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Laurene Powell Jobs’s Organization to Take Majority Stake in The Atlantic (nytimes.com)
91 points by zonotope on July 28, 2017 | hide | past | favorite | 37 comments



I'm curious if Bezos and Powell Jobs got into media as an investment or as philanthropy? With the current state of the industry I'd believe the latter before the former.


Bezos is on the record as talking about what motivates his philanthropy: “I’m thinking about a philanthropy strategy that is the opposite of how I mostly spend my time — working on the long term,” he wrote. “For philanthropy, I find I’m drawn to the other end of the spectrum: the right now.”

Whether you'd call the Post philanthropic probably depends on whether you think the small profit that the Post makes is what motivates Bezos. Given both Bezos immense wealth and his views on profit in general, I'd err on the side of calling it philanthropic.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/15/business/media/jeff-bezos...


This is just 100% speculation, as I have no idea what Jobs or Bezos or Gates or anyone else really think. But it seems to be in their long term interest to have a fair, balanced political system and liberal society as we have now in the US. If you look at wealth creation and accumulation throughout history, its been accumulated by less than honorable means. And I'm not talking about Gates screwing over Jobs with Windows: I'm talking actual killing and grabbing of wealth, invasion or outright seizure of assets. I have a feeling that the smart rich people understand this and want to preserve a somewhat fair and balanced society.

This is why it completely baffles me as to why the Koch brothers are so hell bent on destroying our democracy. And the only plausible reason seems to be: they're not really well educated, or smart enough, to understand the impact that their short term thinking will have on the American system. Since they inherited most of their wealth, they've never really lived without wealth, I'm guessing they can't relate to people without it.


It does no good to mischaraterize and disparage other humans when you're not aware of their motivations. Understand that I dislike what the Kochs stand for as well, but I can understand how their viewpoint evolved.

Firstly, they're two MIT-educated engineers, and secondly they did not inherit all their wealth. In fact the business was worth in the tens of millions when their father turned control over to them and died a year later. After many decades, the company is now worth multi-billions. That's no small feat.

And finally you must understand that their father (who founded the company) was a simple chemical engineer that came up with a brilliant new refining process. However he was blocked, by litigative competitors, from implementing that process in the U.S. So, their father turned to Soviet Russia at the time to build these new improved refineries for a government that was all to happy to accept them. However, in the process, many of their fathers collaborators were killed off by Stalin in a brutal purge.

Ever since his experience in Soviet Russia, Koch believed that communism was one of the greatest political enemies and socialism was one slippery step from falling into communism. He didn't want to see anymore colleagues die, and so his political views became polarized.

He passed those polarized views onto his children -- not all of them accepted them -- specifically the two Koch brothers leading the firm now.

In their minds they believe they're fighting the good fight. No matter how much you and I may disagree: we can understand how they may have arrived there.


Thanks for the insightful comment. I agree my views are somewhat colored by anti-Koch rhetoric. My paradigm was that their father unscrupulously collaborated with the Soviets and Germans just for money, while ignoring the sanctions imposed by the US Government. Most of my info on Koch brothers came from reading the book Dark Money.

I will certainly remedy that deficiency with more research into this. (BTW comments like this is why I love the HN community so much).


That's a fair point -- about Germany. I'm curious whether their father began building refineries there before or after the sanctions?

I never really looked into the geopolitical context around the time of his expansion.

I'm relatively sure he didn't do anything to the extent of what IBM and Bayer did for the Third Reich: my understanding is that their father was mostly just a geek trying to build his refineries and the big U.S. companies at the time weren't playing fair.

Now you've got me even more curious though. Going to dig in more.

EDIT: So it looks like only one refinery was designed and built by Koch for Germany in 1934. This is many years before U.S. involvement. And the closest thing to sanctions I can find is the economic war/blockade the UK and France placed on Germany in 1939. Let me know if you find any other sources of information though.


Both the Koch brothers and Bezos are liberals in the broadest sense of the word, in fact Charles Koch considers himself and probably is a classical liberal [1]. They both are both injecting personal bias into politically active ventures, and that is an affront to what democracy should be about. Because of their vast wealth they are able to shape and suppress political discourse in their own favour (I would guess that your and most peoples interests don't align directly with those of a multi-billionaire). Bezos is probably more left leaning than others but that doesn't mean that his politics don't impact people negatively. Do you really believe that Carlos Slim's primary motivator for becoming the largest stake holder in the NYT Co. is to promote coexistence via liberalism? [1]http://freakonomics.com/podcast/why-hate-koch-brothers-part-...


NYT has a split stock structure.

Carlos Slim's stake affords him basically zero sway in NYT's affairs. Even owning ALL of the public stock still wouldn't accomplish that.

The founding family has a majority (70%) control of the board through the rights of the class B shares they hold, and as such are beholden to no one.


"classical liberalism" is close to the opposite of what most people think of liberalism. It arose in the 19th century and then was liberal in that it advocated the rule-of-law for all, low tarrifs and low taxes.

It has been termed "classical liberalism" since the late 19th century to distinguish it from social liberalism, which is what most people think of now whn they refer to "liberal".


They're smart enough. They have the same idea of how force has been used to extract wealth over the ages, but see that force personified as an unchecked government with a monopoly on violence. They see their libertarian philosophy, at it's root, at protecting society and freedom of business from the power of statism. You may or may not agree, but that is how I'd expect them to roughly frame what they believe.


The cynic within me thinks it's purely an investment opportunity. However, it is not uncommon practice for the wealthy to purchase a nontrivial stake in popular media publications. Among other things, it allows them utilize their influence to have a seat at the table, so to speak.

Whether or not that is a net positive good for society is another topic entirely.


