Quartz[2] is an American English language news website owned by Redbrick, a Canadian software firm.
Focused on international business news, it was founded in 2012 byAtlantic Media inNew York City as a "digitally native news outlet for business people in the new global economy".[3]Quartz implemented apaywall from 2019 to 2022.[4][5]
The publication was initially led by Kevin Delaney, a former managing director ofWSJ.com, Zach Seward, a formerWSJ social media editor, andGideon Lichfield, a global news editor fromThe Economist, among other editors.[3]
With its main office in New York, it also has correspondents and staff reporters based inHong Kong,India,London,Los Angeles,Thailand,Washington DC, and elsewhere.[8] According to its website,Quartz's team reports in 115 countries and speaks 19 languages.[8]
In 2015, a year after expanding into India and launchingQuartz India, it launched the Africa-focusedQuartz Africa[9][10] and the chart-building platform Atlas.[11] Meanwhile, it launched publications specifically for Hong Kong,Japan, and theUnited Arab Emirates.[9] According toAd Age,Quartz made around $30 million in revenue in 2016, and employed 175 people.[12]
With its website registering approximately 22 million unique users in August,Quartz saw its revenue decrease to $27.6 million as advertising spending declined.[13] Approximately 700,000 people subscribe to its roster of email newsletters, which includes its flagshipDaily Brief.[14]
Revenue fell from $11.6 million in the first half of 2019 to $5 million in the first half of 2020. After being sold by Uzabase to the publication's staff in November 2020,[21][22] the site was acquired byG/O Media in April 2022.[23][24]
In January 2025, a year afterQuartz India was shut down,[25] the site drew controversy for publishing content written byartificial intelligence. A G/O Media spokesperson called their AI reporting tools "purely experimental."[26]
In April 2025, G/O Media soldQuartz and sister siteThe Inventory to Redbrick, a Canadian software firm.[27][28] Ten out of twelveQuartz newsroom employees were then let go.[29]
Quartz is structured around a collection of phenomena or what it calls "obsessions"[30][31] instead of "beats", preferring news stories or reports to be either short or long rather than middle of the road or average.
In December 2024, aChatGPT tool used to write hundreds of daily articles on securities and exchange filings for the past year was shut down because it would sometimes publish incorrect names and figures that actually belonged to other companies.[34] As of January 2025Quartz had expanded its use ofgenerative AI to publish lengthier articles with disclaimers about potential inaccuracies due to the use of experimental technology. These articles summarize other sources, which are often mangled or misrepresented, and in some cases are themselvesAI slop.[35][36]
_logo.svg){kind=logo}
$26.9 million (2019)[1]