Salesforce founder buys Time for $190M

"This fall’s must-have accessory for billionaires: An esteemed publication that‘s recently had a rough go of it." – Laura Nelson

Time Magazine just found a new $190M home. 📰

Salesforce founder Marc Benioff and his wife, Lynne Benioff, just acquired the publication, less than a year after it was acquired by American media conglomerate Meredith Corporation.

Benioff isn't the first billionaire to purchase his own media publication. Jeff Bezos purchased The Washington Post in 2014, Patrick Soon-Shiong purchased the Los Angeles Times earlier this year, and Laurene Powell purchased a controlling interest in The Atlantic in 2017.

"The power of Time has always been in its unique storytelling of the people & issues that affect us all & connect us all. A treasure trove of our history & culture. We have deep respect for their organization & honored to be stewards of this iconic brand." –Marc Benioff

Lately, tech CEOs have been under heavy scrutiny as their platforms (read: Twitter, Facebook, Google) heavily influence the spread of information. They control the pipes and now more of them are owning the the content as well. Which publication is next? 🤔

It's easier than ever to start monetizing your own #content. Substack and Revue let anyone build their own paid newsletter list in minutes. Although they won’t help you sell to a billionaire CEO. 💌

Time for $190M

We asked 34 customers what Viktor does for them. Not one said chatbot.

They kept using words like colleague, coworker, team member. One CEO called it the glue holding their e-commerce business together, which is a lot, but also… you see why. It lives in Slack and plugs into 3,000+ tools, so instead of jumping between tabs, you just ask for the thing. Pull Stripe against HubSpot, check Sentry alerts, spin up a campaign brief, build a landing page, send a report upstairs. It all happens there.

It has already hit top 5 on Product Hunt with 130 comments, is SOC 2 certified, and your data does not train models.

One user said it was the first time AI felt like a real coworker, which is either exciting or slightly concerning depending on your week.