5 ms·
> BTW, I approached ABC about buying back the former FiveThirtyEight IP*, and they said they wouldn't sell at any price because I'd criticized their management
by applfanboysbgon 6mo ago
> BTW, I approached ABC about buying back the former FiveThirtyEight IP*, and they said they wouldn't sell at any price because I'd criticized their management of the brand.
--Nate Silver (538 founder)
ABC seem pretty petty here.
- rurp 6mo agoWow. I have a low opinion of ABC as I said in another post, but this level of pettiness is still surprising to me.
- brookst 6mo agoIt’s basically a fuck you to the shareholders. Hey we’ve got this dead asset someone will pay for but we won’t sell because they were mean to us. Any exec who operates that way should be shown the door ASAP as they are likely doing similar emotional management of other aspects of the business.
- SoftTalker 6mo agoIf they feel it's damaging to have it public, then it could be argued that selling it would be irresponsible. I'm not arguing it is or it isn't, but reputation has value and management of it is part of what shareholders expect.
- brookst 6mo agoBut this isn’t reputation management. This is retribution for past affronts. This action in no way retroactively protects them from what was said.
- jakderrida 6mo agoI think he's just saying the case they would make to avoid being sued for breaching their fiduciary responsibility. Not that it's the actual reason. But Idk.
- Dylan16807 6mo agoIt's hard to imagine how it could be damaging to ABC to have it public under someone else's brand.
- jfengel 6mo agoABC's shareholders are Disney. Whatever Nate offered them isn't even a rounding error in Disney's $36 billion dollars in profits last year. The shareholders aren't going to care.
- hibikir 6mo agoIt's not that a shareholder won't care, but that the modern US company is such a large basket of businesses, it's impossible to put any pressure on a random business unit throwing money away. So, in practice, there's very little pressure to do things right, and a lot of pressure to do what your boss prefers, whether it actually helps the company's profitability or not. There can be negatives if you are doing massive damage to the company's image, but even then, ABC has done more than a little bit of that over the last couple of years to no ill effects. Just ask Kimmel.
- Barbing 6mo ago>impossible to put any pressure on a random business unit throwing money away ... very little pressure to do things right ... pressure to do what your boss prefers, whether it [helps] profitability This is frustrating as a consumer. Any further insight, on the solution side?
- lotsofpulp 6mo agoDisney's 2025 profit was $12B: https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/DIS/disney/net-income https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/DIS/disney/net-inc...
- themafia 6mo agoSo what amount of profits insulates you from lack of fiduciary responsibility? "It's okay set millions of dollars on fire because we have billions in this pile over here!"
- singleshot_ 6mo agoNo, what insulates them from fiduciary responsibility is the fact that there is no fiduciary responsibility to shareholders. I’ll say that again: members and/or managers of an LLC, and officers and directors of a corporation owe no fiduciary responsibility to the shareholders to make them money. The fiduciary duties owed under US law are as follows: 1) the duty to be informed; 2) the duty not to usurp corporate opportunities. As far as I can tell the fiduciary duty to make money for the shareholders is something that Jack Welsh of GE said enough times that people remembered it. However, I’m always interested in additional details concerning the history of this meme, and happy to learn more.
- eugenekolo 6mo agoWOuldn't proof of that be some grounds for breach of fiduciary duty?
- nradov 6mo agoNope. There is really no case law to support such a legal theory.
- jvanderbot 6mo agoDunno - is protecting yourself from high-profile criticism by doing whatever you want with assets you 100% own and are under no contractual obligation to share ... also in fiduciary duty?
- minimaxir 6mo agoIt is not illegal to be petty during business negotiations.
- tptacek 6mo agoNo. People have weird beliefs about what fiduciary duty means. It does not mean that companies are required at all intervals to maximize revenue or profit.
- jasonfarnon 6mo agoYou must not have spent much time looking at derivative lawsuits if you think this is weird. Anyway if ABC could convincingly classify this as a business decision, e.g., a question of the maintaining goodwill, maybe they're OK. If this came down to some exec feeling personally insulted, like the quote hints, a classic breach of fiduciary duty.
- 8note 6mo agothe easy argument otherwise would be that if they sold the IP, they wouldnt be able to revive it in the future, and also they would have nate silver as a competitor in the space
- School-Cotton 6mo ago
- deleted 6mo ago[deleted]
- TurdF3rguson 6mo agoJust register fivethirtynine.com and don't look back.
- queuebert 6mo agoSo Nate & Co sell out to a big corporation then are upset that it does big corporation stuff? I'm more mad at Nate here because 538 was my go-to for political coverage pre-sellout, and because of his greed it went away.
- returningfory2 6mo agoYour annoyance is understandable, but it's worth remembering: he is not your slave. He does not exist to do things for you. His providing you with something good for a time does not obligate him to provide it to you forever. Because he is not your slave.
- queuebert 6mo agoYou are quite correct. I'm also free to dislike him for his choices.
- jaredhansen 6mo ago[flagged]
- adjejmxbdjdn 6mo agoWhatever you feel about his actions that was at worst it was a win-lose decision. He benefited from it. If his comment is accurate, then ABC’s decision is a clear lose-lose decision driven entirely by personal spite.
- lesuorac 6mo agoHonestly is Nate even wrong here? IIRC, he got to keep all of the models and etc from 538 which is kinda all that mattered about it. Like anybody is really going to lookup the 2016 election in 2030 but they're definitely want the model's output in 2030 for 2030. Management seems to be clearly inept and if somebody wants to give you a wheelbarrow of cash for something worthless you're generally foolish to not accept.
- 6mo ago
- donkyrf 6mo ago"I won't sell at any price" reads as an invitation to make a much higher bid. It seems silly at best to take that as a literal statement.