Exclusive: Jonah Peretti explains why he sold BuzzFeed
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Hogging seats on a crowded train, not saying excuse me, watching videos on your phone with no headphones in. Sometimes it feels like we don't know how to act anymore. What we have been seeing, increasingly, is people breaking rules. Why should I play by the rules if nobody else is going to do that for me? This week on Explain It to Me, how to mind your manners.
New episodes Sundays wherever you get your podcasts. Hello and welcome to Decoder. I'm Neil I Patel, editor in chief of The Verge, and Decoder is my show about big ideas and other problems. Today I'm talking to Jonah Paretti, who is technically still the CEO of Buzzfeed, although that will be coming to an end very soon. Just days before we spoke, Jonah agreed to sell 52% of BuzzFeed for a total of $120 million to Byron Allen, who owns the Weather Channel, a number of broadcast stations, and several other websites.
The deal is a bit of a life raft for BuzzFeed. The company was once valued at $1.6 billion, but just last quarter the company told investors it was at risk of running out of cash. Now there's a new lease on life and new leadership. As part of the deal, Jonah himself is stepping down as CEO and taking on a new role as president of Buzzfeed AI. Byron Allen himself will become the new CEO of BuzzFeed.
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