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Just over one year ago, Chris Altchek was sitting at his desk at Goldman Sachs in Lower Manhattan. It was 2 a.m. when he got an email that eventually led him to quit his investment banking job and entirely focus on his startup, PolicyMic.com, a political news site.
The email was from a PolicyMic writer in Tunisia, who was reporting from the ground as the uprising in Tunis escalated. This was the sort of original reporting PolicyMic needed to take off.
Click here to see a typical day at PolicyMic >
Now and his co-founder, Jake Horowitz, formerly a journalist in the Middle East, are in the midst of closing an angel round of financing. Since they officially launched the site this summer, it's grown between 40 and 80% per month, and now has contributors from all 50 states and 72 countries.
What differentiates it from other political news sites is that it's more of a debate forum. Commenters are given points ("Mics," or a form of currency) by other readers, based on how smart their posts are. The more "Mics" you get, the more you can write on the site. This discourages angry commenters, and rewards people with intelligent, substantial posts.
They've gotten big names like Condoleezza Rice to write Op-Eds, and posted debates between The Nation and the Cato Institute. They're also getting more coverage with the 2012 elections coming up.
We caught up with Chris since we last spoke with him in August, and he explained why his team chose Harlem over Silicon Alley: "We're not influenced by what everyone else is doing. Harlem's a place with lots of history and a place where we thought we could foster debate and get people involved in media. Plus, it's a lot cheaper to rent a brownstone here."
All photos were taken by Duncan Wolfe.
Jake wakes up before 6 a.m. to get a jump on the day’s news and start publishing articles. He scans about 35 blogs (including RealClearPolitics, Informed Comment, The Atlantic, & BuzzFeed) and publishes 10 stories submitted by our writers overnight
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Our three founders live together on the other two floors of the brownstone, but we’ve had over 25 different PolicyMic visitors from all over sleeping on the couch during their trips to New York. I'm cooking breakfast here, which routinely feeds 4-6
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The daily commute is pretty easy when you live and work in the same place
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See the rest of the story at Business Insider
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