“No, I’ll fire myself before I fire them.”
I had the pleasure of talking with Dominick Miserandino. Before Dominick built online publications, advised companies, or began convening rooms full of retail and media executives, he had to ride a bicycle across his college campus to reach the internet.
Only a limited number of computers could get online. Using one meant making the trip, waiting for a connection, and listening while the machine dialed into a network that most people had not yet incorporated into daily life. The inconvenience now feels almost comic, but Miserandino remembers it as an early lesson in what digital work actually required. Technology mattered. Effort mattered more. So did finding the other people who understood what this strange new medium might become.
“If I didn’t get on the bike to ride across campus,” he wonders, “would I have built a magazine or two?”
The question captures the tension running through his career. Miserandino is known for working at scale, building and managing media businesses whose audiences could be counted in millions. Yet when he explains what made those businesses work, he rarely begins with traffic, software, or strategy. He talks about attention. Curiosity. Matchmaking. The willingness to ask another person what they need and then help them find it.
That instinct shaped TheCelebrityCafe.com, which he launched in the mid-1990s, when an online entertainment magazine still required explanation. He ran the publication for more than two decades and remembers repeatedly having to tell people what the internet was and why anyone would publish there. Later, he moved through executive roles in digital media, e-commerce, and marketing, including leadership at The Inquisitr and AdoramaPix. The platforms changed. The basic question did not: What makes someone stop, read, respond, and feel connected?
For Miserandino, journalism itself could become an unexpected form of intervention. During one telephone interview, a well-known celebrity began coughing. She explained that she was trying to quit smoking. Miserandino stopped the interview.
“Let’s stop smoking tonight,” he told her.
He drove to Manhattan, met her in a hotel coffee shop, and spent two hours listening while she talked. The planned interview disappeared. What remained was a private conversation between two people, one of whom needed someone to hear her. Miserandino had never smoked and could not offer specialized expertise. He could offer his presence.
The episode is revealing because it complicates the usual image of an internet executive. His career unfolded during an era obsessed with scale, virality, optimization, and audience acquisition. He became fluent in those systems. He also came to believe that the systems work only when someone remembers that a number on a dashboard represents a person.
That belief extends to the way he manages people. Miserandino recounts once arguing with fellow board members who wanted to dismiss an employee for making what they considered a “B-level decision.” He defended the employee and threatened to leave before approving the firing.
“You need B-players who are willing to try,” he argued.
To him, a merely decent decision made with initiative can be more valuable than safe obedience. A person allowed to make a B decision may later make an A. A person punished for trying may stop making decisions altogether. Miserandino applies the same standard to himself. After realizing that he had made a mistake at work, he confronted an employee who had noticed but remained silent. The problem, Miserandino said, was not that the employee had recognized his error. It was that he had been afraid to say so.
“I make twenty mistakes a day,” Miserandino told him. “You have to be okay telling me I was wrong.”
There is confidence in that declaration, but also a rejection of the polished executive persona that treats certainty as part of the job. Miserandino is proud of the companies he has helped lead and the audiences he has helped grow. Still, he describes the hardest work less as corporate problem-solving than as the effort to examine his own patterns. Being a better parent, husband, or friend, he says, can be more demanding than turning around a company.
His current work with RTM Nexus brings the two sides of his career together. The organization convenes executives, retailers, brands, and other professionals through events and online programming. Its distinguishing promise, as Miserandino describes it, is deliberately personal: the organizers try to ensure that everyone in the room meets everyone else. They point people toward one another, introduce them, and search for the mutual interest that can turn an exchange of business cards into an actual relationship.
This is Miserandino’s answer to a culture that can reach nearly anyone while leaving many people feeling unseen. The internet offered him a career, but it also demonstrated how anonymity can remove the social restraints that govern face-to-face conversation. The same network that connects strangers can make casual cruelty effortless. Understanding that contradiction, he believes, begins with trying to understand why people behave as they do.
His own daily routines are modest attempts to keep that curiosity intact. He meditates, runs three miles, studies languages, and, when the day allows, plays piano. He does not pretend to complete every ritual every day. “I try,” he says.
Asked whom he would most like to meet for a high-powered lunch, Miserandino does not name a famous executive or public figure. His mind is on an upcoming Father’s Day meal with his daughter. Sometimes, he says, that is the lunch that matters.
After decades spent learning how to attract enormous audiences, Miserandino has arrived at a smaller, harder measure of success: whether the person in front of him leaves feeling understood, connected, or helped. The bicycle, the early modem, the publishing companies, the crowded events, and the LinkedIn messages all lead back to the same impulse. Make the effort. Find the person. Ask what they need.
