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Vice Media: A Company Built on a Bluff

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Re: Vice Media: A Company Built on a Bluff

#51

Post by bogomipz »

godzillabrennus wrote: post #41
gringoDan wrote: post #16

> When I asked Dominique Delport, the chief revenue officer, whether the company was profitable, he declined to say and suggested that dollar figures were the wrong way to think about Vice. “The company profit is to everybody who watches Vice, because they feel smarter,” he said. Investors should run away as quickly as possible. If that quote from the Chief Revenue Officer isn't a red flag, I don't know what is.

It took Twitter 10 years to turn a profit: https://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/news/2018/02/08/twitter-... To suggest that an investor can't earn a profit by putting cash into a business with a burn rate is as sophomoric as believing you can run a business on investor money without ever turning a profit.

>"It took Twitter 10 years to turn a profit"

Twitter and Vice Media(as opposed to just the magazine) both have origins of 2006.

From the article:

>"In 2006, Vice started Virtue, a cheekily named ad agency that allowed the magazine to deploy its creative talents on behalf of brands. A year later, Vice became one of the first digital-media outlets to get into online video with vbs.tv, a digital-video site funded with a $2 million investment from Viacom."

Re: Vice Media: A Company Built on a Bluff

#52

Post by com2kid »

froasty wrote: post #46
creaghpatr wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think that captures the zeitgeist really well. Vice is now just a pale imitation of what used to be true cultural 'edginess'.

That's the crux of relying upon transgression for value--it ages rapidly and if it obtains mainstream success, dies on the spot. You can see it happen with authors, musicians, writers, essentially any creative output. In terms of popular media, the early seasons of South Park and the Simpsons look absolutely saccharine compared to where culture's Overton Window is today. "Don't have a cow, man!" is positively benign.

> In terms of popular media, the early seasons of South Park and the Simpsons look absolutely saccharine compared to where culture's Overton Window is today. "Don't have a cow, man!" is positively benign.

I'd argue that South Park actually matured and toned things down on one hand, and amped things up on the other.

Their early episodes relied heavily on shock value. The later seasons are more nuanced, and rely less on gross out, bodily humor, or people laughing at cartoon kids swearing.

Re: Vice Media: A Company Built on a Bluff

#54

Post by [deleted] »

gringoDan wrote: post #16

> When I asked Dominique Delport, the chief revenue officer, whether the company was profitable, he declined to say and suggested that dollar figures were the wrong way to think about Vice. “The company profit is to everybody who watches Vice, because they feel smarter,” he said. Investors should run away as quickly as possible. If that quote from the Chief Revenue Officer isn't a red flag, I don't know what is.

[deleted]

Re: Vice Media: A Company Built on a Bluff

#55

Post by rosege »

keyle wrote: post #39

Wow quite the story. I always wondered where that brand popped up. Now that I know the full story, I hope to see its demise. It embodies everything that's wrong with this world of idiocracy: do the biggest shit and get away with it.

It seems to me that there are far worse candidates for driving idiocracy. In the early days I liked some of the crazy places they sent reporters for the paper. They would go places no one else would and find interesting stories. There was a bit of that in the HBO show. I also liked some of the HBO climate change specials and thought they did a good job of going to the source - e.g. flying with NASA over Antarctica.

Re: Vice Media: A Company Built on a Bluff

#56

Post by okayNotReally »

bogomipz wrote: post #51
godzillabrennus wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It took Twitter 10 years to turn a profit: https://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/news/2018/02/08/twitter-... To suggest that an investor can't earn a profit by putting cash into a business with a burn rate is as sophomoric as believing you can run a business on investor money without ever turning a profit.

>"It took Twitter 10 years to turn a profit" Twitter and Vice Media(as opposed to just the magazine) both have origins of 2006. From the article: >"In 2006, Vice started Virtue, a cheekily named ad agency that allowed the magazine to deploy its creative talents on behalf of brands. A year later, Vice became one of the first digital-media outlets to get into online video with vbs.tv, a digital-video site funded with a…

Vice has been around since the mid 90's. It started as the Montreal Voice.

Re: Vice Media: A Company Built on a Bluff

#57

Post by bogomipz »

okayNotReally wrote: post #56
bogomipz wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>"It took Twitter 10 years to turn a profit" Twitter and Vice Media(as opposed to just the magazine) both have origins of 2006. From the article: >"In 2006, Vice started Virtue, a cheekily named ad agency that allowed the magazine to deploy its creative talents on behalf of brands. A year later, Vice became one of the first digital-media outlets to get into online video with vbs.tv, a digital-video site funded with a…

Vice has been around since the mid 90's. It started as the Montreal Voice.

Yes which is why I clearly stated - "Vice Media(as opposed to just the magazine)"

Re: Vice Media: A Company Built on a Bluff

#58

Post by manigandham »

mvidal01 wrote: post #29

David Carr of the NYT (RIP David Carr) had some nice words for Vice - http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2011/01/david_carr_puts...

It was great to see him interact with them, here's a video version: https://www.nytimes.com/video/business/100000003509105/page-...

Re: Vice Media: A Company Built on a Bluff

#59

Post by fenomas »

gringoDan wrote: post #50
godzillabrennus wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It took Twitter 10 years to turn a profit: https://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/news/2018/02/08/twitter-... To suggest that an investor can't earn a profit by putting cash into a business with a burn rate is as sophomoric as believing you can run a business on investor money without ever turning a profit.

I wasn’t suggesting that a business needs to be profitable from day one. I was suggesting that the Chief Revenue Officer should measure revenue & profitability in dollars and cents, rather than in the number of people that “feel smarter”. He could have talked about revenue growth, investing in expansion, CAC decreasing at scale, etc. There are many ways to approach this question that demonstrate a quantitative grasp…

In the quote you pulled he was talking to the press, right? That's no reason to assume he gives the same answer to investors, or more generally that he has no other answers to give.

Re: Vice Media: A Company Built on a Bluff

#60

Post by nl »

geezerjay wrote: post #44
godzillabrennus wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It took Twitter 10 years to turn a profit: https://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/news/2018/02/08/twitter-... To suggest that an investor can't earn a profit by putting cash into a business with a burn rate is as sophomoric as believing you can run a business on investor money without ever turning a profit.

> It took Twitter 10 years to turn a profit: So a company took 10 years of burning through cash until a moment it didn't. Is that supposed to mean it was a sound investment?

It doesn't mean that it is, but it can be. In Twitter's case it was.
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