Readit Newsthe audience that was assembled was actually impressive and the PE money was used correctly to build an interesting portfolio of sites.
From there it was an operational disaster. All the important sites they had have been acquired by better run companies which confirms that the underlying assets were pretty good, they just needed to be run by someone else.
On good authority here's a good example: They have one of the top car blogs in the world, and had zero dedicated auto ad sellers. Anyone who knows auto in advertising knows you need people in LA and Detroit full time on the agencies and OEMs.
And at the end of the day, small businesses usually drive the most innovation, so getting rich people to direct their money into startups instead of big companies is good for the country as a whole.
All I ever hear about are his decisions that take unprofitable-but-beloved brands and turn them into detestable slop.
Is slop actually that profitable?
For dying companies, most of the time it's fraudulent and illegal to create a transaction divesting the good assets from the bad debts. Why is that potential problem not an issue for a proposal to sell off everything good and leave behind an insolvent shell?
"Thanks to G/O's stubborn insistence that it only wanted Quartz's assets and not the corporate entity"...
this is not stubborn it's quite common and is absolutely the right thing to do for many companies interested in another business. If they buy your entity (stock transaction) it comes with all the legal liability.
Zach probably doesn't understand how much more likely his deal was to close as an asset purchase rather than a stock purchase. A stock purchase comes with lots more diligence and legalese. If they are buying your stock they are buying all your baggage and potential legal matters, it requires a lot more work including a laundry list of representations by the seller. G/O did everyone a favor by sticking to an asset purchase and getting the deal done. that's where the positives end it seems.