“One day there will be a book called ‘The Collected Legal Works of Gawker Media,'” said Gaby Darbyshire, the company’s 39-year-old COO and head lawyer.
It was a recent Thursday afternoon, and Ms. Darbyshire was sitting on a couch in her loft in Little Italy. She pulled out her laptop and showed The Observer an email from a screenwriter who was upset that Jezebel, a Web site that is part of the Gawker stable, had posted a small excerpt of a script from his forthcoming movie. He wanted the excerpt removed-exactly the sort of email Ms. Darbyshire receives roughly once per working day.
Or, in other words, she’s the person who has to go in and defend Gawker’s rowdy band of pirates when someone believes they have crossed the line.
Virtually all editors who have worked with the site agree that she’s very good at her very busy job, which is not just limited to being the head counsel. She is a sort of everywoman at Gawker, wearing hats that include overseeing law, finance, business development, the 401(k) deals, HR issues, maternity leave policy (which, as a testament to Gawker growing bigger and bigger, now needs to be drafted)-almost anything that is money-related and doesn’t deal with editorial or advertising.
“I’m the glue,” said Ms. Darbyshire.
“Gawker wouldn’t function without her,” said Mr. Denton.
And Mr. Denton might not function quite the same way without her. While Mr. Denton has been the very public face for the media company he started in 2002, she has been the relatively unnoticed consigliere by his side. Ms. Darbyshire said that Gawker writers have referred to the two of them as the mommy and daddy at the company. She’s known Mr. Denton for almost 20 years, they’ve been roommates several times over and she has been intimately familiar with his business ventures for more than a decade.
“She has the institutional knowledge of the place, and of Nick as well, that makes her voice really important,” said Lockhart Steele, the former editorial director of Gawker Media, who founded Curbed.
“I don’t know if people realize how much history we’ve got,” said Ms. Darbyshire. “We’re not like most people working in a company. I will say things to him that no people would dream of saying to their boss. Yes, he’s my boss, but I don’t think of him as my boss.