After spending the weekend hearing from many in outdoor media about last week's layoffs at Outside, Inc, Rock Fight founder Colin True was reminded of a famous story.
Are you familiar with the Greek paradox known as the Ship of Theseus? It’s a long story, but the summation goes like this:
If one replaced each plank of the Ship of Theseus with a new piece of wood every time it began to rot, there would eventually come a time when all planks had been replaced, and none would be from the original ship. Does this mean it’s still the same Ship of Theseus?
I was reminded of this paradox this past weekend when I started receiving emails and texts letting me know that sometime last week Outside, Inc. had laid off a significant portion of its editorial team.
I thought of the Ship of Theseus because, even though the logo remains the same and they still call themselves Outside, it sure doesn’t feel like the same company anymore.
That’s not just because they laid people off. I’m generally pretty forgiving toward brands and companies when that choice is made because it’s one of those terrible things no one wants. People don’t want to lose their jobs, and companies don’t want to be in a position where they have to take those jobs away — it simply means the company isn’t doing well or that mistakes have been made.
No, with Outside, hearing that the layoffs affected the editorial team only reinforced what I (and many others) have felt for some time: that much of the content they’ve been putting out has been so milquetoast and uninspiring they don’t need as many experienced people to produce it anymore. If you head to their website, you’ll see what I mean. What’s the vision? What’s the product? It’s genuinely hard to tell, even when you’re looking right at it.
But it definitely isn’t journalism.
It’s no secret that Outside no longer sees itself as a media company but rather as a tech brand. We all know they’re aiming for that big IPO to pay off the work of the past five years. So, on one hand, perhaps this move was overdue. If they had chosen to rename the company instead of keeping the Outside name, maybe the outcry over last week’s layoffs would have been much more muted.
But even though things haven’t been the same for a long time, they still call themselves Outside and still use the same logo. So it’s hard not to see them as the thing we all used to love—while also lamenting that it’s no longer what it was.
Much like the Ship of Theseus, at what point did Outside cease to be what it was and become something entirely new?
Really, it doesn’t matter. We just need to stop thinking about them the way we used to.
That ship has sailed.
Colin True is the founder of Rock Fight and host of the titularly named podcast The Rock Fight. When not talking about the outdoor industry you can sometimes find him out actually doing outdoorsy stuff.