Connect with us

Published

on

Vice Media Group logo

Pavlo Gonchar | Lightrocket | Getty Images

When Suroosh Alvi, Gavin McInnes and Shane Smith founded Vice magazine, which later expanded to Vice Media, they built a business based on a punk rock, counterculture image. Smith once had himself recorded, nearly naked and drinking alcohol, giving a tour of the media organization’s Brooklyn, New York, headquarters.

The company’s name is Vice. It’s self-explanatory.

Next week, Vice, once valued at $5.7 billion, is planning to sell itself out of bankruptcy. A little-known Los Angeles-based company that wants to buy it has a quixotic culture that would be incomparable to those early days of Vice, and it would almost certainly be derided.

GoDigital Media Group is a privately held conglomerate that owns video and music rights, especially in the Latin genre, and an array of different businesses. The company has such a low profile, it currently doesn’t have a physical headquarters after shutting down its Los Angeles office during the pandemic. GoDigital plans to open up a new LA office later this year. Its executives have been running the business remotely since 2020.

Initially, co-founders Jason Peterson, 41, and Logan Mulvey, 38, used cash flow from music-licensing rights to establish a business around digital media distribution, connecting content creators to retailers by developing a cloud software company called ContentBridge in 2010. GoDigital later expanded its rights business to include those from Jason DeRulo and T.I. Last year, GoDigital invested $100 million into that division for future growth. Music rights ownership makes up the bulk of the company’s revenue and valuation.

In recent years, Peterson, GoDigital’s chief executive officer and chair, has modeled the company as a mini-Berkshire Hathaway as he attempts to play what’s called “the infinite game” — owning durable businesses that hit passion points for consumers.

GoDigital has made eight different acquisitions since 2020 that have spanned media and commerce. Peterson and Mulvey have pursued distressed assets with consumer brand recognition. They acquired YogaWorks for $9.6 million in 2021 after it filed for bankruptcy in October 2020. And last year, the pair plucked assets out of bankruptcy, scooping up retailers Eastern Mountain Sports and Bob’s Stores for $70 million.

The total portfolio now includes seven companies after it merged two of its companies, Latino-focused media companies Mitu and NGL Collective, co-founded by actor John Leguizamo. GoDigital employs about 1,300 people through its subsidiaries and generates annual revenue in the high hundreds of millions.

The company wants to “inspire happiness” along the way, said Peterson in an interview that evoked the opposite of the in-your-face culture that Smith brought to Vice.

“Our goal is to create emotions of joy and happiness in our customers and our employees,” said Peterson. “What differentiates us is our long-term perspective. The goal of the infinite game is simply continuity of play to make sure the game goes on. And when you live and work in that kind of a paradigm, you’re living and working in a compound interest paradigm.”

GoDigital co-founders Logan Mulvey (L) and Jason Peterson (C) with chief strategy officer Craig Greiwe (R)

Source: GoDigital

Vice’s bankruptcy sale

Vice would be GoDigital’s largest acquisition to date. GoDigital plans to bid for Vice on Tuesday at a price between $300 million and $400 million, according to people familiar with the company’s thinking. GoDigital’s executives wouldn’t comment on the specifics of their planned bid.

If another buyer makes a bid or offers to purchase part of the company but not the whole, an auction would be held on June 22. The next day a judge would confirm a potential acquisition during a court hearing.

Sean “Diddy” Combs’ Revolt is also considering a bid, said a person familiar with the matter. A spokesperson for Revolt couldn’t be reached for comment.

Fortress Investment, Vice’s largest creditor turned equity holder, is running the sale process and has pledged to back a portion of GoDigital’s bid and other potential offers, said the people, who asked not to be named because the details of the bids are private. Fortress, along with Soros Fund Management and Monroe Capital, has committed to a stalking horse bid of $225 million.

A spokesperson for Fortress declined to comment.