With Bezos it seems both. Providing a stable foundation for long-term sustainability, but also an interest in the business being self-sustaining. Productizing their CMS as Arc Publishing, being the best example of the latter.


Activism. I'm curious why downvoters think their acquisitions aren't a form of activism. For instance, their coverage of an Amazon monopoly is very sparse, even given the recent Democratic economic policy statements which mention monopolies frequently. Billionaires wanting to control the press isn't exactly a shocking idea. Is buying a newspaper and controlling their output more or less offensive than Theil's funding the Gawker suit?

1. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2013/11/11/at-th...

2. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/201...

3. https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/amazon-isnt-technica...

4. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2014/01/30/amazo...

5. https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/is-amazon-getting-to...


I'm a little unclear as to the logic of your argument. If you are implying that Bezos is controlling WP's output then wouldn't he have stopped some of the stories you posted? I don't remember when he took control, but I'd note at least two of those stories are from this year.

There are other articles critical of Amazon from WP too, eg: https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/birkenstock-...

Maybe you think there should be more, but it's not like other news sources have huge numbers more.

(Also, your argument that Amazon is a monopoly isn't one that is widely made. I can't think of a single category where Amazon doesn't have meaningful competition. Just being successful doesn't make a company a monopoly.)


There is no question that this is the reason. Many billionares have sought to control the public narrative by buying media outlets. It's easily the most effective way to ensure that their personal views are served up to the public. Same reason that Putin started RT.


How do any of these links demonstrate that Bezos is controlling the Washington Post's output?


To me, saying "Bezos doesn't influence Wapo's output" is like saying, "Oculus will remain an independent entity inside Facebook." Not something I'm inclined to believe. Why should one believe that the billionaire (and new richest man in the world) at the helm of a major monopoly isn't influencing WaPo's content?


You are arguing from disbelief, but nevertheless relatively independent observers really do seem to believe that Bezos is taking a hands off role with the reporting choices of the Post:

https://www.poynter.org/2016/whats-life-at-the-washington-po...

It is possible that a well run, honest, independent newspaper is still a viable business model, if guided smartly in the online environment; maybe Bezos really just believes that? If so, then robust editorial independence would be part of the business model.


"I don't believe it" is not very convincing evidence. Oculus and the Post are not really comparable, nobody (statistically) cares how independent Oculus is. Even if you want to look at this from a purely business perspective - editorial independence is part of the product. It's also what ensures you can attract real journalists.


An organization is not independent of its owner. This is a tautology.


Some level of independence is possible. There may be contracts in place that guarantee the editorial board control over news content, and most newspaper journalists are unionized.


He was talking about editorial independence.


Whoosh.


That's the evidence you've presented against my assertion, as neither of us would know the real answer. My links above could be perceived as control because a predominantly left wing paper is defensive of a company who runs afoul of a popular left wing issue, trust busting. It's as much about what isn't talked about as what's on the front page.

To quote you from higher in the thread, "But it seems to be in their long term interest to have a fair, balanced political system and liberal society as we have now in the US." Is buying a news paper to promote that idea not a form of activism?


But Amazon isn't a monopoly is any way.

The WP has covered various union's arguments against Amazon, eg: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2017/07/17/why-t...

I think you may misunderstand what left-wing people generally think. This quote from the above article summarizes it quite well:

Jon Leibowitz, a former Democratic chairman of the Federal Trade Commission, said the agency has a duty to challenge any deals that could end up hurting shoppers.

“Think about the Amazon business model — that’s typically bringing down prices and enhancing innovation, which is a benefit to consumers,” said Leibowitz, now a partner at the law firm Davis Polk. “But the FTC is a very professional agency, and they’re going to pay attention to any substantive concerns raised by outside parties.”


I’m not sure who you’re quoting but it’s not me. Also, you are the one making a strident assertion, you can’t really just say ‘none of us knows!’ when asked to support it.


Seems like you have an axe to grind. I don't have a reason to be this suspicious about amazon. What's your reason?


Seems like you have a reason to be defensive, throwaway account. I'm suspicious of any billionaire who buys a newspaper, for reasons I've been arguing in this thread - the very real potential for bad behavior.


Potential, sure, but that is a potential with any newspaper. You don't need to own one to buy it off. Why not just critique amazon directly for what they're doing? What ARE they doing again that requires coverage?


A much better media investment than OZY. Glad to see tech money stepping up to back real news organizations in America at a time when we desperately need them to do their work well. More research into the fiasco in Washington, and across America, is one way to help get us out of this mess.


More representation of people from different backgrounds and philosophies in the media is one way to help get us out of this mess.

The further concentration of 'voice' in our society towards an already hyper-powerful few will only make things worse.

It amazes me how much supposedly egalatarian-minded people are happy to amplify power imbalances if they think it'll be their kind of people holding the whip.


This isn't an either-or situation. Both your issue, as well as the parent's, are true


I agree. I have been a subscriber for many years now and have really liked their writing.


Interesting that it includes The Atlantic but not Quartz.


I didn't realize Quartz was incubated by Atlantic until you're comment prompted me to look into what made that interesting.

As a potential reason why it may not be included I found that it (Quartz) was being shopped for sale in late 2015-2016[0]. My guess is that they ended up selling Atlantic media instead, or Quartz is still for sale/being sold.

Agreed, interesting they didn't include it.

[0] http://fortune.com/2015/12/11/quartz-sale/


[flagged]


Did you even read the article?

"That list included Ms. Powell Jobs, who is the widow of Steven P. Jobs, a co-founder of Apple"


Uh... Ctrl+F, "Steve"

> That list included Ms. Powell Jobs, who is the widow of Steven P. Jobs, a co-founder of Apple; she first expressed interest in the company at a meeting in January in Washington.




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