Sam Koppelman, co-founder of Hunterbrook Media, works at his apartment in New York City, on April 26, 2024. | Photos by Jonah Rosenberg for POLITICOSam Koppelman, the 28-year-old founder of a media company that promises to change how we think about investigative journalism, is playing pickup basketball on an April day in the East Village of New York.
Koppelman and Horwitz’s company is called Hunterbrook — a portmanteau between Koppelman’s middle name Hunter and Horwitz’s Brooks . The idea is simple, if surprising to industry insiders: They have two companies — the media company does financial investigative journalism. The financial company invests based on that work, taking short positions on a company that the newsroom is about to skewer publicly or taking long positions on its competitors.
Koppelman insists that “we can’t speak to performance, especially since we are just getting started.” But he also says the “early signs are, this experiment is working.” Koppelman, who serves as the publisher of Hunterbrook, and Horwitz, who’s the CEO, are emphatic that this is an experiment. They believe it’s one the journalism industry sorely needs. Over 20,000 people in media lost their jobs last year. That’s the worst number since 2009 amidst the Great Recession. So why not try something new?
“Without talking to inside sources, you are sort of tying one arm behind your back,” says Joe Stephens, a three-time Polk Award winner and Pulitzer Prize finalist who’s the founding director of the Program in Journalism at Princeton University. “At the same time, I think there’s probably a lot of good investigating that can be done just from available open sources.”
On May 12, Semafor revealed that Koppelman has a small personal investment in a company called ZBiotics, a probiotic that’s meant to be consumed before you drink to reduce hangovers the next day. Hunterbrook argues that “these aren’t competitors,” and ZBiotics agrees, noting in a statement, “Safety Shot claims to lower your blood alcohol, thereby lessening intoxication.