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Nussbaum: During his job interview I showed [Adam Sternbergh] the mockup. He was like, “This is my dream.” He was just so on board for it. He was good at this kind of thing. He started overseeing the joke collection; it was a writers’ room sort of thing. Some of the most fun parts were talking about where things should be placed.

Bonanos: When [Sternbergh] took it over, he sort of created, not the voice, but codified it at that time. A lot of magazine features get going like this and work along for the first few months and you figure it out on the road. He was the perfect person to figure it out. His taste was highbrow and lowbrow, with strong opinions, and a comedy writer’s soul. Emily and Adam created it, but Sternbergh’s voice became the Approval Matrix.

Adam Sternbergh, current New York Magazine writer, former editor at large: It kind of scratches a very traditional magazine itch. Every week you catch up on the news and pop culture with a smart-alecky twist. It was a very smart iteration of a very familiar magazine staple. On the other hand, it did arrive during a long moment when people were realizing how broad the cultural landscape was and how highbrow and lowbrow were clashing.

We wanted to put an episode of Sopranos on the Matrix, but figuring out where it would go was a problem. It was TV so it was lowbrow, but HBO is the Dom Perignon of TV so it’s high brow; on the other hand it’s about the mob, so that’s lowbrow, but it is a well-executed, complex show so it could be highbrow. These are the Talmudic arguments we’d have deep into the night. That’s what appeals to people about the idea.