# Josh Barro

> Josh Barro is an American journalist who left legacy media to run Very Serious, a subscription newsletter and podcast about politics, business, economics, and culture. A former Republican turned Democrat, ex-host of KCRW's Left, Right & Center and onetime New York Times and Business Insider columnist, he now writes a weekly mailbag called the Mayonnaise Clinic and co-hosts the litigation podcast Serious Trouble with attorney Ken White.

- **Role:** Creator and writer of Very Serious
- **Organizations:** Very Serious, Serious Trouble, Central Air, Bloomberg Television, MSNBC
- **From:** Massachusetts, United States
- **Nationality:** American
- **Education:** B.A. in Psychology, Harvard University
- **Known for:** Built Very Serious into a self-sustaining subscription newsletter with over ten thousand paid supporters as of May 2023, Forbes '30 Under 30' honoree (2013), Named to Time's '140 Best Twitter Feeds of 2013'

## Career timeline

- **College** — Interned for anti-tax activist Grover Norquist
- **Early career** — Worked as a real estate banker at Wells Fargo
- **Early career** — Senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute for Policy Research
- **2011** — Lead writer for The Ticker, Bloomberg's economics and politics blog
- **2013** — Named to Forbes '30 Under 30' and Time's '140 Best Twitter Feeds of 2013'
- **2014** — Joined The New York Times' 'The Upshot'
- **2016** — Rehired by Business Insider as senior editor; left the Republican Party and registered as a Democrat
- **2018** — Became business columnist at New York magazine
- **2020** — Rejoined Business Insider as a columnist
- **2022** — Left Business Insider and stepped down as host of KCRW's Left, Right & Center to launch the Very Serious newsletter and podcast full time
- **2022** — Began co-hosting Serious Trouble, a litigation podcast, with attorney Ken White (Popehat)
- **2025** — Launched Central Air, a podcast co-hosted with Megan McArdle and Ben Dreyfuss

## Achievements

- Built Very Serious into a self-sustaining subscription newsletter with over ten thousand paid supporters as of May 2023
- Forbes '30 Under 30' honoree (2013)
- Named to Time's '140 Best Twitter Feeds of 2013'
- Former host of the long-running public radio program Left, Right & Center at KCRW Los Angeles
- Recurring commentator on MSNBC and Bloomberg Television

## Latest updates

- **2025** — Launched Central Air, a new podcast co-hosted with Megan McArdle and Ben Dreyfuss
- **2023-05** — Very Serious surpassed ten thousand paid subscribers

## Links

- Website: https://www.joshbarro.com/
- Twitter/X: https://x.com/jbarro
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/joshbarro/

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Profile page: https://yespress.io/josh-barro
Published by YesPress — https://yespress.io
Last updated: 2026-06-02