Sunday, January 23, 2022

Hey, Did You Know BuzzFeed Was Publicly Traded?

When BuzzFeed published the Steele Dossier in 2017 I thought* they, like the Nazis in 1940, were a lock for a bet-the-ranch, they're going on a thousand year run kind of action.

Instead it looks like they took a perfectly fine SPAC that was trading right around its cash per share value and

I wonder if cornerstone investors NBC Universal and Andreessen Horowitz made it out alive.
*That's a big fat whopper. Here's your humble blogger on Mr. Steele's Dossier, January 13, 2017 :

More Just as importantly, after reading the schlocky, amateur, borderline retarded "35 pages" thing, how could anyone ever again justify paying Orbis Business Intelligence actual money for anything they produce?

Well, at least we still have the 2014 Wolf of BuzzFeed video:


They probably should have stuck with listicles.

Looking back there were signs, like when you are getting sued and plaintiff's counsel decides to ridicule you in their response to your motion to dismiss and the court allows it:

Wednesday, March 29, 2017
Best Court Filing This Week: Libel Case Against BuzzFeed Edition
From the

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT  SOUTHERN DISTRICT OF FLORIDA  MIAMI DIVISION

ALEKSEJ GUBAREV, XBT HOLDINGS S.A., and WEBZILLA, INC. Plaintiffs,
v.
BUZZFEED, INC. and BEN SMITH Defendants.

Case No. 0:17-cv-60426-UU

In a somewhat remarkable Motion to Dismiss, Plaintiffs Buzzfeed, Inc. (“Buzzfeed”) and Ben Smith (“Mr. Smith”) intimate that their ties to Florida are so sparse that, collectively, they can barely find Florida on a map and that, as a result, the present case should be dismissed for lack of jurisdiction or transferred to the Southern District of New York....
....MORE