Well, Vivek Ramaswamy, you wanted my attention and now you have it. Until now, I mainly knew you as the guy who lied so hysterically. my hometown police department had to come out and explain that he had been parked illegally when he was accidentally rear-ended by a lady who wasn't very good at backing up.
In his quest to unseat Elon Musk as the world's thirstiest son of a bitch, he has bought 8 percent of Buzzfeed and sent Jonah Peretti a little nastygram. I'm not going to bother with the letter as to its merits because you know and I know and Grinnell, Iowa Police Department He knows that your word is worthless.
There is exactly one thing that is relevant here, and that is that Peretti has founding control. As of December 31, 2023, Jonah Peretti (and his affiliates) owned 96 percent of the Class B shares, which have 50 times the voting rights of their small, cheap Class A shares. That's 64 percent of the votes in any race. by proxy, Vivek. I don't claim to be good at math, but I'm pretty sure that's the majority.
What are you going to in fact doing, Vivek?
For the benefit of everyone else reading this: Typically, when an activist investor buys a stock, there is a long list of changes they want to see made. Typically this involves board positions, structural changes to the company, the removal of the CEO, things of this nature. If the company is unwilling to negotiate with the investor in question, a proxy battle ensues, in which activists try to win over enough other shareholders to implement their changes.
In this case, the possibility of a proxy battle it literally doesn't matter because you can't win votes over Peretti. Then what are you in fact doing, Vivek?
Possibility A: You are going to start selling. News of its purchase sent the stock soaring! You bought at an average price of $1.80 per share and the stock closed today at $3.00, representing a 66 percent gain in a very short period of time. Shut that shit up, let someone else hold the bag and have a martini somewhere.
Possibility B: This is how you're going to do PR now. Let's be honest, PR professionals are a lot less helpful than they used to be, right Vivek? Journalists are vastly outnumbered by critics and, as a result, it is difficult for any PR person to separate themselves from the noise. (My inbox is a disaster zone, Vivek.)
You really piss on your enemies' graves, don't you, darling?
But one thing that anyone with half a brain knows is that the entire media industry reads stories in the media. You are creating a media story! It doesn't matter that we all know that moving to video is a very bad idea because most media journalists can't break objectivity to point out that they understand literally nothing about our industry.
He has chosen Buzzfeed because the shares are cheap and because he has a grudge against a historically liberal media. It doesn't matter that Buzzfeed News no longer exists: you're still angry that it published the famous Steele dossier and you want to replace a once-respected, Pulitzer-winning brand with a mediocre “creator” scheme starring Tucker Carlson. and Aaron Rodgers. You really piss on your enemies' graves, don't you, darling?
You may be wondering why I seem so openly dismissive of this plan, and I can tell you right now that it's because you're not thinking big enough. You know who cares about Buzzfeed? Reporters and exactly no one else. If you wanted to play the real game, you would have searched for facebook.
As Rupert Murdoch's entire career demonstrates, what really matters in the news is distribution. You don't come to Buzzfeed saying “hey, they put out a statement apologizing for the work of your now-dead newsroom” because, my God, who cares. you come to facebook and say, “Hey, you're not properly distributing right-wing voices and that's eating into your profit margins, and your silly adventures in the metaverse and ai are distractions from profitability. Also, the name Meta is stupid and you should call it facebook again.” Do you know what's so funny about this tactic, Vivek? technology/2020/11/01/facebook-election-misinformation/”>It's fucking plays. Conservatives have attacked Mark Zuckerberg facebook-conservatives-2020-421146″>without chunks of shares and facebook-gizmodo-gawker-trending-conservatives_n_5b6c9b16e4b0530743c83f58″>scared him in doing what they want. Imagine what you could do to Zuck. with property!
Of course, to annoy Mark Zuckerberg instead of Peretti, you'd need to be able to resize.
facebook is much less vulnerable than Buzzfeed, which is publicly circling the drain. But who cares? Its traction in both places is zero. The point is to have a megaphone, and facebook is a much larger and more important platform. Why go through the long and annoying process of changing Buzzfeed's name, alienating your current audience, and potentially not getting another one? Ask Musk how this is going on twitter, Vivek! – when you can just publicly harass someone important for owning a lot of stock.
Of course, to upset Zuckerberg instead of Peretti, you'd need to be able to resize, and I think that's the real issue here. By aiming so low, I mean, if you're going to go after a media outlet, The New York Times It would take you so much further! It's a much bigger target of right-wing vitriol! — you have stated that you are not really a player. When you try to bully the weak, you tell the rest of us that you can't stand up to the strong.
Best of luck with your Buzzfeed crusade, Vivek. It may work better for you than parking in a no-parking zone.
