Co-founder of Salesforce buys Time Magazine

After Amazon founder Jeff Bezos took over the Washington Post in 2013, there is still a tech billionaire who buys his own magazine. Marc Benioff, co-founder of Salesforce, together with his wife Lynne Time Magazine, took over from Meredith Corp. Before that, the couple paid $190 million.

Adweek reports that today. According to the magazine, this is a personal purchase that has nothing to do with Benioff’s position within Salesforce. The company provides business cloud software, which has very little to do with the news Time Magazine writes about. According to Adweek, the Benioffs will not interfere with the editorial staff and the current management will remain on board.

Tough times

The deal only includes Time Magazine and none of the other brands Meredith bought from the magazine earlier this year. These include magazines such as Fortune, Money and Sports Illustrated. In a statement, the Benioffs said they were honored to have purchased one of the world’s most important media companies and iconic brands.

The couple also says they see themselves as curators of the brand. This suggests that the takeover took place mainly because the couple value the magazine. It has been in existence since 1923 and has been one of the leading magazines in the field of news and photography for decades. But like so many other magazines and newspapers, Time Magazine is having a hard time and the competition with the often free internet services is not entirely smooth.

More staff?

The hope of Time Magazine’s management will be that the Benioffs will make the same decision as Bezos at the Washington Post. While Bezos does not interfere with the content of the newspaper, he did make some important investments in the editorial staff. Bezos has enabled the newspaper to become profitable again, and where most newspapers are currently making significant cuts, the Post Office is hiring more journalists.