GoDigital’s opaque finances and hodgepodge of smaller assets is stirring skepticism about its ability to acquire a company of Vice’s size. Chief Strategy Officer Craig Greiwe, who was tasked with finding acquisition targets when he joined the company last year, said GoDigital is holding talks with other equity partners on a bid. He declined to provide any names.

“I can understand the skepticism if people haven’t heard of us,” said Greiwe.  “We do have the money to buy it.  We are serious in our bid.  We are also confident that the sellers view us as a legitimate and credible bidder.  We are confident that we can run the company and do so profitably.”

‘The Zone of Genius’

Peterson and Mulvey said they want to own Vice because think it’s been run poorly. They cite the company’s profligate spending, specifically wondering why it’s leasing 20 offices and production hubs throughout the world rather than having employees work remotely. The co-founders are in talks with Alex Wallace, the former head of media and content at Yahoo from 2020 to 2022, to be Vice’s new CEO if GoDigital buys the company, according to people familiar with the matter. Wallace declined to comment.

As CEO, Peterson said he tries to match his portfolio companies’ employees with their own interests. “The Zone of Genius,” a concept borrowed from Gay Hendricks’ “The Big Leap,” is about the intersection between what a person loves and what they are good at doing, Peterson explained. He will preach that message to Vice’s employees on Day One if GoDigital acquires the company, he said.

“I’m going to go in there and I’m going to treat everybody as an individual human, and we’re going to try and figure out what are their individual purposes, what are their values?” Peterson said. “Because when we work at the confluence of what we like and what we’re great at or good at, we’re going to do well. It doesn’t matter how good we are at something if we don’t like it. We’re not going to do it for a long time. When you have high degrees of alignment of purpose between the individual and the organization, that’s when the magic happens.”

When business conversations turn to concepts like happiness and value alignment, it’s easy to think about WeWork founder Adam Neumann’s mission to elevate the world’s consciousness and cringe. It’s particularly jarring to match up the airy language against Vice’s original mission. Smith, Vice’s executive chairman and former CEO, couldn’t be reached for comment.

Shane Smith, co-founder of Vice.

CNBC

GoDigital’s executives show no embarrassment about their New Age-style business school lingo. They believe linking passion and purpose creates “an incredible positive feedback loop for the company,” said Peterson.

“Recognizing that people make decisions based on their emotional state, our goal is to inspire happiness through an ecosystem of content, community and commerce across consumer passion points,” said Greiwe. “I’m now the person who dreams that at night. There’s a fundamental belief in making the impossible possible and doing it before anyone else.”

Similarities to the portfolio

Any company, including GoDigital, would have its share of problems in taking on Vice.

Vice had revenue of about $600 million last year and wasn’t profitable, Axios reported last month. Vice has been cash flow negative for “several years” according to a bankruptcy filing.

“There’s no reason that Vice shouldn’t be profitable today, but for its past mismanagement,” Peterson said.

But simply figuring out what Vice employees want to do and making sure they do it doesn’t solve problems like a weak advertising market or competition for content. Still, Peterson and Mulvey see similarities between Vice’s business and several companies they already own. Mulvey pointed to YogaWorks as a business GoDigital has transitioned to meet new ways of consumption.

With YogaWorks, GoDigital has attempted to disrupt an in-studio yoga consumer base with an online subscription service offering digitally distributed at-home classes. YogaWorks shut down all of its brick-and-mortar locations as part of its bankruptcy reorganization and has “only lost a very small number of customers” as GoDigital has transitioned the business online, Mulvey said.

Mulvey, who took over as YogaWorks’ CEO in January, said the shift from studio-based to in-home yoga is analogous to changing media-consumption habits.

“People consumed Vice on HBO or cable TV,” Mulvey said, alluding to Vice’s now-cancelled show on HBO and Vice’s cable network. “We’ve got to make sure we understand the followers and the customers that the way we’re evolving the business makes sense for how people consume news, media, fun or exercise on the go.”

Peterson noted Vice’s business model is similar to NGL-Mitu. Both make money off branded content and social amplification.

“This is not a new type of business for us,” Peterson said. “It’s a multi-platform network. We know how to run one.”

