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> Between the lines: The Atlantic's new majority ownership stake from Emerson Collective, the impact investment vehicle owned by Laurene Powell Jobs, has allowe

> Between the lines: The Atlantic's new majority ownership stake from Emerson Collective, the impact investment vehicle owned by Laurene Powell Jobs, has allowed the company to accelerate its growth in recent years, including a major staff increase and expansion that began in 2018. "Emerson Collective is a social change organization that uses a broad range of tools including philanthropy, impact investing, and policy solutions to create the greatest good for the greatest number of people. Established and led by Laurene Powell Jobs, Emerson Collective is working to renew some of society’s most calcified systems, creating new possibilities for individuals, families, and communities." - https://www.emersoncollective.com/about-us/ https://www.emersoncollective.com/about-us/ Laurene Powell Jobs has ~$22 billion. She could pay the salaries of these 68 employees for the next 10 years if she felt like it without noticing a change in her bank account. Obviously she is not obligated to do anything, but if employees of my "social change organization" that were hired under my watch, with my encouragement, were impacted by a possibly temporary economic downturn in the middle of a global pandemic and I could help them without sacrificing anything, I hope I would.

ABeeSea 6y ago
She does not have $22B in cash. You pay employees in cash. Impact investing is just as brutal as any other investment fund. Dollars can be deployed more impactfully elsewhere. The goal is investments that create long term structural change and subsidizing employees of a declining business doesn’t move them towards that goal.
- mikeyouse 6y ago
  The point is the business wasn't declining until she changed the mission.. In addition to her Apple wealth, she owns roughly 100 million shares of Disney. 68 staff cuts at $150k/year all-in cost mean she'll save roughly $10M/year. So she could sell 0.08% of her shares in Disney at today's price and these people would be employed for another year to work on the mission that she / the collective chose.
  - donohoe 6y ago
    "The point is the business wasn't declining until she changed the mission" WTF? No. Are you just making this up? She, via Emerson Collective, has invested heavily and they would be in greater trouble were it not for her. (I used to work for Quartz which was started by The Atlantic so my comments are based on actually having been there and know how these operations work)
    - burkaman 6y ago
      They were profitable for 8 years before she bought them. https://www.axios.com/the-atlantic-to-expand-adds-100-people-300e3a96-375e-44f0-b10f-2a7e6da5152b.html https://www.axios.com/the-atlantic-to-expand-adds-100-people...
      - chipotle_coyote 6y ago
        That doesn't mean they stopped being profitable after she bought them, or that she "changed the mission," as a previous poster put it. Just like many other businesses, an infusion of cash allowed them to expand. It's easy to criticize them for that now, but there's a real sense in which that critique amounts to, "Instead of expanding, they should have used that infusion of capital to restructure their finances in a way that let them survive a dramatic collapse in revenue that happened virtually all at once."
        wonnage 6y ago
        expand? you mean like wework? or any of the other softbank unicorns?
        sanderjd 6y ago
        I don't know how you could read this thread and get to what you wrote for your alternative "instead of expanding". The alternative proposed by the thread starter is something like: "having invested in expansion, she should continue supporting the employees that were hired during that expansion". And that expansion is the change in the mission that the thread starter is referring to.
- uoaei 6y ago
  People who have control over $22 billion have the ability to get a large sum of physical cash very quickly. The problem is who gets to choose what is "more impactful". Maybe some of those staff were getting ready to shatter the world with an insane revelation that instigates "long-term structural change" and makes life better for everyone. Then Jobs would have invested her money improperly. But because she gets to almost unilaterally decide what happens under her purview, those former employees never get a chance.
- burkaman 6y ago
  I know she doesn't literally have $22 billion in a bank account, but she could obviously scrounge up enough cash to pay these people if she wanted to. The Atlantic is not a "declining business". It was profitable for a long time before she bought it, it expanded because she wanted it to, and the decline in revenue is likely temporary. They aren't losing subscribers and they aren't in danger of failing anytime soon. If she invested in The Atlantic to create long term change, and its subscriber base and reach is growing (which it is), then she shouldn't care about a short term decline in ad revenue. Dollars can certainly be deployed more profitably elsewhere, but you're not gonna accomplish any social change if you base your investments on quarterly profits.
