Last December, Forbes Media left Manhattan and moved its newsroom to Jersey City, taking advantage of a $27 million tax grant in return for bringing at least 350 jobs to New Jersey. And Chief Product Officer Lewis DVorkin is doing his best to adjust.
In a piece slated to run in the magazine’s April 13 issue, DVorkin says, “We love gazing at the Manhattan skyline — and who we’ve become.” From across the Hudson, he writes, the city’s view changes with each change in the weather, while the new, less cramped newsroom lets Forbes staffers collaborate in all the ways that are remaking journalism from top to bottom.
Everyone’s connected by a central staircase, with common areas for people to gather on their way up or down. We inhabit enclaves of desks, sofas, living room tables and “huddle rooms.”
Even the second-rate food has a way of keeping DVorkin connected with the hoi polloi that, he suspects, might read Forbes more often than you suspect.
New York cuisine has been replaced with, well, something less. We now have a grab ‘n’ scan vending service to supplement the Jif peanut butter and organic milled flaxseeds brought from home.
Oh, yes. Our New Jersey office is next to a mall — anchor stores, food court and all. I consider it a good reminder that our audience includes the 99.9999% of us who aren’t billionaires.
