When a tech CEO is asked nowadays how he or she feels about buying a news outlet you might not see the surprise in their eyes. Instead of dismissing it as a ludicrous question, it is more probable that the person comes with a very thoughtful answer. There are some of Silicon Valley’s residents that are quite intrigued about such an idea. Of course, there are others that vehemently oppose such a scenario as well.
This Sunday, some gossip started going around that Salesforce’s CEO, Marc Benioff, would pay Meredith $190 million in cash for owning the Time magazine. Actually, it wasn’t gossip, the news was announced on Sunday that the Time deal is happening. Marc and his wife Lynne feel that this is more of a family investment so it doesn’t have anything in common with Salesforce.
They were quoted saying that “we are honored to be the caretakers of one of the world’s most important media companies and iconic brands”. They aren’t alone in this kind of venture, as Laurene Powell Jobs owns the majority of The Atlantic, Patrick Soon-Shiong owns the L.A. Times and Jeff Bezos himself owns The Washington Post.
Officially, all three of the fresh media moguls pledged that they won’t interfere with their respective news organization, instead they will focus on improving the product side. Benioff is, apparently, trying to do something similar with Time. He said in a statement that “Lynne and I will take on no operational responsibility for Time, and look only to be the stewards of this historic and iconic brand”.
It seems that the leaders of the tech industry are focusing more and more on preserving certain fundamentals of our society which are currently in danger or under attack.
Henry Lares is still early into his career as tech reporter but has already had his work published in many major publications including Tech Crunch and the Huffington Post. In regards to academics, Henry earned an engineering degree from Apex Technical School. Henry has a passion for emerging technology and covers upcoming products and breakthroughs in science and tech.