  - ABeeSea 6y ago
    > it expanded because she wanted it to And now it’s shrinking because she wanted it to.
    - burkaman 6y ago
      I think we're on the same page. She has an immense amount of power which she is wielding in a legal and fairly conventional manner, but one that I consider ethically wrong.
      - pochamago 6y ago
        I don't think I understand. Would it have been more ethical in your system if she hadn't hired them in the first place?
        burkaman 6y ago
        It depends what she did instead. If she just left her money in the bank, no, that's worse. But it would have been more ethical to spend her money in a way that wasn't exclusively dedicated to making more money. Maybe start a collectively owned media organization where power isn't concentrated in one person. Or donate to an existing nonprofit media organization, where revenue is more closely correlated to social impact than the economic health of third party advertisers. Basically just stop trying to make more money. You don't need any more. Do something to make the world better.
- ciarannolan 6y ago
  >She does not have $22B in cash. The idea that someone worth $22B can't snap their fingers and have a few million dollars cash available is ridiculous. Do you think there are no buyers for Apple or Disney stock?
SheinhardtWigCo 6y ago
One plausible explanation is that management wants these employees out, so they're taking advantage of a once-in-a-decade opportunity to trim headcount without PR consequences.
- codebolt 6y ago
  Which is of course extremely cynical, as this is a very bad time to be tossed out into the job market.
- donohoe 6y ago
  Thats not plausible at all. This lockdown has devastated media advertising across the board. Events require in-person experiences which are just not possible in the near-term.
TechBro8615 6y ago
Why does an “impact investor” own a newspaper anyway? Does this affect story selection and editorial behavior? What “impact” could one expect to have by investing in a media organization, other than pushing an agenda?
- SmallPeePeeMan 6y ago
  > other than pushing an agenda? Are you naive? Do you think this publication, or any publication, is completely unbiased? You must have a journalism degree :)
- warranty 6y ago
  I did not know I was reading brainfarts of Steve jobs wife when I browse Atlantic ... I am not visiting that site.
- testbot123 6y ago
  Same reason I donate to NPR: to support quality journalism.
- nojito 6y ago
  Keeping the press alive is a worthwhile endeavor. I'd rather the world not turn into Youtube News coming out of some basement with no staff that actually goes out and investigates. Instead he is able to carve a bubble to share what he/she thinks as news.
- untog 6y ago
  Do you think that an informed population is a net positive or a net negative? I personally think the former, and I had a pool of spare cash lying around I might try to put money towards that effort.
  - fullshark 6y ago
    Only if they are informed about the topics I think are important primarily, with a focus on the facts that sway them to the positions I support. Otherwise they might support a government backing policies I disagree with.
spikels 6y ago
Do you really want to get your information from a source where hiring decisions depend on a single person with huge interests and biases? I don’t.
- burkaman 6y ago
  No, not really. I would prefer a society where it's not possible for one person to accumulate this much power over other people.
Drunkfoowl 6y ago
She literally fucked her way to her money as well. Cold fucking bitch if you ask me. Before people come at me, her wiki is clear. She snuck to the front of a lecture and seduced jobs, they had dinner that night, and her only business contributions are inheriting his trust fund as widower and spending the money. Fuck this lady. She doesn't deserve our respect.
rayiner 6y ago
The “billions of dollars” these people have can’t be used, at scale, to pay the salaries of workers during the economic shutdown. Almost all of that wealth is paper money—the promise to receive a share of future profits from operating companies. If the economy is shut down and those companies aren’t making profits, that equity isn’t worth anything.
RickJWagner 6y ago
Several established, profitable businesses have been repurposed for social change. ESPN, The Atlantic, etc. As a conservative, I find it a little unfair. The institutions typically have built up a legacy of middle-of-the-road communications, then they are repurposed with a decidedly leftward tilt. Still, The Atlantic provides enjoyable to read articles, even if I don't agree with everything they say. I'm not happy that they undergo this loss.