Yitzi: Dominick, it’s such an honor to do this with you. Before we dive in and talk about your amazing work, our readers would love to learn about Dominick Miserandino’s personal origin story. If you could, could you share with us a story of your childhood, how you grew up, and particularly the seeds and the genesis of all the amazing creativity that has come since then?
Dominick: I think for me, I was fortunate. I went to college, and when I did, it was around the time of the internet. I tell people the story that I used to ride my bike to get online because there was only a certain number of computers on the campus that could.
I think it gave a little bit of background, that hustle of riding a bike to get online. If you wanted to upload this or that, you had to go there and wait for this thing to dial. It was a different world, but there was some nuance that spoke to the present and spoke to how one needs to hustle to make online media happen. You had to connect with people. There was a human element to it where you had to figure out who was doing this. I’m always thinking about that. If I didn’t get on the bike to ride across campus, would I have built a magazine or two?
Yitzi: Tell us the next chapter. Tell us how you started your career as a journalist.
Dominick: I love that. From there, I launched thecelebritycafe.com around 1995. It was probably a year or two after the biking incidents. I ran Celebrity Cafe for over two decades, which was really on the forefront. I think we did a lot of things that gave birth to BuzzFeed and HuffPost. It was one of the first online magazines when there were none.
After that, I helped run Inquisitr.com. In the meantime, I got more into the executive world and worked at AdoramaPix as a CMO and at a few other companies. You can always check out my LinkedIn; I’m honored when people do. Now I’m on a few boards, and I run a company called RTM Nexus, which is all about events and connecting people. At this point, that’s my life — connecting people.
I think that’s always been the secret, by the way. Being a matchmaker allows you to just understand what people want and how you can help them. If you can try finding something that is mutual, you both walk away winning. Honestly, the current business is directly matchmaking, but throughout my online career, it was just connecting with readers and connecting with people in general.
Yitzi: I relate to that very much.
Dominick: I sense that. I sense you relate to it. Amazing. Yeah, that’s the goal. You always want to try to find a situation where you’re both feeling good, you’re both winning, and you both have something.
In fact, I invite all listeners to connect on LinkedIn. I will sometimes just answer, “How can I help you?” If you can do a mitzvah, a little bit of help, you did something good, and that is great. Who knows where the universe takes it from there.
Yitzi: You probably have some amazing stories from your successful storied career, and I’m sure this is difficult to single out. Can you share with our readers two stories that stand out in your mind from your career?
Dominick: I was interviewing a pretty well-known celebrity who will remain anonymous, and they were coughing during the interview. Just coughing. I thought that was weird. I heard the cough on the phone and asked, “Why are you coughing?” She replied, “I’m trying to stop smoking.” I said, “Listen, the interview is done.” She asked, “What?” I said, “Let’s stop smoking tonight.” She asked if I was serious, and I told her I was dead serious.
She just needed someone to vent to. I drove to Manhattan, and we sat in the lobby of a hotel coffee shop and just talked for two hours about not smoking. I’ve never smoked, but she wanted someone to vent to. It was such a personal experience. The interview just went off the rails at that point, and we were connecting over her smoking. I found that funny and was happy I could just step in and say, “Why are you doing this?” That was one from way back.
The other story I frequently quote was just a surreal moment a little earlier than that, even in 1998, when I launched the Celebrity Cafe. People just didn’t understand it, not in a negative way, but they were fascinated. I just remember how many conversations I had as we transitioned from the medium of print text to where we are now. There were so many times I had to explain what the internet was in the 90s.
I know it sounds like it wasn’t spectacular in terms of a big moment, but it was about trying to invent it at that time or figure it out and explain why we were doing this. I look back very fondly on that. I say this probably because I was in the city, in Times Square, and I had someone totally random stop me who knew me 20 years ago. Those kinds of moments mean a lot when you run into someone that you haven’t met in 20 years, and they thank you for helping them.
Yitzi: There’s a saying that sometimes our mistakes can be our greatest teachers. Do you have a story about a humorous mistake that you made at the beginning of your career and the lesson you took away from it?
Dominick: I’ve made many mistakes, and I firmly believe in this. I can point to one. I’m on a few boards, and at this one company, I got into a big fight because an employee made what I would describe as a B-level decision. The board said that wasn’t good enough. I argued and said, “That’s exactly good enough.” They countered that you always need A-players. I replied, “You need B-players who are willing to try.”
The board wanted me to fire them, and I said, “No, I’ll fire myself before I fire them.” They asked why I was defending a B-level decision. I explained that if I don’t give someone the freedom to make a mistake, they won’t try. I want to encourage that B decision. When you encourage the Bs, maybe they make a C, and then maybe it’s a C and a B, and eventually they make that A. That builds loyalty. That’s someone who is going to stick by you and someone who has learned. That always stuck with me.
