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Nautilus to be acquired by an investor group of fans

nautil.us

21–30 of 63 posts

Re: Nautilus to be acquired by an investor group of fans

#22
post #3

So it becomes a business, which will focus on generating profit from the magazine, thus Nautilus will become yet another bog standard science magazine subjected to the same structures as other magazines. And we all know that consumers don't fork enough money to support ads-free journalism, which leads to perverse incentives.

> And we all know that consumers don't fork enough money to support ads-free journalism, which leads to perverse incentives. yes they do. susbcription-based models are doing quite well. besides the big heavyweights, in UK alone there are several smaller and successful subscription-based magazines: the TLS, the economist, the spectator etc. in us sports there's 'the athletic' and its clones.

> several smaller and successful subscription-based magazines: ... the economist, ...

Maybe I am misreading, but did you mean to imply that The Economist is a 'small' newspaper? It has been around since the 1840s.

Re: Nautilus to be acquired by an investor group of fans

#25
post #9

This is the second time I see a link on HN, mentioning Hypergiant industries. Their website [0] and their algae bioreactor page [1] is so over the top that it looks fake. I assume this is real company selling real solutions (consulting) but this is puzzling nonetheless. Look at the case study, "ROD LIFT INVENTORY SYSTEM" [2], they replaced a few excel sheets by an application with a database, this is great for the cu…

Yep, that's a serious Aperture Labs vibe there. Or maybe (even worse) Faro Automated Solutions. Very techno-utopian, as though things like ethics and unintended consequences don't exist. Scary.

Scary? It looks like it was made by an excited teenager.

Re: Nautilus to be acquired by an investor group of fans

#26

Nautilus was good when they started but at some point they seemed to switch to the sort of frothy, inspirational pop-science-as-spiritualism dreck that belongs in Newsweek or Fox News, but with a tiny bit more depth

On top of the content, I was a paid subscriber during 2017-2018, and I received maybe 20% of the editions I was supposed to receive. Probably due to international shipping and their liquidity problems, but it still felt bad.

Re: Nautilus to be acquired by an investor group of fans

#27

"Group of fans" is a weird way to describe serial entrepreneurs and angel investors. I'm sure they like the product. There's only one person on that list without a background in finance/investing, who happens to be the spouse of another person on the list. Congrats on the exit, I just think it's odd to describe the acquiring party that way.

Yeah, I've been a fan of it for a few years, but I must have missed the invite on that one.

Re: Nautilus to be acquired by an investor group of fans

#28

Nautilus was good when they started but at some point they seemed to switch to the sort of frothy, inspirational pop-science-as-spiritualism dreck that belongs in Newsweek or Fox News, but with a tiny bit more depth

On top of the content, I was a paid subscriber during 2017-2018, and I received maybe 20% of the editions I was supposed to receive. Probably due to international shipping and their liquidity problems, but it still felt bad.

I had the same problem - but US based. I reached out to their support as they recently sent me an email and they comped me a year of their Prime plan. It was nice of them but kind of too little too late.

Re: Nautilus to be acquired by an investor group of fans

#29

"Group of fans" is a weird way to describe serial entrepreneurs and angel investors. I'm sure they like the product. There's only one person on that list without a background in finance/investing, who happens to be the spouse of another person on the list. Congrats on the exit, I just think it's odd to describe the acquiring party that way.

Is it? While "syndicate" might have been a more succinct and accurate way of describing that group, it is a little bit uncommon. From most instances I can recall, acquisitions tend to be by a single corporate entity or a private equity fund of some kind. Unless such an entity existed prior to this acquisition, it does seem a bit out of the ordinary.

Just the deals you regularly hear about in the news. JVs and multi fund buyers are not at all unheard of.

Re: Nautilus to be acquired by an investor group of fans

#30

"Group of fans" is a weird way to describe serial entrepreneurs and angel investors. I'm sure they like the product. There's only one person on that list without a background in finance/investing, who happens to be the spouse of another person on the list. Congrats on the exit, I just think it's odd to describe the acquiring party that way.

Ok, we've put investors in the title in the way that the article does in its first sentence.
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