ABeeSea 6y ago

She does not have $22B in cash. You pay employees in cash. Impact investing is just as brutal as any other investment fund. Dollars can be deployed more impactfully elsewhere. The goal is investments that create long term structural change and subsidizing employees of a declining business doesn’t move them towards that goal.

mikeyouse 6y ago
The point is the business wasn't declining until she changed the mission.. In addition to her Apple wealth, she owns roughly 100 million shares of Disney. 68 staff cuts at $150k/year all-in cost mean she'll save roughly $10M/year. So she could sell 0.08% of her shares in Disney at today's price and these people would be employed for another year to work on the mission that she / the collective chose.
- donohoe 6y ago
  "The point is the business wasn't declining until she changed the mission" WTF? No. Are you just making this up? She, via Emerson Collective, has invested heavily and they would be in greater trouble were it not for her. (I used to work for Quartz which was started by The Atlantic so my comments are based on actually having been there and know how these operations work)
  - burkaman 6y ago
    They were profitable for 8 years before she bought them. https://www.axios.com/the-atlantic-to-expand-adds-100-people-300e3a96-375e-44f0-b10f-2a7e6da5152b.html https://www.axios.com/the-atlantic-to-expand-adds-100-people...
    - chipotle_coyote 6y ago
      That doesn't mean they stopped being profitable after she bought them, or that she "changed the mission," as a previous poster put it. Just like many other businesses, an infusion of cash allowed them to expand. It's easy to criticize them for that now, but there's a real sense in which that critique amounts to, "Instead of expanding, they should have used that infusion of capital to restructure their finances in a way that let them survive a dramatic collapse in revenue that happened virtually all at once."
      - wonnage 6y ago
        expand? you mean like wework? or any of the other softbank unicorns?
      - sanderjd 6y ago
        I don't know how you could read this thread and get to what you wrote for your alternative "instead of expanding". The alternative proposed by the thread starter is something like: "having invested in expansion, she should continue supporting the employees that were hired during that expansion". And that expansion is the change in the mission that the thread starter is referring to.
uoaei 6y ago
People who have control over $22 billion have the ability to get a large sum of physical cash very quickly. The problem is who gets to choose what is "more impactful". Maybe some of those staff were getting ready to shatter the world with an insane revelation that instigates "long-term structural change" and makes life better for everyone. Then Jobs would have invested her money improperly. But because she gets to almost unilaterally decide what happens under her purview, those former employees never get a chance.
burkaman 6y ago
I know she doesn't literally have $22 billion in a bank account, but she could obviously scrounge up enough cash to pay these people if she wanted to. The Atlantic is not a "declining business". It was profitable for a long time before she bought it, it expanded because she wanted it to, and the decline in revenue is likely temporary. They aren't losing subscribers and they aren't in danger of failing anytime soon. If she invested in The Atlantic to create long term change, and its subscriber base and reach is growing (which it is), then she shouldn't care about a short term decline in ad revenue. Dollars can certainly be deployed more profitably elsewhere, but you're not gonna accomplish any social change if you base your investments on quarterly profits.
- ABeeSea 6y ago
  > it expanded because she wanted it to And now it’s shrinking because she wanted it to.
  - burkaman 6y ago
    I think we're on the same page. She has an immense amount of power which she is wielding in a legal and fairly conventional manner, but one that I consider ethically wrong.
    - pochamago 6y ago
      I don't think I understand. Would it have been more ethical in your system if she hadn't hired them in the first place?
      - burkaman 6y ago
        It depends what she did instead. If she just left her money in the bank, no, that's worse. But it would have been more ethical to spend her money in a way that wasn't exclusively dedicated to making more money. Maybe start a collectively owned media organization where power isn't concentrated in one person. Or donate to an existing nonprofit media organization, where revenue is more closely correlated to social impact than the economic health of third party advertisers. Basically just stop trying to make more money. You don't need any more. Do something to make the world better.
ciarannolan 6y ago
>She does not have $22B in cash. The idea that someone worth $22B can't snap their fingers and have a few million dollars cash available is ridiculous. Do you think there are no buyers for Apple or Disney stock?

SheinhardtWigCo 6y ago

One plausible explanation is that management wants these employees out, so they're taking advantage of a once-in-a-decade opportunity to trim headcount without PR consequences.

codebolt 6y ago
Which is of course extremely cynical, as this is a very bad time to be tossed out into the job market.
donohoe 6y ago
Thats not plausible at all. This lockdown has devastated media advertising across the board. Events require in-person experiences which are just not possible in the near-term.

TechBro8615 6y ago

Why does an “impact investor” own a newspaper anyway? Does this affect story selection and editorial behavior? What “impact” could one expect to have by investing in a media organization, other than pushing an agenda?

SmallPeePeeMan 6y ago
> other than pushing an agenda? Are you naive? Do you think this publication, or any publication, is completely unbiased? You must have a journalism degree :)
warranty 6y ago
I did not know I was reading brainfarts of Steve jobs wife when I browse Atlantic ... I am not visiting that site.
testbot123 6y ago
Same reason I donate to NPR: to support quality journalism.
nojito 6y ago
Keeping the press alive is a worthwhile endeavor. I'd rather the world not turn into Youtube News coming out of some basement with no staff that actually goes out and investigates. Instead he is able to carve a bubble to share what he/she thinks as news.
untog 6y ago
Do you think that an informed population is a net positive or a net negative? I personally think the former, and I had a pool of spare cash lying around I might try to put money towards that effort.
- fullshark 6y ago
  Only if they are informed about the topics I think are important primarily, with a focus on the facts that sway them to the positions I support. Otherwise they might support a government backing policies I disagree with.

spikels 6y ago

Do you really want to get your information from a source where hiring decisions depend on a single person with huge interests and biases? I don’t.

burkaman 6y ago
No, not really. I would prefer a society where it's not possible for one person to accumulate this much power over other people.

Drunkfoowl 6y ago

She literally fucked her way to her money as well. Cold fucking bitch if you ask me. Before people come at me, her wiki is clear. She snuck to the front of a lecture and seduced jobs, they had dinner that night, and her only business contributions are inheriting his trust fund as widower and spending the money. Fuck this lady. She doesn't deserve our respect.

rayiner 6y ago

The “billions of dollars” these people have can’t be used, at scale, to pay the salaries of workers during the economic shutdown. Almost all of that wealth is paper money—the promise to receive a share of future profits from operating companies. If the economy is shut down and those companies aren’t making profits, that equity isn’t worth anything.

RickJWagner 6y ago

Several established, profitable businesses have been repurposed for social change. ESPN, The Atlantic, etc. As a conservative, I find it a little unfair. The institutions typically have built up a legacy of middle-of-the-road communications, then they are repurposed with a decidedly leftward tilt. Still, The Atlantic provides enjoyable to read articles, even if I don't agree with everything they say. I'm not happy that they undergo this loss.