Semafor co-founder Ben Smith and his vanity license plate.
Drew Angerer/Getty Images | Jack Newsham/Business Insider
Semafor cofounder Ben Smith talked to me about his book “Traffic” this summer.When I was on my way to work, I saw a crossover SUV with the license plate “SEMAFOR.”Smith confirmed it’s him. New York City ticket data shows he also needs to slow down!
I read everything. News. Government records. Your t-shirt. Junk mail. All the stickers on your laptop at Starbucks — all of them. Subway ads. (Ask me whose son/nephews make $150,000-plus working in cybersecurity. I know, because I’ve read it 200 times.)
And yes, your license plate.
It’s a bit of a mixed blessing that the text-recognition part of my brain can’t be turned off. On one hand, it can be socially awkward. There are usually better things for me to be paying attention to, like making eye contact and reading someone’s facial expression.
On the other hand, I see and often have a little laugh about things that other people miss. Like the day I saw a crossover SUV with a license plate that said “SEMAFOR” on my way to work.
Ben Smith, who happens to be a cofounder of and editor at Semafor, was in my contacts. He’d been kind enough to talk about his book “Traffic” in a well-received piece I wrote last June, and I hoped he would help me create more content grist for the mill.
“Be honest,” I said, sending him a picture of the license plate. “Is this you?”
“Yes!!!” he said. “Who’s this?”
I told him who I was, and apparently satisfied that I wasn’t an assassin, he readily volunteered more details. “Vanity plate a bit of an impulse purchase,” he said. “Bad idea?”
I told him I’d heard of founders making much dumber purchases after raising money. I also said that it meant his cofounder, Justin Smith, would have to content himself with “SEMAF0R.”
A while later, I made the mistake of telling my editor, Jake Swearingen, who said I had to write about it. Furthermore, he insisted that I run Smith’s license plate through a website that makes New York City traffic-ticket data easily searchable by license plate number. (If, like me, you ever saw a car with a license plate that said “IM L4TE” and wondered if the owner is a speed demon, the answer is: kinda!)
Smith — or whoever is behind the wheel of his car — could stand to slow down. Since this summer, he’s racked up three tickets for speeding in school zones and another for running a red light.
Smith acknowledged that he should drive more safely. He also said vanity plates, which cost about $60, are an “inexpensive, high-leverage form of marketing.”
“A good way to draw attention to your new media outlet used to be to change your Twitter handle,” he said, “but with that kind of social media so much in decline, it just seemed important to get the word out this way as well.”
“Honestly, this story is just a sign that the plan is working,” he said.
“If you’re a media figure whose license plate is not your media brand,” he added, “your staff should honestly question your commitment.”