Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge
Podcast startup Luminary roiled the podcasting industry when it debuted in April this year, and it has since maintained a low profile. The Verge confirmed today, however, that two months or so after its launch, co-founder Joe Purzycki stepped down as chief strategy officer. He remains close to CEO Matt Sacks, a Luminary spokesperson says, and still holds shares. The company replaced Purzycki with Jeff Saunders, a former VP of product and technology at Jet.com who is now Luminary’s chief product officer. Since taking on the role, Saunders has increased the engineering team from 20 to 30 people, a spokesperson says. The company didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment on why Purzycki left or how many subscribers the service has.
It’s unclear what’s going on at Luminary or how its subscription model is panning out. The company gives initial users a free trial to its premium content, but some people reported a confusing cancellation process. Instead of outright deleting their accounts, Luminary requires them to switch to a free account, which means people still technically have accounts, they just can’t access Luminary’s exclusive shows.
Meanwhile, the company has continued to struggle to court the broader podcasting industry. At launch, and still, the app is missing some of podcasting’s biggest shows, including The New York Times’ The Daily, Joe Rogan’s show, and Gimlet Media shows like Reply All, among others. At the app’s launch time, the Times said it intends to be “judicious” about where The Daily is placed. Other New York Times shows, like Caliphate and Modern Love, are available on Luminary, but the Times still hasn’t opted to include The Daily.
Luminary also initially relied on a proxy server to serve listeners shows from public RSS feeds, which deprived hosts of valuable listener data. It also stripped hosts’ show notes, which are often used to share sponsored links or relevant information. Both these issues have been fixed, but they speak to Luminary’s broader challenges as a podcasting startup and one that might not have fully understood the industry it entered.