We’ve reached a milestone I want to share with you all.

These days, there is no shortage of stories about our media industry failing. I’m not just talking about news executives who are proving themselves unable to meet the moment. I’m talking about companies—major institutions—suffering a dramatic loss of trust, audience, and revenue.

I want to tell you a different story. I want to tell you our story. So, let me take you back:

It’s late 2018, and The Weekly Standard—the magazine my friend Bill Kristol founded—has just been murdered by its owner for being insufficiently pro-Trump. All of a sudden, with just a few weeks until Christmas, my friends at the Standard are out of jobs. I started fielding calls from people, plotting out how to get them jobs at a news aggregator project we had recently started.

Fast forward more than seven years, and that site has gone from being a news aggregator into one of the largest and fastest growing independent media companies in the country. We brought on real-deal reporters to break news and tell the stories that the legacy players were missing. We released a whole slate of podcasts, several of which became chart-toppers. We started holding live, in-person events in cities across the country (plus Canada—we love you, Canada).

That’s 1 million real people who gave us their email so we would be in their inbox each morning, noon, and night with news and analysis on what’s happening in and to this country.

This is only possible thanks to you guys—the people who have shown up, spread the word, and chosen to ride with us on this whole, surreal, incredible journey. Today, when the news landed, nearly all of us were gathered in our DC offices with a bunch of new colleagues, who we were only able to hire thanks to support from you—our Bulwark+ members.

You guys keep us sane. I feel like I know you. We started this venture on a wing and a prayer, and it’s grown to become a thriving media company—all thanks to you.