This is actually a very good content marketing strategy. I'd enjoy being the canonical publisher of these pieces of unique long-form content about an industry that just gets bigger and bigger every year (and interest in it at 3x).

It will make an even bigger name from them outside of the "core" startup community... can piggyback off any big brands, directly from their own, as all they need to do is call someone and say "hey, we're from Basecamp" since so many people love them.

It definitely depends. If we're talking about standardized interviews, in Q&A format, it's not too much work. If we're talking 10,000+-word, deep, New Yorker- or Atlantic-length articles, it's a lot of work. One of those every month is an aggressive cadence for anyone not doing this full time. Writing in-depth stories like those is very research-intensive, travel-dependent, and analytically taxing.

I would guess (?) that they're aiming for a medium in between those two extremes. But even still, bandwidth can be an issue. If you're doing primary discovery, primary research, and primary analysis, you're going to have to commit significant effort to produce something really good every month.

In general, we as readers tend to underestimate (and undervalue) the effort involved in primary research and investigation. Some of what we read in feature-length magazine articles involved hundreds of hours of primary research or experience.

When you frame as a 'new online magazine' it looks to me like a lot of work, but we'll see.

(Not complaining here BTW, I'm pretty sure these will be awesome and inspiring stories I'll benefit from. It's just weird.)