A number of techno billionaires are expanding into the media business

Jakarta – At the end of last week, news emerged about Meredith Corp.’s famous magazine sales. to Marc and Lynne Benioff with a value of US $ 190 million or around Rp.2.8 trillion.

Marc Benioff is the founder of Salesforce, a cloud computing software development company. This sale occurred less than a year after Meredith bought Time Inc, the parent company of Time.

This transaction can be called suddenly. Because, as reported by Forbes, Thursday (09/20/2018), Benioff revealed that even two weeks earlier he still did not know would buy Time.

This corporate action also reinforced the trend of acquiring media companies by entrepreneurs in the technology sector. The reason is, at least in the last five years, there have been a series of billionaires and technology companies entering the media business.

Anyone? Here’s the list:
Jeff Bezos, founder and CEO of Amazon.com

In 2013, Bezos bought The Washington Post, one of the largest and oldest newspapers in the world based in Washington DC, USA.

Although he was hesitant because he did not understand the newspaper business, but finally he poured US $ 250 million to take over the media from the family of the founder. The decision was taken because Bezos realized the importance of the role of the newspaper in democracy.

Pierre Omidyar, founder of eBay

He founded First Look

Media in 2013 with an investment of US $ 250 million. The company has a number of products, such as The Intercept, Topic, Field of Vision, and The Nib.

Alibaba Group

Alibaba bought the South China Morning Post (SCMP) at the end of 2015 with a value of 2.06 billion Hong Kong dollars, equivalent to more than Rp3 trillion. The SCMP is the largest English-language newspaper in Hong Kong which in November 2018 will be 115 years old.

In an interview with SCMP after the acquisition took place, Alibaba founder and CEO Jack Ma explained the decision was taken because he considered the SCMP would provide a different view of the Western media and Chinese Government media on issues that occurred in the Panda Country.

Patrick Soon-Shiong, founder of NantHealth

He bought the Los Angeles Times newspaper for US $ 500 million in February 2018. NantHealth is a company that offers the development and marketing of various health care solutions.

Laurene Powell Jobs, wife of former CEO of Apple Inc. Steve Jobs

On July 28, 2017, Jobs bought a large portion of shares in The Atlantic magazine. However, there is no mention of the price.

Marc and Lynne Benioff, founder of Salesforce

Time acquisition was carried out with a value of US $ 190 million. To The New York Times, Marc stated that the magazine, which was first published 95 years ago, was a very promising asset and had a profitable business.

If you see a common thread of these trends, it is arguably the acquisitions carried out on the basis of determining the importance of the media in view of the audience.

What about in Indonesia? Are there similar trends?