＂I Drove The Company＂ - Ex-Daily Wire CEO Says Replacing Him Wasn't Easy
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Summary
On this episode of the podcast, I sit down with former CEO of The Daily Wire, David Axelrod. We talk about how he left the company, why he left, and why he decided to start a new company.
Transcript
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Do you miss being the CEO of Daily Wire versus being a content creator today?
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I know you're still running a business, you're a business guy, but do you miss being an operator?
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Well, my ambition has never been to be a podcast host.
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At one time, I owned and operated one of the 10 largest podcast companies in the country.
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It would have been very easy to launch a podcast during those days.
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On this side of the Daily Wire, it's actually challenging.
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I hosted our backstage show, which we all got together once a month.
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Every now and then, if there was some thing that we felt like the CEO of the Daily Wire needs to weigh in,
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I would do a little one-off speak to the audience or a town hall or something.
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But no, I've never tried to be in the hosting grind the way I am now.
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I like having a voice back after spending a year kind of in the wilderness after leaving Daily Wire.
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I like having my team back together and being in motion again.
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But, you know, there's nothing like the thrill of running a business, of running a business at scale.
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We had 275-plus employees when I left and, you know, a couple hundred million dollars of annual revenue.
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You know, that's an enormous amount of pressure that always forces you to be your very best.
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You know better than anyone that's an addictive lifestyle.
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Yeah. So do you think like sometimes because sometimes when when there's a there's a guy like you and I wonder how you're going to answer this.
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Sometimes when there's a guy like you, when you're working with a guy like you, it's annoying.
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OK, but when the guy leaves, you also say, shit, he did a lot of stuff we didn't even think about.
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You know, it's kind of like that guy was doing this and he was doing this.
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Yes, he was annoying. Yes, he was kicking our ass. Yes, he was difficult.
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Yes, he was, you know, thought very highly of himself and all this stuff.
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Do you think something like that happened after you left?
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I used to, we used to have, we'd start our day every day with what we called the 1030 meeting where we would get an assortment of people together from the top executives in the company to a lot of the management of the company.
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And we would just make sure that everyone was sort of chasing the same set of priorities, especially in a news business.
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like things change every day that require an immediate pivot, some story break, some opportunity
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for one of the hosts appears. Those aren't things that you plan weeks or even days in advance. So
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you have to be very responsive. And I would often say in the 1030 meeting, you know,
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I know that I'm a difficult person to work for. I know that if you're looking for work-life
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balance, this probably isn't the company for you. I don't really believe in the concept of
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work-life balance. We're building a rocket ship while it's in flight. And that's one of the
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hardest things you can ever do, but that's what we have to do to pursue the mission of the company.
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And so in that way, I'm certainly aware that I was a tough boss, but I'm also aware that I really
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drove the company. The style of leadership at the time was very hands-on, and I was very in the
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weeds with my team and every day choosing a direction, ordering the priorities of the company
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and keeping everyone on mission, which, you know, this is, I think it's probably true in every
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business, but it's particularly true in an ideology first business, that you both have
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business objectives and missional objectives. And resolving the tension between those two things
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was also a huge part of what I was engaged in in leadership. And listen, I'm not the only
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person on earth who can do it but i i suspect that there's some pain points in the transition
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yeah how do you find because i think who who replaced you caleb the other third one who's
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the top three big partners are you ben and caleb right so caleb took over but then caleb recently
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stepped down in the third week of may or fourth week of may and then the new guy is the jeopardy
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guy or the wheel of fortune guy yeah mike richards is his name so was it intentional for caleb to
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only go for 12 months or, you know, however long it was, and then to bring somebody else in? Was
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that an intentional part of strategy? Yeah, you know, I can't really speak to that. That wasn't
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your decision. That was post. My breakup with the company is a true breakup. You know, I left in
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2025 in March. And other than, you know, the kind of contractual commitment, you know,
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a breakup of this nature obviously comes with a lot of lingering commitments and lingering
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restrictive covenants, and I own a very tiny piece of the company now that's probably primarily
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a part of the enforcement mechanism behind restrictive covenants as much as anything,
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but I'm not a part of the company. I haven't spoken to anyone at the company
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in any sort of official capacity in, I guess, almost 18 months now, so I can't really speak
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to what happened with Caleb in the last few weeks. Got it. Are you still in touch with them? Are you
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still in touch with Caleb and Ben? Do you guys still communicate? No. No communication? No, I've
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said publicly before, Ben reached out to me the day that Charlie was assassinated. Obviously,
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we met Charlie on the same day when Charlie was only a teenager. And in some ways, I feel like
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TPUSA, The Daily Wire, and PragerU all kind of came up at the same time and to varying degrees
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came up together. You know, there were times where we saw each other as rivals, I'm sure. You know,
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it's a competitive space but for the most part we were we were friends and we were building our
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businesses at the same time and in the same space and so you know that was a as it was for for
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everyone it was a very painful moment and it was nice to hear from ben in that in that moment but
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you know we're not we're not in a place in our relationships right now where we
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where we're in communication got it and so weddings and funerals part of the relationship
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