"The Community Is a Sleeping Giant”: The Brooklyn Dad Taking Autism to 2028

TL;DR

Special ed parents are a unique lot. Very often their life plans take a different path after a child’s diagnosis. Many become consumed by anxiety for their kids’ futures. Too often, their sense of self gets lost in a sea of acronyms, and there is no auto-pilot.

Many find a new course, some are surprised to learn they have a deep well of scrappiness.

Lighthouse wants to highlight parents and remind all of us that we are defined by more than being caretakers. That’s the idea behind this Parents section—maybe we can all remind ourselves of who we are beyond being parents of kids with special needs.

Tim Fullerton is one of those parents. He’s the CEO of Find Out Media, a company that produces podcasts and video programs for progressive creators. I found him on a Facebook group for dads with autistic kids and asked if he’d like to talk to us. He hadn’t been public about his son, but he and his wife had been considering taking a more public approach. I found him at the right time.

Tim and his team churn out the content — he and his co-creators produce a handful of programs, the flagship of which is The Find Out Podcast. A daily coffee clutch of guys who bleed blue politically, the podcast trades in bewildered outrage at the goings-on in Washington DC.

The company came to life after Trump got re-elected in 2024, a result that Tim says was fueled largely by online MAGA influencers. That’s when Tim, ItsLuke, Ohhthatsrich, and Zak Kimball decided to start a podcast that shows left-leaning men as regular, fun guys.

They’re having an Election Night smackdown at Gramercy Theater. Tickets are still available here.

Before Find Out Media, Tim was New York State's chief digital officer. He worked on Barack Obama's 2008 campaign and in his administration. He’s bowled and played hoops at the White House.

He is also the dad of a 7-year-old who is autistic and attends a D75 school in Brooklyn.

We talked to Tim about his work, his son, and the question he plans to ask every 2028 presidential candidate.

This conversation has been edited for length and clarity.

What is Find Out Media?

Do you remember a group called White Dudes for Harris in '24? I was one of the guys who did that. I wasn't the founder, but I think I joined six hours after they came up with the idea. We saw this massive explosion of interest from men who look like us, who are not normally targeted by the Democratic Party.

One of my jobs on the campaign was to find white male TikTok creators so that we could amplify them. I was on a text thread with a bunch of them, and one of the guys, Zach, was like, "We're having these really good conversations here talking about storytelling. Should we do a podcast?" A few of us raised our hands, and we launched two or three weeks after Trump was sworn in. The first episode kind of exploded. It hit number 29 on the U.S. Apple podcast chart, a main chart, which is very hard to do. Which got us recognized by WME, who signed us after one episode.

I texted them, and I said, "Guys, I think we accidentally started a company."

What is the vision for the company?

We were like, what if we take other popular short-form creators who would appeal to men and build out long-form shows for them, and then cut it up and push it out? So it's almost like an engine.

Our goal, if we get funded, is to get to 18 to 20 shows by the end of 2028. Most of them are political right now, but we want to do cultural shows too. I want to do a sports show. I want to do a financial show. And then a dad's podcast too.

We're not journalists. We're strictly partisan. I tell everybody that.

Before this, you ran digital for New York State. What was that job?

I used to be the chief digital officer for the state of New York. I worked for Governor Cuomo, of whom I am no fan of anymore. I ran NewYork.gov, the governor's website. I was there when we rolled out the paid family leave program. Did the whole digital program for that, and then also did ads in the subways, because most people don't know the state, not the city, runs the subway.

My claim to fame is I've survived 101 meetings with Andrew Cuomo and Adam Neumann from WeWork.

You were at WeWork when it collapsed in 2019. What did you take from that?

First of all, crisis communications. My son was born in August of 2019, and the collapse of WeWork happened a day after I came back from paternity leave. So figuring out how to keep your teams going in the midst of maybe there’s no more money in a week. Once SoftBank, who was our big funder, came in, they asked me to work with them on how to rebuild. So it was both a mixture of learning what not to do, because there was a lot of that, but also how to run a business and how to encourage employees.

And before that, you worked for the Obama campaign?

I was the state and regional email manager. I and my team wrote all of the non-national emails. So, if New York wanted an email, like they were doing buses to Pennsylvania to knock on doors, we sent that. Or if there was an office opening, or if they needed voter protection lawyers in Ohio. That's what we did. We were sending 40 emails a day. It was the hardest that I have ever worked, and I loved it. And I don't really ever want to do it again, because it's a young person's game.

