Business and values

An insightful piece by Buzzfeed founder Jonah Peretti: Is History Repeating Itself? in which Peretti channels David Halberstam’s book The Powers That Be, a history of the media/publishing industry. Halberstam makes the interesting observation that the stalwart news companies we’ve come to rely on were once startups themselves…the New York Times was once a fledgling company with an uncertain future. Lots of interesting bits in Peretti’s note, the following being an important point:

“There are a bunch of other examples in Halberstam’s book that suggest history is repeating itself, and we can learn lessons from these old-school media companies’ early days. For example, I noticed that all the successful companies he describes in the book built really great businesses. The publishers who ignored the business side didn’t thrive or survive for long. This might seem obvious, but the opposite was also true: Companies that only or mostly cared about business didn’t thrive either. The organizations that went on to become multibillion-dollar juggernauts built great businesses AND had values that went beyond just business.”