Exclusive: Jonah Peretti explains why he sold BuzzFeed

Today, I’m talking with Jonah Peretti, who is, technically, the CEO of Buzz Feed — although that will be coming to an end very soon. Just days before we spoke, Jonah agreed to sell 52 percent of Buzz Feed for a total of $120 million to Byron Allen, who owns The Weather Channel, a number of broadcast stations, and several other websites. The deal is a bit of a life raft for Buzz Feed — the company was once valued at $1.6 billion dollars, but just last quarter, the company had told investors it was at risk of running out of cash. Now there’s a new lease on life — and new leadership. As part of the deal, Jonah himself is stepping down as CEO and taking on a new role as president of BuzzFeed AI, and Byron Allen himself will become CEO of BuzzFeed. That’s obviously a huge structural and organizational change and a really big decision — prime Decoder bait if there ever was any. And, of course, I’m very interested in what digital media companies are doing to adapt and survive in an information landscape dominated by algorithmic social platforms. Verge subscribers, don’t forget you get exclusive access to ad-free Decoder wherever you get your podcasts. Head here. Not a subscriber? You can sign up here. After all, I’ve been saying for a long time now that the original sin of digital media was Jonah and BuzzFeed betting they could so consistently go viral that platforms like Facebook would pay them for content — the way cable companies pay carriage fees for channels like ESPN. This was the big bet for a lot of companies all chasing BuzzFeed’s influence and valuation, and it’s mostly all come crashing down. So I really wanted to know if Jonah had reflected on that and how he saw the work of building audiences and influence now. I also really wanted to talk to him about his new role leading AI. In the press release announcing the sale, Byron Allen says BuzzFeed will now compete with YouTube through the power of AI. That’s quite an ambition, and I was very curious about what