Bus companies tell me immigration enforcement is responsible for the city's driver shortage. How do your feelings about the Trump administration line up with your son's needs?

Very angry, very angry. The hardest day in this administration for us so far was the day that he stood up there with RFK Jr. and blamed Tylenol for autism. Not acetaminophen, Tylenol.

At first, we were kind of like, it's just so stupid, it's just ridiculous. But then we got really mad. Everybody should be on board with solving the challenges around kids that have ADHD and autism. I think seeing the look on my wife's face, and realizing that the president of the United States was blaming her for that, as he blamed all women across the country for that, which, anybody who knows anything about this knows how ridiculous that is.

I think that has set back the community a lot, because it makes it seem like you're a bad parent, and it has absolutely nothing to do with that.

The Medicaid cuts are devastating for families. Maybe not necessarily for me, but home care, all of those things. We should be talking about improvements in therapies, advancing medical breakthroughs, all of the stuff to make neurodivergent kids' lives as fulfilling as it can be, and they're not doing any of that.

So I give them an F. This is the worst administration for the neurodivergent community that we've ever had. Not even close.

There are lots of opinions about why Trump happened. And one of them is that he was a backlash to Obama being president. Do you feel any responsibility?

That’s a great question. I think that it certainly was a backlash. I think that Trump, as awful as it is, tapped into a lot of white resentment and white anger, and Hillary was unfortunately the perfect foil for him. Somebody that had been in this world for a long time, and that she had done all these paid speaking gigs at Goldman Sachs, and is also not a very good campaigner.

I actually believe she would have been a very good president, but campaigning, she’s bad at it. And then literally, Trump got lucky 15 times along the way.

We kind of thought we were moving towards a post-racial society, which now looks completely foolish. The Tea Party rally should have been a warning to us, because that wasn’t about spending. If that was about spending, they would have done it under George W. Bush. Now they just go out and say it. But in ‘08, they didn’t.

Part of why I am doing this, and I have told people this, is that there was a decision after the campaign. There was a decision whether OFA, which was Obama for America, the campaign, whether it should be merged into the DNC or it should be a separate entity.

We on the digital team were very much: It needs to be a separate entity. It needs to be his, basically his army, to push his agenda. And a bunch of consultants in D.C. all were like, no, no, no, it needs to merge into the DNC. And he didn’t care enough about it, so it got merged in, and it basically got destroyed, because the DNC is a terrible messenger.

So I see [Find Out Media] as a bit of a smaller redemption arc, at least for myself. And very specifically, we’re not in D.C. All of us are from outside of D.C. My goal is to get big enough that we can... push them to do the right things. That’s a long way of saying yes.

What kind of change do you hope to bring with Find Out Media?

We've interviewed some folks that will be running for president, but once they've announced, I am going to be hammering them on their positions on neurodivergence, autism, ADHD, and what they plan to do about it.

First of all, it's morally the right thing to do. Second, if you can improve their lives to the point where they can work and they can be self-independent, what an amazing achievement. We're not doing any of that. So what's the plan for that? And what is the plan to finally stop this nonsense about vaccines causing autism?

I think the community is a sleeping giant, to be honest.

Tell me about your son.

He is seven. And he is autistic and ADHD.

When did you first realize something was different?

There were little things, eye contact... missing some milestones. I think we really started to understand probably in the 18 months to two years.

I'll be honest, the evaluators were not good. The first one, she was just very blunt. You're watching this stranger evaluate your son and seeing him not do things that she's asking him to do. And then when it's done, she's like, "Okay, you want me to tell you what I think?" And we're like, terrified.

It was just like essentially stabbing us in the heart, the way that she did it. We're older parents, so it's like, what does he do at 30 when we're 70?

How did you and your wife deal with it?

My wife is very, very good at researching and finding answers, and so we basically both dove in. We understood the earlier we could get him into therapies, the better it would be. We did get a private speech therapist as well, because his issues are mostly related to communication.

He was six months old when COVID happened. He went to daycare for six days, and then we were home for a year and a half. They were wearing masks, so then he couldn't see their mouths.

We knew we were in it together.

He got an IEP and started 3-K in Park Slope. Did you get a lawyer early on?

No. We looked at the idea about the private school stuff, and honestly, when we looked at it, we saw that we could get into the 3K with services in a good school in Park Slope... we decided to do that.

