Uploaded August 2026 | Updated September 2026, 1 week ago
Donut Media lost James Pumphrey, Jeremiah Burton, and Zach Jobe in 2024 — and the story of what happened next is one of the clearest lessons the creator economy has produced. When the biggest names walked out to launch Big Time and Speeed, they tested a simple question: does a media company own the audience, or do the creators?
The answer came fast. Speeed pulled more subscribers than established car magazines before it posted a single real video. Big Time crossed a million subscribers within weeks. The exodus traces back to 2021, when Recurrent Ventures bought Donut and the focus quietly shifted from passion-driven builds to high-volume, algorithm-safe content — leaving the people in front of the camera as salaried staff with no equity in a brand they'd built to nine million subscribers.
But betting on yourself isn't a clean win. Attention is a zero-sum game, sponsor money only stretches so far, and the original magic — that specific chemistry between hosts in one room — is now scattered across the internet. Meanwhile Donut shut down its entire podcast division and cut staff in 2026. So did leaving actually work, and what does it really cost to own the thing you built?
Donut Media lost James Pumphrey, Jeremiah Burton, and Zach Jobe in 2024 — and the story of what happened next is one of the clearest lessons the creator economy has produced. When the biggest names walked out to launch Big Time and Speeed, they tested a simple question: does a media company own the audience, or do the creators?
The answer came fast. Speeed pulled more subscribers than established car magazines before it posted a single real video. Big Time crossed a million subscribers within weeks. The exodus traces back to 2021, when Recurrent Ventures bought Donut and the focus quietly shifted from passion-driven builds to high-volume, algorithm-safe content — leaving the people in front of the camera as salaried staff with no equity in a brand they'd built to nine million subscribers.
But betting on yourself isn't a clean win. Attention is a zero-sum game, sponsor money only stretches so far, and the original magic — that specific chemistry between hosts in one room — is now scattered across the internet. Meanwhile Donut shut down its entire podcast division and cut staff in 2026. So did leaving actually work, and what does it really cost to own the thing you built?
