Intelligence Committee in Washington.</div></div></div>But she also described him as a good communicator who encouraged open dialogue.One colleague <a href="http://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/the-disruptive-career-of-trumps-national-security-adviser">noted to the New Yorker</a> in November that Flynn would encourage junior officers to challenge him in briefings, despite his high rank. The unnamed colleague said junior officers "just loved him."Another source told the New Yorker that Flynn often wrote "This is bullshit!" in the margins of classified papers he passed up the chain.Someone who worked with both McChrystal and Flynn said McChrystal encouraged Flynn to control his outbursts and listen to colleagues who challenged the unsubstantiated theories he promoted.Many former colleagues who have talked to the press (often anonymously) since Flynn was named Trump's national security adviser said that while he is tactically brilliant, he struggles with broad strategy."He made a lot of changes," one source told the New Yorker of Flynn's time at the DIA. "Not in a strategic way - A to Z - but back and forth."Retired Navy Adm. James Stavridis, who is currently the dean of the Fletcher School, made a similar assessment.In an email to Business Insider, he described Flynn as "a superb tactical commander both in Afghanistan and Iraq, with a very hard-edged view of Islam and a direct, straight-ahead style of leadership.""As national security adviser, he will easily do the 'adviser' part of the role, which is in his wheelhouse," Stavridis said. "But he will have to develop the ability bring opposing views from each of the cabinet officials into synthesis for the president. It is a very tough job."Rep. Devin Nunes, who is chairman of the House Intelligence Committee and a member of Trump's transition team, said Flynn is up for the job.Nunes said he has known Flynn for a long time and has been briefed by him dozens of times. He praised Flynn as "one of the best and most knowledgeable generals" he's seen during his career in Congress."He's perfect because the president-elect trusts him and many of us in Congress trust him," Nunes told Business Insider.He pushed back on the unflattering portraits of Flynn that have appeared in the press."You don't have a 30-year career, develop one of the most successful military operations in the history of warfare and all of the organizations he's run, all the promotions he's received … and then have a problem running an agency," he said. "You know, it didn't add up at the time."Nunes pointed to Flynn's experience fighting Al Qaeda in the Middle East."He was the intelligence officer in charge of the machine led by Stan McChrystal that tracked down and killed Al Qaeda, so we know he knows how to do it," he said. "And he's one of the few who would know how to do it who has the experience." <div class="margin-top"> <h3>NOW WATCH: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/donald-trump-fashion-designer-nicole-miller-2016-11">Fashion designer Nicole Miller reveals what Donald Trump is really like</a></h3> <div> <div> <script src="http://player.ooyala.com/v3/6e12e8b3387a44daacfb73afba25a76e"></script> <div class="ooyala-video-player" data-video-autoplay="false" data-video-id="dpMnJydjrXsq2Usk15Mr8HWRc0x5MQTA" data-player-variable="ooyalapopvideo" id="ooyalaplayer_popvideo" style="width:1280px;height:720px"></div> <script> if (typeof RunFunctions === 'undefined') { var RunFunctions = []; } RunFunctions.push(function() { var ooyalapopvideo = OO.Player.create('ooyalaplayer_popvideo', 'dpMnJydjrXsq2Usk15Mr8HWRc0x5MQTA',{ autoplay: 'false' }); }); </script> <noscript><div>Please enable Javascript to watch this video</div></noscript></div> </div> <script>(function() { function createPlayer() { OO.ready(function() { RunFunctions.forEach(function(ooyalaFunction) { ooyalaFunction(); }); RunFunctions = [];}); } createPlayer(); }()); </script> </div>

Michael Flynn's former colleagues describe him as volatile and 'unbelievably arrogant'

