Media companies need to produce magnetic on-camera personalities to build and maintain audience in the platform era. The challenge for these companies is retaining their creators.

Macy Gilliam is one such talent, having come up through the social team at Morning Brew.

One year ago, they rewarded her with her own show and a talent contract that nearly doubled her salary.

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— Francis Zierer, Lead Editor

By Francis Zierer

She’s a plumber, she’s a flight attendant, she’s a magician; she’s a former W-2 employee who nearly doubled her compensation by switching to a creator-talent contract.

Macy Gilliam joined Morning Brew as a social media editor nearly four years ago, just her second job out of college. Tasked primarily with tweeting, she was immediately drawn to video and began helping colleague Dan Toomey with his social video work — holding the camera, background acting, whatever was necessary — allowing her to learn on the job.

By the time Toomey left the social team to host his own show, Good Work, Macy had been trained to replace him.

At that point, Morning Brew paid for her to take sketch writing classes at UCB, a renowned comedy school. She credits the experience with accelerating the development of her own unique style, after previously learning just by mimicking what was already working on the company’s channels.

Two years later, like Toomey before, she left the social video team to host her own show: Out There.

The first episode, “I tried selling my plasma to investigate the blood industry,” came out on April 17, 2025. As of this writing, she’s published a total of seven episodes, combining for 2.94 million YouTube views.

Each episode sees Macy spending a day or two trying out a job, tagging along with a professional at their workplace, before conducting follow-up interviews. The result is a 12–25 minute documentary.

Pre-production is a time-consuming process. To plan shoots, Macy and her field team (typically two shooters) need to request schedules and visuals of the space where they’ll be shooting. Post-production is equally meticulous, given the volume of interview-based field reporting they need to splice through.

Their goal is to produce two episodes per quarter, or eight per year.

And she’s halfway through a two-year contract she doesn’t currently plan to renew.

Before Out There, Macy’s first hosted concept was a series loosely titled “How Are You Still in Business?” She’d go to small storefronts in New York — a pigeon shop, a custom rubber stamp shop — and seek to answer the titular question.

In 2024, she created her first two medium-length YouTube videos:

The first has 1 million views at the time of writing; the second has 2.3 million.

As Macy’s star began to rise, Devin Emery, former Chief Content Officer and now President at Morning Brew, made sure they wouldn’t lose her to some competitor’s shiny offer or independent dreams.

He pitched her on making the shift from social video producer to creator-host on a talent contract; when they finished negotiating, and she put pen to paper, her salary nearly doubled. The contract includes bonuses that could take her compensation yet higher, but she’s not counting on it.

Key to the appeal of sticking with Morning Brew was the stability the company offered — no need to build out her own team, take on all the expenses of running an independent media business, or sell ads. She prioritized salary over extra incentives.

She’s still incentivized on video performance. For example, if five YouTube videos had hit 1 million views in the first year, she would’ve received a higher percentage cut of ads in the contract’s second year.

This didn’t happen — all told, Out There and its pilots (12 videos in total) have 3.85 million views, averaging 321k per video.

Notably, unlike Toomey’s Good Work, Macy’s show lives entirely on the main Morning Brew YouTube channel. This was a key item during contract negotiations.

Though she went to school for business, she “doesn’t love” tying all of her content back to business in the long term; Macy, the company, and their advertisers are better served when the videos live on a channel that will stay active long after she leaves the show behind.

Another non-negotiable during contract discussions: term length. Macy is now halfway through a two-year deal — she told us she was “a little too flighty” to consider a longer term than that. There’s always the possibility of renewal down the line, but Morning Brew is still only her second job out of college, and by the time her term ends, she will have been with the company for five years.

As she preps for what comes next, YouTube is at the center of her plans, because “YouTube feels safe. YouTube feels like a better proving ground” for her long-term goal: “a feature-length documentary type career.”

There are two tasks before her if she’s to step into independence when her contract ends in one year.

First, initiate ad deals on her personal accounts, which she is allowed to do under the terms of her contract, with caveats and approval from the Brew team.

Right-fit advertisers will likely be those with small budgets (unable to afford mainline Morning Brew rates) or, in special cases, small initial partnerships that would allow the Brew team to build relationships towards a larger advertisement.

The second task, as she progresses, will make it easier to land those deals: growing her personal accounts. At the time of writing, Macy’s total following is 144.9k:

Her first non-Short YouTube upload is one month old and has 9.5k views — it’s a behind-the-scenes scrap from an Out There video where she learns about Google Street View.

Morning Brew knows they won’t keep her around forever; the relationship has already been mutually beneficial. Their model is built to continuously develop talent like Macy, knowing that success means they will eventually leave.

Many of her friends in New York work as independent content creators, which helps her to see herself in that role. She’ll need help, of course; Macy’s specialties are neither editing nor shooting. She’s at her best in front of the camera, being “nosy,” asking questions; uncovering stories.

Connect with Macy on LinkedIn.
Follow Macy on YouTube or Instagram.

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— Francis Zierer & Natalia Pérez-González