Peter Rojas gets his due

Peter Rojas is on the cover of New York Magazine this week–right where he belongs. Seeing him get such major recognition got me to thinking about my history with Peter.

One of my favorite moments came a month or two after Peter Rojas had jumped ship from Gawker to Weblogs, Inc. Nick Denton and I were having drinks and he told me that I would never be able to manage Peter. Denton then went into great details about how he couldn’t manage Peter, that he was demanding, and that he would never compromise his vision.

I thought for a second and said to myself “hmmm… that sounds like a description of me.”

I knew we had done the right thing in courting Peter to join WIN. The truth is Peter Rojas is one of the hardest-working and most brilliant people I’ve ever worked with. He’s a force of nature on an individual level, but the side of him most people never see is his amazing leadership ability. Having been on *his* team at the last two CES’ I can tell you that leadership is his real skill. He knows how to inspire folks to do great work–and that’s much more important than being able to do great work at the end of the day.

Congrats to Peter on the cover…. I’m sure it’s just the first of many.