Greiwe added “the fundamentals of Vice are strong” and said GoDigital had no plans to sell of any of Vice’s assets, including the women-focused Refinery29, which Vice acquired for $400 million in 2019, and its homegrown advertising agency, Virtue.

“The brand value for Vice and Refinery29 is unparalleled in the marketplace,” said Greiwe. “It doesn’t make sense for Vice News to exist separate from Vice Publishing. And why would you not have Vice Studios on top of all of that with the decades of IP that exists within that company?”

Peterson acknowledged that much of his interest in buying Vice is he thinks it’s a good candidate for implementing his preferred culture and management style, which he calls “the GoDigital way.”

If he’s right, all Vice ever needed to succeed was a bankruptcy process to service its $834 million of outstanding debt and a little more zoned genius.

— CNBC’s Lillian Rizzo contributed to this report.

WATCH: Investing in digital media

Watch CNBC's full interview with Raymond James' Andrew Marok

Continue Reading

Technology

Google hires Windsurf CEO Varun Mohan, others in latest AI talent deal

Published

on

By

Google hires Windsurf CEO Varun Mohan, others in latest AI talent deal

Chief executive officer of Google Sundar Pichai.

Marek Antoni Iwanczuk | Sopa Images | Lightrocket | Getty Images

Google on Friday made the latest a splash in the AI talent wars, announcing an agreement to bring in Varun Mohan, co-founder and CEO of artificial intelligence coding startup Windsurf.

As part of the deal, Google will also hire other senior Windsurf research and development employees. Google is not investing in Windsurf, but the search giant will take a nonexclusive license to certain Windsurf technology, according to a person familiar with the matter. Windsurf remains free to license its technology to others.

“We’re excited to welcome some top AI coding talent from Windsurf’s team to Google DeepMind to advance our work in agentic coding,” a Google spokesperson wrote in an email. “We’re excited to continue bringing the benefits of Gemini to software developers everywhere.”

The deal between Google and Windsurf comes after the AI coding startup had been in talks with OpenAI for a $3 billion acquisition deal, CNBC reported in April. OpenAI did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The move ratchets up the talent war in AI particularly among prominent companies. Meta has made lucrative job offers to several employees at OpenAI in recent weeks. Most notably, the Facebook parent added Scale AI founder Alexandr Wang to lead its AI strategy as part of a $14.3 billion investment into his startup. 

Douglas Chen, another Windsurf co-founder, will be among those joining Google in the deal, Jeff Wang, the startup’s new interim CEO and its head of business for the past two years, wrote in a post on X.

“Most of Windsurf’s world-class team will continue to build the Windsurf product with the goal of maximizing its impact in the enterprise,” Wang wrote.

Windsurf has become more popular this year as an option for so-called vibe coding, which is the process of using new age AI tools to write code. Developers and non-developers have embraced the concept, leading to more revenue for Windsurf and competitors, such as Cursor, which OpenAI also looked at buying. All the interest has led investors to assign higher valuations to the startups.

This isn’t the first time Google has hired select people out of a startup. It did the same with Character.AI last summer. Amazon and Microsoft have also absorbed AI talent in this fashion, with the Adept and Inflection deals, respectively.

Microsoft is pushing an agent mode in its Visual Studio Code editor for vibe coding. In April, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella said AI is composing as much of 30% of his company’s code.

The Verge reported the Google-Windsurf deal earlier on Friday.

WATCH: Google pushes “AI Mode” on homepage

Google pushes "AI Mode" on homepage

Continue Reading

Technology

Nvidia’s Jensen Huang sells more than $36 million in stock, catches Warren Buffett in net worth

Published

on

By

Nvidia's Jensen Huang sells more than  million in stock, catches Warren Buffett in net worth

Jensen Huang, CEO of Nvidia, holds a motherboard as he speaks during the Viva Technology conference dedicated to innovation and startups at Porte de Versailles exhibition center in Paris, France, on June 11, 2025.

