Jodi Kantor

If you ever told me I would be sitting here doing this work, having this conversation with you, I never would have believed you.

So Mike is and was a singular figure in journalism, kind of matchless columnist on the page, but also this electric television host who helped create a genre and was so witty and so fast.

And I came to work for him in 1998 when Slate, which we now, there's the current Slate, but Baby Slate was a startup company

owned by Microsoft, invented by Michael Kinsley.

And it had one goal, which was to figure out what journalism meant on the web.

And it was an incredible place to start work because there was like very little hierarchy.

Young people had a lot of opportunity.

It was an environment that was both playful and serious.

And Mike really encouraged experimentation.

So he gave, he was so encouraging of young people that like a couple months into me working there,

He tried to give me a big promotion and I was living in DC at the time, but the promotion was in Seattle at the Microsoft Mothership.

And I was super excited because I had dropped out of law school and kind of like belly flopped my way into journalism and, you know, my God, a promotion and more money and validation and the boss's approval.

It was completely irresistible.

So I jump out on a plane to Seattle.

I'd never been there before.

You know, when you smell the Seattle air for the first time, you're like, oh, like this is how air is supposed to smell, right?

Like this, this like freshness, it's incredible.

So the deal is almost done.

We're having lunch the last day in the Microsoft cafeteria.

And I'm 24 years old at the time.