He had a para specifically for him, and he did speech and OT. He was in a blended ICT class. I think it was good at first, and then I think we realized he needed a smaller setting. They always said when he was in class and there were a lot of kids absent, he would come alive.

Now he's in a District 75 class in Bed-Stuy. How's it going?

It's a D75, and they've been wonderful. His paras have been wonderful. The administrators are wonderful. The teachers have said he's been great. He's participating in all kinds of things.

In the school in Park Slope, he was laying in the back of the room most of the day. Here, he participates.

Now it's like an eight-minute walk. Actually, I just walked him to school for the first time today.

Did you see a change at home?

Yes. More relaxed, less agitated. It was almost immediate.

How do you work with his school and therapists?

We have Class Dojo. The teacher is always available. They tend to be pretty good about posting photos, which is always nice to see. The principal is wonderful.

To be clear, we are very anti-ABA. I understand it. It has evolved, but for the most part, we are not. We've made it very clear to all therapists. I don't want him to have to mask.

At the old school, I had to fight a few times for him. Nurses saying that he needed to go home for certain things, silly things, getting a doctor's note. I ended up winning most of the times we had problems.

What isn't working?

He's having a hard time being on the bus. That's one part maybe I would critique, is that they are not as understanding. The summer busing people were great, and then these people are just like, if he doesn't sit, they freak out.

You haven't sued or gone private. How has the city system worked for you?

For the most part, it has worked. I know people who have sued, and I know people who have had bad experiences. I don't know if it's just that we're a one-two punch and we're just like a dog with a bone and we don't let up. Or if we're just lucky, or if my wife's just really good at research, which she is.

I certainly understand that we are in a privileged position, both from careers that allow us to navigate this world, and frankly, we have the means to have an after-school caregiver, and we have the means to do private speech, which we don't do anymore. It's very, very difficult to navigate. If I was on my own, I don't know what I would have done.

What are your hopes for him?

My hope for my son is that he is happy. That's it.

If that means eventually he gets to the point where he can have conversations, he speaks. If that means that he is home for a long time and then eventually goes to group housing or whatever it ends up being, if he's happy, that's fine. If he is one of these kids that eventually communicates and can go to college, because everyone says he's very smart.

He does not need to be a lawyer. He does not need to be a developer.

The measure of success in this society should not be the job you have and the money you make. It really should be who you are and how you treat people. And everyone says he's the sweetest kid.

Everyone loves him wherever he goes. He's known all over. He loves to get kiwis at the grocery store. He likes to go get chips at the Mexican place over here.

I sometimes sense an underlying sadness in parents. Do you feel that?

I think there's waves of that. I'm a pretty optimistic person by nature, and I think that we've worked through a lot of that stuff.

I do worry. Mine is more worrying than sadness. I think I've made peace with this, and there was no reason it happened. No one did this.

I'm not sad any longer. I was, for a period of time. I didn't like the experience of getting him diagnosed. That was just a nightmare. But now it's more about making sure that he is as equipped as he can be for the world.

You're not from here. How does New York compare?

I moved here for a job 10 years ago, and this is the best place to have a neurodivergent child, by far, in the country. There’s just nowhere else that’s better. We’ve looked, when I’ve looked at jobs or stuff in different places.

Massachusetts is pretty good, but DC’s not. California’s not as good as you would think it is. So New York is the best place to be. I think New York City is a good place to raise a kid, anyways, which my mom always thinks I’m insane. I think there’s just more resources here and more stuff. It is the right place to be for these kids, for sure.

Yes, there’s more opportunity for stimulation, which could be good or bad. What does your son love to do?

He likes football. He likes videos of animals. He loves water. If there's a bounce house anywhere, he will go nuts.

We live near the children's museum, so we get there fairly often. There's a water park that he loves. There's sand. There is a lot of touching stuff. I highly recommend it. They are very neurodivergent-affirming. He takes his shoes off, and they don't care.

Thanks for talking to us Tim. This has been great.

First of all, thank you for doing Lighthouse. I don’t get to talk about this stuff that often, because we’ve generally been pretty private for him. But I think I can do a lot more good for both him and kids in general if I’m vocal about it. And so we’re starting to dip our feet into it a little bit.

This is a great first one, because it’s going to be people who are in the same boat. It’s a good start. But like I said, those candidates next year are going to be answering that question.

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