Gonzalo Fuentes | Reuters

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang unloaded roughly $36.4 million worth of stock in the leading artificial intelligence chipmaker, according to a U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission filing.

The sale, which totals 225,000 shares, comes as part of Huang’s previously adopted plan in March to unload up to 6 million shares of Nvidia through the end of the year. He sold his first batch of stock from the agreement in June, equaling about $15 million.

Last year, the tech executive sold about $700 million worth of shares as part of a prearranged plan. Nvidia stock climbed about 1% Friday.

Huang’s net worth has skyrocketed as investors bet on Nvidia’s AI dominance and graphics processing units powering large language models.

The 62-year-old’s wealth has grown by more than a quarter, or about $29 billion, since the start of 2025 alone, based on Bloomberg’s Billionaires Index. His net worth last stood at $143 billion in the index, putting him neck-and-neck with Berkshire Hathaway‘s Warren Buffett at $144 billion.

Shortly after the market opened Friday, Fortune‘s analysis of net worth had Huang ahead of Buffett, with the Nvidia CEO at $143.7 billion and the Oracle of Omaha at $142.1 billion.

Read more CNBC tech news

The company has also achieved its own notable milestones this year, as it prospers off the AI boom.

On Wednesday, the Santa Clara, California-based chipmaker became the first company to top a $4 trillion market capitalization, beating out both Microsoft and Apple. The chipmaker closed above that milestone Thursday as CNBC reported that the technology titan met with President Donald Trump.

Brooke Seawell, venture partner at New Enterprise Associates, sold about $24 million worth of Nvidia shares, according to an SEC filing. Seawell has been on the company’s board since 1997, according to the company.

Huang still holds more than 858 million shares of Nvidia, both directly and indirectly, in different partnerships and trusts.

WATCH: Nvidia hits $4 trillion in market cap milestone despite curbs on chip exports

Nvidia hits $4 trillion in market cap milestone despite curbs on chip exports

Continue Reading

Technology

Tesla to officially launch in India with planned showroom opening

Published

on

By

Tesla to officially launch in India with planned showroom opening

Elon Musk meets with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi at Blair House in Washington DC, USA on February 13, 2025.

Anadolu | Anadolu | Getty Images

Tesla will open a showroom in Mumbai, India next week, marking the U.S. electric carmakers first official foray into the country.

The one and a half hour launch event for the Tesla “Experience Center” will take place on July 15 at the Maker Maxity Mall in Bandra Kurla Complex in Mumbai, according to an event invitation seen by CNBC.

Along with the showroom display, which will feature the company’s cars, Tesla is also likely to officially launch direct sales to Indian customers.

The automaker has had its eye on India for a while and now appears to have stepped up efforts to launch locally.

In April, Tesla boss Elon Musk spoke with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi to discuss collaboration in areas including technology and innovation. That same month, the EV-maker’s finance chief said the company has been “very careful” in trying to figure out when to enter the market.

Tesla has no manufacturing operations in India, even though the country’s government is likely keen for the company to establish a factory. Instead the cars sold in India will need to be imported from Tesla’s other manufacturing locations in places like Shanghai, China, and Berlin, Germany.

As Tesla begins sales in India, it will come up against challenges from long-time Chinese rival BYD, as well as local player Tata Motors.

One potential challenge for Tesla comes by way of India’s import duties on electric vehicles, which stand at around 70%. India has tried to entice investment in the country by offering companies a reduced duty of 15% if they commit to invest $500 million and set up manufacturing locally.

HD Kumaraswamy, India’s minister for heavy industries, told reporters in June that Tesla is “not interested” in manufacturing in the country, according to a Reuters report.

Tesla is looking to recruit roles in Mumbai, job listings posted on LinkedIn . These include advisors working in showrooms, security, vehicle operators to collect data for its Autopilot feature and service technicians.

There are also roles being advertised in the Indian capital of New Delhi, including for store managers. It’s unclear if Tesla is planning to launch a showroom in the city.

Continue Reading

Trending