<div class="image-container float_right" style="width:480px"><div class="image"><img src="http://static2.businessinsider.com/image/5217a1ca6bb3f7447a000001-1104-828/studying-thinking-working-desk.jpg?maxX=480" border="0" alt="studying, thinking, working, desk" width="480" /><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/merchau/8548057127/">Flickr/mer chau</a></div></div>THERE is a never-ending supply of <keyword id="6355515" type="ORGANIZATION" weightage="60" keywordseo="Business">business</keyword> gurus telling us how we can, and must, do more. Sheryl Sandberg urges women to “Lean In” if they want to get ahead. John Bernard offers breathless advice on conducting “Business at the Speed of Now”. Michael Port tells salesmen how to “Book Yourself Solid”. And in case you thought you might be able to grab a few moments to yourself, Keith Ferrazzi warns that you must “Never Eat Alone”.
Yet the biggest problem in the business world is not too little but too much—too many distractions and interruptions, too many things done for the sake of form, and altogether too much busy-ness. The Dutch seem to believe that an excess of meetings is the biggest devourer of time: they talk of vergaderziekte, “meeting sickness”. However, a study last year by the McKinsey Global Institute suggests that it is e-mails: it found that highly skilled office workers spend more than a quarter of each working day writing and responding to them.
Which of these banes of modern business life is worse remains open to debate. But what is clear is that office workers are on a treadmill of pointless activity. Managers allow meetings to drag on for hours. Workers generate e-mails because it requires little effort and no thought. An entire management industry exists to spin the treadmill ever faster.
All this “leaning in” is producing an epidemic of over<keyword id="6355058" type="ORGANIZATION" weightage="60" keywordseo="Work">work</keyword>, particularly in the United States. Americans now toil for eight-and-a-half hours a week more than they did in 1979. A survey last year by the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention estimated that almost a third of working adults get six hours or less of sleep a night. Another survey last year by Good Technology, a provider of secure mobile systems for businesses, found that more than 80% of respondents continue to work after leaving the office, 69% cannot go to bed without checking their inbox and 38% routinely check their work e-mails at the dinner table.
This activity is making it harder to focus on real work as opposed to make-work. Teresa Amabile of Harvard Business School, who has been conducting a huge study of work and creativity, reports that workers are generally more creative on low-pressure days than on high-pressure days when they are confronted with a flurry of unpredictable demands. In 2012 Gloria Mark of the University of California, Irvine, and two colleagues deprived 13 people in the IT business of e-mail for five days and studied them intensively. They found that people without it concentrated on tasks for longer and experienced less stress.
It is high time that we tried a different strategy—not “leaning in” but “leaning back”. There is a distinguished history of leadership thinking in the lean-back tradition. Lord Melbourne, Queen Victoria’s favourite prime minister, extolled the virtues of “masterful inactivity”. Herbert Asquith embraced a policy of “wait and see” when he had the job. Ronald Reagan also believed in not overdoing things: “It’s true hard work never killed anybody,” he said, “but I figure, why take the chance?”. This tradition has been buried in a morass of meetings and messages. We need to revive it before we schedule ourselves to death.
The most obvious beneficiaries of leaning back would be creative workers—the very people who are supposed to be at the heart of the modern economy. In the early 1990s Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, a psychologist, asked 275 creative types if he could interview them for a book he was writing. A third did not bother to reply at all and another third refused to take part. Peter Drucker, a management guru, summed up the mood of the refuseniks: “One of the secrets of productivity is to have a very big waste-paper basket to take care of all invitations such as yours.” Creative people’s most important resource is their time—particularly big chunks of uninterrupted time—and their biggest enemies are those who try to nibble away at it with e-mails or meetings. Indeed, creative people may be at their most productive when, to the manager’s untutored eye, they appear to be doing nothing.
Managers themselves could benefit. Those at the top are best employed thinking about strategy rather than operations—about whether the company is doing the right thing rather than whether it is sticking to its plans. When he was boss of General Electric, Jack Welch used to spend an hour a day in what he called “looking out of the window time”. When he was in charge of Microsoft Bill Gates used to take two “think weeks” a year when he would lock himself in an isolated cottage. Jim Collins, of “Good to Great” fame, advises all bosses to keep a “stop doing list”. Is there a meeting you can cancel? Or a dinner you can avoid?
Less is more—more or less
Junior managers would do well to follow the same advice. In “Do Nothing”, one of the few business books to grapple with the problem of over-management, Keith Murnighan of the Kellogg School of Management argues that the best managers focus their attention on establishing the right rules—recruiting the right people and establishing the right incentives—and then get out of the way. He quotes a story about Eastman Kodak in its glory days. A corporate reorganisation left a small division out in the cold—without a leader or a reporting line to headquarters. The head office only rediscovered the division when it received a note from a customer congratulating the unit on its work.
Doing nothing may be going too far. Managers play an important role in co-ordinating complicated activities and disciplining slackers. And some creative people would never finish anything if they were left to their own devices. But there is certainly a case for doing a lot less—for rationing e-mail, cutting back on meetings and getting rid of a few overzealous bosses. Leaning in has been producing negative returns for some time now. It is time to try the far more radical strategy of leaning back.

You Searched For "keith kellogg" and got 5 results

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The man Trump wants to replace Michael Flynn reportedly turned down the job

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The FBI is zeroing in on a former Trump adviser the White House just can't shake

Natasha Bertrand

Michael Flynn's former colleagues describe him as volatile and 'unbelievably arrogant'

Pamela Engel

Business People Would Be Better Off If They Did Less And Thought More

The Economist

You Searched For "keith kellogg" and got 5 results

How Stratechery founder Ben Thompson built a one-person newsletter that generates about $3 million and became the envy of journalists

Lara O&apos;Reilly

The man Trump wants to replace Michael Flynn reportedly turned down the job

Paul Szoldra

The FBI is zeroing in on a former Trump adviser the White House just can't shake

Natasha Bertrand

Michael Flynn's former colleagues describe him as volatile and 'unbelievably arrogant'

Pamela Engel

Business People Would Be Better Off If They Did Less And Thought More

The Economist

Lara O'Reilly