Vice Media Files For Bankruptcy

[The Big Ragu]

Vice raised BILLIONS of dollars in equity and debt financing while a distorted interest rate market had people treating money with no respect. It burned through an insane amount of cash. ... and nothing productive came of it. At one point, people were buying equity in the company (and not just people, Canadian tax payers, Disney. ... George Soros provided debt financing!) at a $5.7 billion valuation.

There is a huge unseen cost to that. ... that money has to come from somewhere. There are all kinds of way more productive things the money could have potentially found that would have been viable. And we all lose from that never having bee nallowed to happen. Those alternatives could have provided jobs that were actually stable and not a fantasy, and benefited people with something that their demand was paying for instead of forcing people into risky behavior by robbing them of yield.

The environment that made Vice at that valuation possible even made relatively smart people act delusionally (in hindsight). ... Not only was Disney one of the entities that got holding the bag, it could have been even worse for them. ... Shane Smith turned away a $3.5 billion offer for the entire thing from Disney! How much does he kick himself every morning?

 

[goalmouth]

Shane Smith is the Jerry Yang of the new dot-com bubble.

 

[Mr. X]

From The Wall Street Journal:
Vice Media to Stop Publishing on Vice.com, Plans to Cut Hundreds of Jobs


https://www.wsj.com/business/media/...t2g4u8ofz6h&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink

 

[matt_garth]

 

[Regan MacNeil]

Let "I hope they get perpetual diarrhea!" be this generation's rally cry.

 

[Pilot]

Are we sure online news sites ever work?

 

[justgladtobehere]

Are we sure online news sites ever work?

Yeah, I don't think overpaid executives were what tanked Vice.

Documentary Now! had a good parody of Vice's style.

 

[justgladtobehere]

Also, WAMU ended DCist to focus on radio and podcasts.

https://www.axios.com/2024/02/23/wamu-dcist-layoffs-npr-washington

 

[Batman]

Are we sure online news sites ever work?

How to make money off an online news site:
1) Find a venture capitalist to bankroll you for a year
2) Throw a bunch of shipty clickbait stories at the wall to generate some modest web traffic
3) Have one or two of those shipty clickbait stories go viral and spike your traffic
4) Convince some dumbash with more money than brains that your spiked traffic is sustainable
5) Sell the company to the dumbash so that you make money. Preferably get paid with a briefcase full of cash.
6) Profit
7) Smile on your boat in Maui while your old company melts back into anonymity and declares bankruptcy, thus screwing over the rank and file.

 

[TheSportsPredictor]

'It was impossible to ignore the deluge of thumbs-down emojis': Man roasts Vice CEO for behavior during mash layoff 'town hall' meeting

 

[Twirling Time]

How to make money off an online news site:
1) Find a venture capitalist to bankroll you for a year
2) Throw a bunch of shipty clickbait stories at the wall to generate some modest web traffic
3) Have one or two of those shipty clickbait stories go viral and spike your traffic
4) Convince some dumbash with more money than brains that your spiked traffic is sustainable
5) Sell the company to the dumbash so that you make money. Preferably get paid with a briefcase full of cash.
6) Profit
7) Smile on your boat in Maui while your old company melts back into anonymity and declares bankruptcy, thus screwing over the rank and file.

Finally someone found a way to fill in the ???