Ryan Schreiber
Ebru Yildiz

Pitchfork founder Ryan Schreiber leaves the company

Pitchfork founder and former CEO and editor-in-chief Ryan Schreiber is leaving the company, he announced in a statement today. “After 22 years of serving alternately as Founder, CEO, and Editor-in-Chief of Pitchfork, I have decided to move on from Pitchfork and Conde Nast,” he writes. “Although this decision was not an easy one, the time feels right, and I’m excited to open a new chapter in my life and explore fresh challenges.” Read the statement in full below.

Former Spin editor-in-chief Puja Patel took over as Pitchfork EiC on October 15, while Schreiber remained with the publication in an advisory position. He told Billboard that his departure was a year in the making, and that he’ll be pursuing projects focusing “more deeply on the intersection of technology and music.”

“I’m at a point in my life where I feel I have more to offer … and the idea of giving myself over to something new really excites me,” he says. “I don’t want to be defined in my life by just one thing. I feel like, in a sense, I’ve kind of beat the game. Pitchfork has evolved from just a seed of an idea to become a giant in music journalism and in the publishing world and in the events world and in the festival world. I’ve done so much with this platform and it’s been super rewarding and it’s been really amazing, but I feel like this is the time if I want to do something else and this is a particularly great time in terms of technology and how things are evolving.”

Schreiber founded Pitchfork in November of 1995. The site was acquired by Condé Nast in October 2015.

In conjunction with this news, Schreiber spoke to new EiC Puja Patel for an edition of Pitchfork’s long-running ‘5-10-15-20′ series, where the interviewee discusses the music that impacted their life at ages 5, 10, 15, 20, etc. Schreiber picked The Mamas & The Papas’ “Dedicated to the One I Love” for age 5, Prince’s Purple Rain for age at 10, The Jesus and Mary Chain’s “Head On” for age 15, Yo La Tengo’s Painful for age 20, Radiohead’s Kid A for age 25, Clipse’s Hell Hath No Fury for age 30, Ariel Pink’s “Round and Round” for age 35, and Frank Ocean’s Blonde for age 40. Read what he had to say for each pick here.

Schreiber also recently posted his final “What’s Good” Pitchfork playlist, which contains his favorite 100 songs of 2018. You can listen here::