Almighty dollar / Popular powers
Today: Julianne Escobedo Shepherd, writer, editor, and author of the forthcoming book Vaquera; Josephine Riesman, New York Times bestselling author of Ringmaster and True Believer; writer and artist S.I. Rosenbaum; Sam Thielman, a reporter, critic, essayist, and editor, and graphic novel columnist for the New York Times; and Zach Rabiroff, a writer on books, comics, and culture living in Brooklyn, New York.
Issue No. 359
The Public Is Catching on About Private Equity
Julianne Escobedo Shepherd
PODCAST! Episode 11: The Ultimate Truth of Superman
Zach Rabiroff, Josephine Riesman, S.I. Rosenbaum, and Sam Thielman
Victors of Hydranym No. 7
The Editors
Superman Is as Good as We Can Stand Him Being
Zach Rabiroff
The Public Is Catching on About Private Equity
by Julianne Escobedo Shepherd
In 2016, a series of legal attacks secretly funded by tech mogul Peter Thiel culminated in the high-profile bankruptcy liquidation of Gawker Media Group. The company’s surviving sites, including Deadspin, Jezebel, Lifehacker, Gizmodo, Kotaku, and Jalopnik, were eventually acquired in 2019 by private equity company Great Hill Partners, who rebranded the company as G/O Media and installed former Forbes executive Jim Spanfeller to run it. As CEO, Spanfeller lurched from one blunder to another, the most notorious being the implosion of the popular and wide-ranging sports site Deadspin. Editor in Chief Megan Greenwell resigned within months, after refusing management directives to “stick to sports,” despite the site’s popularity covering lots of other topics. Not long after, Deadspin’s entire staff of 20 would defect. (G/O Media is currently winding down, having sold all its media properties with the exception of The Root.)
I was right there alongside Greenwell during all of this, as the EIC at Jezebel, Deadspin’s sister site. We became close friends and confidants. It was tragic watching the demise of our formerly successful company. But after her departure—while I was trying unsuccessfully to protect Jezebel (and my mental health) from an inevitable collapse—Greenwell was using her funemployment to research the brilliant new book, Bad Company: Private Equity and the Death of the American Dream, detailing for posterity how a bunch of random finance bros are transforming the landscape of capital while destroying peoples’ lives in the process.
Keep us breathing fire!
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