
Nautilus to be acquired by an investor group of fans - dnetesn
http://nautil.us/blog/nautilus-to-be-acquired-by-ownership-group-of-super_fans
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joshdilworth
I’m one of the new co-owners. All of us are longtime subscribers. This is
about love for the magazine and its mission first and last. We’re not going to
change Nautilus. We just want to get it into the hands of many more people. We
do think we can navigate Nautilus to a sustainable place for the long haul;
the market is there and the product is fabulous. We just need to operate it
precisely and keep investing in great writing, editing, and art. Nothing
fancy, just running it right and for the right reasons.

~~~
newscracker
I didn't see anything in the announcement about existing subscriptions and how
they'd change. I'm interested in knowing what may happen to lifetime digital
subscribers. I can understand it being removed and something else put in
place, but the question would be "at what price?"

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kiba
So it becomes a business, which will focus on generating profit from the
magazine, thus Nautilus will become yet another bog standard science magazine
subjected to the same structures as other magazines.

And we all know that consumers don't fork enough money to support ads-free
journalism, which leads to perverse incentives.

~~~
kristjankalm
> And we all know that consumers don't fork enough money to support ads-free
> journalism, which leads to perverse incentives.

yes they do. susbcription-based models are doing quite well. besides the big
heavyweights, in UK alone there are several smaller and successful
subscription-based magazines: the TLS, the economist, the spectator etc. in us
sports there's 'the athletic' and its clones.

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pokler
> several smaller and successful subscription-based magazines: ... the
> economist, ...

Maybe I am misreading, but did you mean to imply that The Economist is a
'small' newspaper? It has been around since the 1840s.

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kristjankalm
compared to the best known subscription success stories -- the NYT, WP -- it
certainly seems significantly smaller. but i agree, that comparison isn't very
valid, it's certainly a heavyweight amongst magazines.

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skinnymuch
Is WP WaPo or something else? WaPo went for only a few hundred million when
sold. Economist around the same time was valued 3-5x more at $1B. Did WaPo
turn things around that much? Economist is mostly owned by super rich elite
families, so prestige would’ve entered what they paid too. But WaPo was
purchased by Bezos so not likely he was super skimpy on the price (even being
considerably “poorer” back then)

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uncletaco
Yeah they did. After being bought by Bezos they made a number of changes that
have been for the better. They've turned a profit over the last few years
based on their growing subscriber base and their digital publishing business.

Of course they've built it all using AWS and I would love to learn more about
how they leverage that platform.

~~~
skinnymuch
I see. Interesting. I know WaPo used to do deals with Prime too.

Even with that, NYT has to be much bigger and their profit is only around 2x
Economists. Economist is pretty big in most metrics.

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SchoolboyBlue
I spent $100 on subscriptions a couple Christmases ago. Never received any
product nor was I able to get in contact with anyone at the company.

Really turned me off since I was a big fan of their content and already had a
yearly subscription.

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nautilus
I'm sorry you were not able to get through to us...or to get your magazines.
Please send your details to me at john.steele@nautilusdigitalmedia.com and we
will make it right.

~~~
SchoolboyBlue
thanks! just sent you an email :)

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seren
This is the second time I see a link on HN, mentioning Hypergiant industries.

Their website [0] and their algae bioreactor page [1] is so over the top that
it looks fake. I assume this is real company selling real solutions
(consulting) but this is puzzling nonetheless.

Look at the case study, "ROD LIFT INVENTORY SYSTEM" [2], they replaced a few
excel sheets by an application with a database, this is great for the
customer, but not earth shattering either.

[0] [https://www.hypergiant.com/](https://www.hypergiant.com/) [1]
[https://www.hypergiant.com/green/](https://www.hypergiant.com/green/) [2]
[https://www.hypergiant.com/client/rod-lift-inventory-
system-...](https://www.hypergiant.com/client/rod-lift-inventory-system-ai-
consulting/)

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notacoward
Yep, that's a _serious_ Aperture Labs vibe there. Or maybe (even worse) Faro
Automated Solutions. Very techno-utopian, as though things like ethics and
unintended consequences don't exist. Scary.

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whatshisface
Scary? It looks like it was made by an excited teenager.

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hiei
Larry Summers, 71st Secretary of the Treasury, former Chief Economist of the
World Bank, Charles W. Eliot University Professor and President Emeritus,
Harvard University.

this is the guy who was just featured in that article on bill gates rubbing
elbows with Jeffrey Epstein.

