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Channels with Peter Kafka

J2 Global CEO Vivek Shah on being a serial acquirer of media businesses

Channels with Peter Kafka

Vox Media Podcast Network

Business News, News, Tv & Film, Technology

4.4585 Ratings

🗓️ 28 February 2019

⏱️ 43 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

J2 Global CEO Vivek Shah talks with Recode's Peter Kafka about running the company that owns a portfolio of digital brands, including Mashable, PCMag and Speedtest. In this episode: What J2 Global is; the importance of having multiple revenue streams in media; how Shah turned Ziff Davis around; why much of J2's business is built around performance marketing and affiliate commerce; buying Mashable and returning it to profitability; bidding for Gawker Media and what J2 would have done with it; making the cultures of acquired media companies fit within the larger company; the silver lining of the media industry's troubles; what J2 wants to buy; why Speedtest is so valuable; is increasing awareness of and regulation around privacy a problem for that business?; Humble Bundle and the most important equation for building a subscription business; and why "we are the largest internet company that many people have never heard of." Thanks to Microsoft Azure for sponsoring this episode. Get started with a free account and 12 months of popular free services at Azure.com/trial today. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0

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0:56.3

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1:04.7

Every year, hundreds of thousands of people from all over the world flock to Las Vegas for the Consumer Electronics Show.

1:13.6

And they spend a week trying to sell each other on the weirdest gadgets you've ever seen in your entire life.

1:18.6

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1:30.9

All that and much more on the Vergecast wherever you get podcasts.

1:36.9

This is Recode Media with Peter Kafka.

1:39.0

That is me.

1:39.6

I'm part of the Vox Media Podcast Network.

1:42.1

I'm here in New York City at Vox Media Headquarters.

1:44.9

I'm here with Vivek Shaw. Did they get your name right? You did? Well done. CEO of J2 Global, a company you probably have not heard of. I've heard of it. You've heard of it. Formerly CEO of Zipf Davis Media, a company you may have heard of. It may be confusing with other people. Viveka is someone that I wanted to bring on for a while because he's doing something sort of counter to a lot of other media companies. He's been in the news on and off the last couple years because he was going to buy Gawker Media at one point, did buy Mashable. I'm assuming maybe you're in the market for other distressed assets. We're always in the market.

2:18.0

We can talk about that.

2:19.4

Let's set the stage.

2:21.0

Explain what J2 Global is.

2:23.4

So J2 is a $4 billion, publicly traded, internet information and services company.

2:30.9

So to your point, maybe not everyone in your audience has heard of J2, but you've

...

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