How To Geek

Whitson Gordon's path to leading How To Geek started not with an entrepreneurial vision, but with genuine passion for a single website. In 2009, while still in college, he identified Lifehacker as his favorite site on the internet and decided to pursue an internship there. Instead of applying blindly, he strategically researched their hiring patterns, built writing samples on a personal blog (even though no one was reading it), and applied with a compelling track record. "By some miracle of whatever," as he recalls, he got the internship.

About a month into his Lifehacker internship, the editor-in-chief saw potential and offered him a full-time role after graduation. He became a contributor while finishing college, then went full-time as a writer. When he started in 2009, the publication had roughly 4 million monthly uniques. Rather than focusing on building new technology, Whitson focused on what would become his signature: the marriage of quality content with strategic marketing.

Whitson's breakthrough insight was that success required both excellent content AND marketing prowess—a balance he saw many editorial professionals neglect. "I've always contributed to kind of 50% just having good quality content that people actually respect. And 50% knowing how to market that content," he explains. He became obsessive about headlines, spending nearly as much time editing them as editing the actual posts. He strategically considered Twitter and Facebook distribution, and pioneered an internal linking strategy: write individual deep-dive articles first, then publish aggregated "top 10" lists that link back to them, ensuring substance rather than clickbait.

Whitson's content strategy proved remarkably effective. Under his editorial leadership, Lifehacker grew from 4 million monthly uniques to approximately 15 million—a nearly 4x increase. He was ruthless about specificity: instead of generic "10 Ways to Become a Millionaire by 30," he'd pitch "10 Unsexy Ways to Become a Millionaire by 30," differentiating from thousands of similar articles and improving long-term SEO performance. He avoided the Buzzfeed trap of flashy headlines that under-deliver, believing that approach eventually dies off. Sites like Download Squad and G Hacks, he noted, failed not because of bad content but because they didn't market themselves effectively across social channels.

On the business side, Whitson maintained editorial independence, focusing on recommending products he genuinely liked rather than optimizing for affiliate commissions. Revenue came primarily from advertising, though he deliberately stayed insulated from revenue metrics—if traffic dropped, he had to answer questions; if revenue dropped, that wasn't his concern.

Whitson left Lifehacker in 2016 (about three weeks before this interview) and is now building How To Geek into a destination for technology education and reviews. He approaches it with the same philosophy: quality content paired with sophisticated content distribution. At 28 years old, married and maintaining a disciplined sleep schedule (bed at 9:30pm, up at 6am), he's positioned to replicate the success he achieved at Lifehacker by doubling down on what works: helping people actually learn how to use technology.