San Francisco Is Eating New York
2nd October 2018
Heartburn, here it comes.
A lot has been written about how the internet undermined and destroyed media. What we are seeing today may be the more important story, however, which is the tech industry is explicitly buying out the media, particular culture making elite media institutions.
This was illustrated again when it was recently announced that Salesforce CEO Mark Benioff is buying Time magazine for $190 million. Jeff Bezos already owns the Washington Post. Steve Job’s widow owns the Atlantic. These are all people who have essentially infinite funds to sustain these over the long term – as vanity projects if necessary. How many high status print publications are left to acquire? The New Yorker is owned by Condé Nast, which reportedly hemorrhages money, though is owned by a very wealthy family. The WSJ is already in corporate hands, so should be buyable at some point. The NYT is still family controlled for the time being. Broadcast media is tougher but might ultimately share the same fate. (Foreign elite media is a different story than the US).