Funny expose of what a debacle Vice was in its final years

Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2024/04/04/funny-expose-of-what-a-debacle-vice-was-in-its-final-years.html

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A damn shame, when incompetent and greedy executives have to take advantage of a good thing and ruin it for everyone else. Happens all too often.

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I am trying to weigh if the current outcome (bankruptcy) is better than an enshitified zombie corporation.

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Common story for a long time now, isn’t it.

Didn’t Mittens Romney also basically make his fortune this way?

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He came from venture capital [EDIT: meant to say private equity], which is a little bit different in intent, if not outcomes.

VC’s no. 1 priority is to make money. Reckless squandering of company assets isn’t their M.O… Rather, they engage in ruthless stripping of company assets and pocketing the proceeds.

The end phase is much the same - a crippled, cash-poor shell of the original organization goes under and everyone loses their jobs.

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I knew people who worked at Vice in the early days, here in Montreal. Was basically the same then, with freelances being stiffed and exec spending on… things other than newsgathering. The rumor when they went to NY was they had to take the chance to expand to keep up with extracurricular debt.

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I think you mean vulture capital.

Venture capital injects funding into startups in return for a cut of ownership for when the company takes off.

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Oh, they’re two different things now? /s

Yes, they are totally different.

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Ah. My bad. I was thinking of ‘private equity’ and conflated the term with ‘venture capital.’

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