Henry Blodget

You are currently browsing articles tagged Henry Blodget.

mcluhannewspaper

Isabell Hülsen of Spiegel conducted an excellent Q&A with Henry Blodget, that mixed blessing, about digital and traditional media landscapes. The subject reinvented himself with Business Insider, returning to his journalistic roots after being charged with securities fraud and banned for life from the sector.

Blodget is relatively sanguine about the future of online journalism, though he acknowledges those seeking success will have to skillfully balance serious reportage and cat memes. There’s no discussion about the many publications basing a good chunk of their futures on video, which seems likely another bubble that could pop once advertisers take a closer look.

In one exchange, Blodget says this: “In the new world of digital, there are no must-read publications any more.” That reminds me of something Jake Silverstein, the excellent editor of the New York Times Magazine, said not that long ago. He asserted his ambition was to make his publication indispensable, one you had to read if you wanted to sound informed at a party. That simply doesn’t exist anymore–the party’s over. That reality has probably made our world better in the big picture, though something has been lost with what’s been gained.

An excerpt:

Spiegel:

The power of digital publishing lies in the ability to know what readers like, which stories they actually read and which ones they don’t — and to give them more of what they like. This creates the danger of a filter bubble.

Henry Blodget:

What do you mean by filter bubble?

Spiegel:

Reading becomes a sort of self-optimization and self-reference, the only things that get through to me from the flood of information are those which I want to consume and which I like. My Facebook and Twitter feeds filter what fits into my conception of the world.

Henry Blodget:

I don’t think that is actually what is happening. In fact, we have more information than ever before, and it is harder than ever to avoid actually seeing what the other side is saying. Yes, we focus on publications that we feel speak to us, but that is exactly the same way it was 20 or 100 years ago. In the US, two million people have subscribed to the New York Times and many more millions think theNew York Times is a terrible, liberal paper they would never read. We can, of course, choose to put ourselves in a bubble of only people who agree with us, but in the digital world there are many more ways of saying “Hey, here is something you might want to consider.”

Spiegel:

How compatible is the idea of offering readers more and more of what they like with the role of journalists in a democratic society: to publish information that is relevant to our social coexistence but not necessarily read by millions of people; to investigate and uncover scandals and cases of wrongdoing?

Henry Blodget: 

Before the internet, big publications were like hydrants in the desert. There were relatively few of them, we needed each one of them tremendously and they had control over what was delivered. Now they are like little streams flowing into a massive ocean. An example: Before the internet, a journalist would write an article about a company that the company felt was unfair and missed a point. All they could do was write a letter to the editor and wait, and maybe a week later it would be printed, or not. Now, they can go to medium.com and immediately publish a long rebuttal, saying the journalist forgot this and did not consider that, the analyst is wrong here. Everybody pulls that immediately into the debate. So it is a much more democratic field for ideas.•

Tags: ,

From Henry Blodget’s new Business Insider piece about Google’s self-driving cars, a passage about the obstacles the company has to overcome to perfect its auto software:

“The first challenge is driving in snow.

When snow is on the road, the cars often have a tough time ‘seeing’ the lane markers and other cues that they use to stay correctly positioned on the road. It will be interesting to see how the Google team sorts that one out.

A second challenge, apparently, is when the car encounters a change in a road that is not yet reflected in its onboard ‘map.’ In those situations, the car can presumably get lost, just the way a human can.

A third challenge is driving through construction zones, accident zones, or other situations in which a human is directing traffic with hand signals. The cars are excellent at observing stop signs, traffic lights, speed limits, the behavior of other cars, and other common cues that human drivers use to figure out how fast to go and where and when to turn. But when a human is directing traffic with hand signals–and especially when these hand signals conflict with a traffic light or stop sign–the cars get confused.”

Tags:

At Business Insider, Henry Blodget guesses why Mitt Romney won’t reveal his tax information. The Governor will have to keep playing defense until he releases the documents. Blodget’s supposition:

  • Romney has made hundreds of millions of dollars
  • He has paid very little of that (on a percentage basis) in taxes
  • He has made hundreds of millions of dollars in part because he has structured most of his income in ways that enable him to pay the least amount of taxes possible
  • This “structuring” of income has likely taken full advantage of things like the ludicrous “carried interest” tax exemption that allows private-equity investors to pay capital gains taxes on income that is actually fees [This tax treatment is one of the most outrageous and unfair elements in the entire tax code. There is no logical basis for it, and it benefits only the richest people in the country.]
  • This “structuring” has also likely taken advantage of offshore accounts, the contribution of hard-to-value securities at low valuations to Romney’s IRA (whereupon they exploded in value), and other sophisticated tools. These tools are, theoretically, available to anyone, but, in practice, are available only to those with tens of thousands of dollars to spend every year on tax-and-estate planning.
  • This structuring, which (let’s be honest) is done primarily to avoid paying taxes, will look bad to most Americans, who will know instinctively that it’s done to avoid paying taxes and that it’s not something they will ever be able to afford to do–and, therefore, will seem unfair.

Tags: ,