No one could have guessed The Onion would amount to much. How could it have? As I reflect in my book The Onion Story: How a Band of Misfits, Dropouts, and Sad Sacks Built the World’s Most Trusted News Source, a look back at my many decades at the helm of the publication, The Onion wasn’t founded by the kinds of Harvard M.B.A.’s, S.N.L. veterans, or media titans who traditionally create magazines, found newspapers, or even consider humor writing a legitimate career path. It was founded by a bunch of twentysomething slackers who were, by traditional metrics, unemployable anywhere else.
In fact, most of us couldn’t even hold down dishwashing, clerking, or other food-service-industry jobs. I was fired from A&W because I never mastered that special A&W way of microwaving hot dogs.
