Graydon Carter

We had made fun of a number of the writers.

So I thought that sounded slightly toxic.

I said, but I've read The New Yorker since I was a kid.

And he said, okay, it's The New Yorker.

So we agreed on a salary, and then I started working on a six-month, 12-month, 18-month plan for The New Yorker.

And then the day it was supposed to be announced, Anna Wintour called me and said, it's going to be the other magazine.

I went, okay.

And she said, Si's going to call you in about 10 minutes, act surprised.

She was the editor of Vogue at the time.

And a friend of mine.

Yeah, and a good friend of mine.

Not quite right hand, but very close to him.

So Cy calls, you know, 10, 15 minutes later, and he tells me it's Vanity Fair, and I say, you okay with that?

I said, absolutely, it's great.

Because by that time...

You know, I had three kids, a fourth on the way.

And so I wind up at Vanity Fair, the least popular candidate I could have chosen.

And for the two years, I didn't fire anybody.

I really only fired one person up to that point in my life.

But I sort of wanted to see.