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burundi_coffee
I thought this was about the filemanager

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wblondel
Hahaha same

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tomc1985
Nautilus was good when they started but at some point they seemed to switch to
the sort of frothy, inspirational pop-science-as-spiritualism dreck that
belongs in Newsweek or Fox News, but with a tiny bit more depth

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stingraycharles
On top of the content, I was a paid subscriber during 2017-2018, and I
received maybe 20% of the editions I was supposed to receive. Probably due to
international shipping and their liquidity problems, but it still felt bad.

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valvar
I never received my issues, so I disputed on PayPal. They never responded to
the dispute so I won it automatically after a month or whatever it was. Then,
a year later, I received some issues in the mail. Bizarre.

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aspectmin
This makes me happy. I Enjiy reading both Nautilus and Quanta. Great articles.

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SchoolboyBlue
I spent $100 on subscriptions a few years ago for Christmas gifts and never
received anything. Still annoyed at that.

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desireco42
I really like Nautilus. I have been subscriber in the past, I got my magazines
and they were awesome. I am worried they might lose quality once they need to
produce profit, however "fan" those investors are.

But that is life and if they do, there will be something else.

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unlinked_dll
"Group of fans" is a weird way to describe serial entrepreneurs and angel
investors. I'm sure they like the product. There's only one person on that
list without a background in finance/investing, who happens to be the spouse
of another person on the list.

Congrats on the exit, I just think it's odd to describe the acquiring party
that way.

~~~
yowlingcat
Is it? While "syndicate" might have been a more succinct and accurate way of
describing that group, it is a little bit uncommon. From most instances I can
recall, acquisitions tend to be by a single corporate entity or a private
equity fund of some kind. Unless such an entity existed prior to this
acquisition, it does seem a bit out of the ordinary.

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unlinked_dll
I think ownership groups aren't uncommon in the small business world (as in
not-startups, like family businesses). Totally different world but that's how
sports teams' acquisitions are handled these days.

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yowlingcat
Wow, that's fascinating -- I don't know too much about sports team
acquisitions but it's pretty cool if that's how they work. If this is
something you know more about, would you mind going into more detail about how
that works?

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skinnymuch
The valuation of sports teams for the big 4 (and especially big 3 in terms of
big numbers) has skyrocketed. It is quite possible from here on out that no
NBA or MLB team will be sold for less than $1B total valuation. And no NFL
team for under $2B. It’s a lot for individuals to pay. It’s rare for teams to
be owned by companies or funds like the NBA’s Toronto Raptors. But even that
holding company has one guy owning a third of it. Or NFL’s Green Bay Packers
being a public company.

Most leagues also have requirements for how much of the team can be paid for
with debt, loans, etc. For a perspective on how crazy the skyrocketing
valuations are, NBA and MLB teams outside major markets were going for under
$500M and NFL teams for way under $1B. Major market teams were still going for
a lot like NFL’s Washington DC Redskins went for over a billion 20 years ago,
but even just five years ago the NBA’s Milwaukee Bucks went for around $500M.
Now that they have a new stadium, sometimes that stuff is conditional on the
purchase, their value has probably doubled (along with currently being a
championship contender with an MVP superstar entering his prime).

At this point, almost no individuals can take on a whole team purchase on
their own. Or be able to pay up a higher price on their own. Exceptions are
also people wildly richer than most owners like Steve Ballmer who’s around top
15 richest people and paid handsomely for the NBA’s LA Clippers, though he
will also profit off it as well. Many, if not most, current big 3 majority
owners would not be able to afford their own team if you looked at their net
worth outside the team.

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rwio
Am I reading this correctly? It sounds like a group of angel investors. Not
"superfans."

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bovermyer
The two terms are not mutually exclusive.

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skinnymuch
Sure. But like talked about above, sports teams are also usually bought by
fans. It would be weird to state those purchases that way though.

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jaimehrubiks
Actually it is one of the best file explorers out there, I'm sure they will
take in on the right track.

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usrme
This is one of those rare occasions that it might be worth your while to read
the actual article...

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dredmorbius
Given numerous uses of the term, a modicum of specificity in the title would
help. There are even multiple publishing-related instances.

Though as a science fictional character myself, I'm partial to Vernes's. Which
might make for an even more interesting story ;-)

"Nautilus Magazine" being a good start.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nautilus_(disambiguation)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nautilus_\(disambiguation\))

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uoaei
What else helps is not assuming you know the content of TFA from its title.

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dredmorbius
I half suspect the original comment was a subtle dig at the ambiguity itself.