Another story regarding mistakes involved an employee. I had screwed up, and I looked him in the eyes and knew he was aware I had screwed up. I told him, “To be clear, you’re in trouble.” He asked why, and I said, “Because you didn’t have the courage to tell me that I screwed up. You have to be okay telling me I was wrong. I make twenty mistakes a day, and that’s fine. But you not telling me is going to drive me nuts.” I told him it was the last time, and from then on, he always did. He still calls me to tell me when he thinks I’ve screwed something up, and I respond, “Great. I love it. Thank you for telling me. What do you think I need to know?”
I agree there is a culture where mistakes are viewed negatively, but I would argue mistakes are the learning path. If we shut them down, we’re not going to learn, and we’re not going to grow. On top of that, if you stifle mistakes, you stifle all thought. People will refuse to take a chance because they don’t want to risk making an error. You frequently hear people say, “I don’t want to make a mistake.” I would rather you make a mistake if you tried. The effort matters so much more to me than finding perfection. I can find people who demand perfection, but I cannot easily find people willing to risk, try, and do their best. That’s the most important quality. It’s not exactly the answer you wanted, but it was close.
Yitzi: There’s a related idea that ‘no’ is not rejection, but redirection. Do you have a story where you got a ‘no’ to an opportunity, but that ended up leading to an even better opportunity or greater success?
Dominick: First of all, two thoughts come to mind. Number one, that is probably the hardest thing for people to learn because ‘no’ feels like rejection. It feels horrible, like you’re doing something wrong. It is a terrible feeling to hear a ‘no’. Most people do not understand or accept that maybe the ‘no’ is for a completely random reason.
Perhaps someone had a bad business experience with a guy named Yitzi before, and you realize, “That’s not me, I just think it’s bad luck. I’m not holding it against you.” The first part of this is accepting that human rejection naturally doesn’t feel right. It is sometimes tough to accept.
As for whether it leads to another opportunity, you often hear the spiritual end of it regarding how you never know your own path. I frequently tell myself this because I fail at it all the time: a ‘no’ shouldn’t be a ‘no’; a ‘no’ should be a redirection. Why dwell in that negativity? If you hold onto negativity, both parties walk away with no benefit.
I find that when I can swallow my pride and say, “Maybe that opportunity comes around later,” it changes things. If someone rejects you but you stay kind and don’t get upset, they might reconsider you later. They might think, “I rejected him, but he didn’t hold it against me.”
I’m not just saying this from the context of the universe providing. Simply put, if a ‘no’ turns into anger, that person is never going to approach you again. You want to maintain an open attitude — “No worries, call me next time, I’m here for you.” It’s an overall philosophy I’ve been trying to work on over the past few years. Every single human goes through this.
Yitzi: What’s been the most challenging project or role you’ve taken on so far and why?
Dominick: The kind of questions you’re asking are great questions. I mean it, because it’s not a challenge to figure out how to sort a spreadsheet or research a topic. Especially with tools like ChatGPT or Gemini, you can just look it up and you have the information.
The real challenge is saying, “I’ve screwed this up, I’m wrong with this, how can I be better at it?” Most people will answer that question by listing times they accomplished specific tasks. Yes, I’ve turned around a few companies, held C-suite positions seven times, served on multiple boards, and delivered keynotes. That’s great, and I’m happy about it. But I don’t see those as the ultimate challenge.
The real challenge is when you challenge yourself. It’s when you analyze a situation and ask, “How did this go? What did I say wrong? I have to work on that.” The instinct is to do things the way you’ve always done them in life. To work on changing one’s patterns and questioning yourself is hard.
The most challenging parts to me are those personal hurdles: how to be a better parent, a good husband, or a good friend. Those are the real challenges. Now you have the pressure for your next question, since you’ve been doing so amazingly thus far!
Yitzi: Please share with us the exciting initiatives or projects you’re working on now. Please feel free to be as elaborate as you’d like. We’d love to hear how our readers can get involved.
Dominick: I started RTM Nexus with my co-founder Vanessa. It is a community of executives, retailers, brands, and other professionals meeting each other. There are a lot of those platforms out there; we do webinars and events. However, I find there is a significant difference when you can genuinely get to know people and break down the walls.
That is something we actively try to do. At every single event, we pride ourselves on ensuring everyone in the room has met everyone else. We make a point to connect the dots and ask, “Do you know this person? Let’s make sure you connect.” It makes a big difference when you have that mindset. You can see RTM Nexus on LinkedIn and follow us there.
Yitzi: Right now, there is what they call the loneliness crisis or the loneliness epidemic. Counterintuitively, even though we have all these connecting devices, we feel more disconnected than ever. What you are doing helps address that by bringing people together in person and making sure everyone gets to know each other. This is incredibly important and is exactly what humanity is craving on an existential level. Ever since COVID pushed us apart, we haven’t truly returned to pre-COVID levels of connection. How can we continue to meet in person, network, and connect with each other? How can we reverse the loneliness epidemic?
