The guy applying to be an intern is locked in the conference room. “Leave him in there for a while. I want him to sweat,” says John Resig, 35, co-founder and president of the Chive, a website based in Austin, Tex. Resig doesn’t mean he wants the guy to be nervous—that’s already been accomplished—he means he literally wants the kid to sweat through his shirt. “I want a big sweat mark right here,” Resig says, gesturing to his belly.
When the Chive posts an internship opening, more than 2,500 people usually apply. To thin the résumé pile, and because he finds it funny, Resig resorts to mild hazing. He wants to know how far he can push people. But the kid just refuses to sweat. Word around the office is that he’s bro-lit author Tucker Max’s assistant, and he came to the Chive because he thought a wildly popular website built on pinup-style self-portraits submitted by women and blog posts on subjects such as “Kids, they’re like dogs that can sorta talk” and “Soooo … you got wasted” would be a fun place to work. It’s a crowdsourced, Internet version of a lad magazine—the Maxim of the 21st century.
Resig considers turning off the building’s central air conditioning, but it’s above 90F outside, and the dozen or so people—mostly men, mostly in their mid-twenties—sitting at their desks veto that idea. The Chive is making so much money that in September the founders relocated most of their 50 employees from Southern California to Austin, largely to avoid paying income tax. They bought a $4 million building and are spending an additional $3 million to turn it into the Chive’s headquarters. It will have an indoor slide, a hot tub, and a bar on the second floor with a chute to send beers downstairs. Currently they’re working out of a temporary office, a 127-year-old former morgue that’s been converted into a suite of bright, loftlike rooms with exposed brick walls—and there’s no way to overheat the guy without making everyone else suffer right along with him.
Mac Faulkner, an editor, and Bob Phillipp, Resig’s cousin and the site’s head editor, sneak over to the conference room window, put their mouths on the glass, and blow their cheeks out like puffer fish while Resig stands behind them, laughing. He has vivid blue eyes and a cheerful, youthful face that, except for the permanent lines in his forehead and the wrinkles crinkling around his eyes, still looks much as it did when he was in college. The aspiring intern, so anxious now that he’s pacing the room, notices them, smiles, and gives a little wave, but Resig still won’t let him out. Instead, he leaves the office with Faulkner and Phillipp to see how construction is going at the headquarters. He makes everyone promise to wait at least 30 minutes before they let the applicant out. (And no, he didn’t get the job.)
Resig and his brother Leo, 33, started the Chive in 2008. It generates 20.1 million monthly unique visitors, according to Google Analytics (GOOG). Quantcast, which also measures Internet traffic, puts it ahead of Web destinations such as NPR, USA Today, Comedy Central (VIA), OKCupid, and Disney (DIS). It’s also one of the first outlets to find real success on mobile phones. Since March almost 9 million users have downloaded its iPhone and Android apps, which have a daily use rate almost as high as that of Facebook’s (FB) app.
The average Chiver, as fans call themselves, is 28, college-educated, makes $60,000 a year, and likes to drink beer. Seventy-three percent are men. In terms of unique visitors, the site hasn’t yet caught up to its rival, CollegeHumor, but the Chive has managed to do something its competitors haven’t and which suggests a yet-more-profitable future: The Chive has moved its audience offline and evolved into a lifestyle brand. Over the past two years, more than 200 Chive chapters have popped up from New Zealand to Denmark. In the U.S., four or five unofficial meetups happen almost every weekend. Chivers wear Chive T-shirts, drink from Chive shot glasses, put Chive bumper stickers on their cars, and golf with Chive tees and balls. They greet each other with “Chive on” and crowdsource donations for the site’s charity projects. This month they raised $320,000 in six hours to pay the medical bills for a young woman paralyzed because of complications from Hodgkin’s lymphoma. “We’ve moved from a website to a brand to a culture,” says John.