Dominick: It’s funny, the answer to this question is similar to one I received recently. Someone asked, “Online is so massive; how did you scale publications to 80 million visits a month?” The answer was understanding how people work. That, to me, is critical. You can’t understand 80 million people, but you can try to understand what people generally try to do.
I think that is both the danger and the solution. The danger is the anonymity online. I can comment right now and say an interview is terrible, and the other person feels sad and has an existential crisis. The solution is trying to understand why that person felt the need to leave a negative comment, why they felt so free to say it, and what is really happening.
That’s why I’ve been interested in studying languages. You are always trying to understand the other person. Success comes from recognizing that system and discovering how people want to connect. Throughout the 90s, the 2000s, and the 2010s, when I was running all those publications, it was a constant effort to see what stories would resonate.
We wanted to see how people connected and responded to different stories on platforms like Facebook and Twitter. Once you understood that dynamic, it was easier to make things go viral. It was all about taking the attempt to understand. You don’t always succeed, but you must at least try to understand. I hope that makes sense.
Yitzi: Okay, this is our signature question. Dominick, because of your amazing work and the platform that you’ve built, you must have learned a lot from your experiences. Looking back to when you first started, can you share five things that you’ve learned the hard way over the years that someone starting out today could really benefit from?
Dominick: That is a tough one. First of all, I’m lucky that I’m constantly trying to figure out what I don’t know. I think that has gotten me to where I am. You need that mindset. In educational circles, they call it a growth mindset. It is a constant practice of asking, “How can I learn and grow from this?” Constantly trying to learn is a huge plus.
Number two would be trying to get a feel for what is happening. Working online has been a joy since 1994, even as the mechanisms change. There are certain themes that follow throughout. Social media was a great example, TikTok is another, and now we are in this AI world, which is entirely different. You always want to keep your hand on the track to see if the train is coming.
The third one is always double-checking your work. I am always asking, not in a paranoid way, but constructively, “How can I improve this? Help me understand.” We all should be okay with admitting when we’ve messed up. Your earlier question really resonated with me because you have to be okay saying, “I screwed up, that’s terrible.”
Those are the big three I would list right now. Thinking of more would take some deeper thought and probably another cup of coffee.
In the media industry, you have to recognize that people are doing this to connect. It is a lonely world, so let’s all connect and understand each other. Secondly, it is about understanding the tools people use. Right now, everyone is talking about how we use AI to do our research, but before that, it was social media, SEO, direct messaging, and groups. You constantly need to be aware of those changes. Once you are aware of them, it gives you much more freedom in understanding the mechanisms. I hope that helps.
Yitzi: Can you share some of the self-care routines you do to help your body, mind, and heart to thrive?
Dominick: I love that. I try meditating every day, and I run three miles daily. I also study languages every day, just a little bit, using Duolingo. When I have a full day, I also make sure to play the piano just to keep my brain moving in the right direction. I usually try to check those boxes to ensure I have a good day.
I try. Do I hit all four every day? No, it depends on how the day goes.
Yitzi: This is our final aspirational question. Dominick, because of your amazing work and the platform you’ve built, you’re honestly a person of enormous influence. If you could spread an idea or inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can spread.
Dominick: I try doing that whenever someone reaches out on LinkedIn. I always ask, “How can I help?” LinkedIn is the big mechanism for this, and I do my best to offer assistance. I think the more you help others, not only are you doing good in the world, but opportunities also come your way. It is not just about saying yes; it is about genuinely helping as much as you can. Who knows where the world goes from there.
Yitzi: This is what we call a matchmaker question, and we spoke about it a little bit earlier. Sometimes it works. We’re very blessed that prominent leaders read this column, and maybe we could connect you. Is there a person in the world or the United States with whom you would like to have a power lunch with, sit down, and have a coffee with? You and I could tag them, and maybe we could connect you.
Dominick: I love that question. It’s a tough one, and I’d probably have to think about it much more. Right now, all I keep thinking is that I have Father’s Day with my daughter this weekend, and that’s the big lunch I’m looking forward to. Sometimes, that’s all that matters.
Yitzi: Dominick, how can our readers continue to follow your work? How could they engage your services, become part of your program, or support your work in any possible way?
Dominick: I love it. You can go to RTM Nexus for the community. Look up mizerandino.com to find me personally, and you can connect with me on LinkedIn.
Yitzi: I hope we can stay in touch and that we can work together.
Dominick: We should message each other. We’ll make it happen.
Digital Media Pioneer Dominick Miserandino on Defending ‘B-Players’ and the Human Side of Scale was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.