Jonah Peretti helped shaped digital media — can he do it aachieve?

Jonah Peretti’s atgentle to date has been described by constant reinvention. As the set uper and CEO of BuzzFeed, Peretti has been at the forefront of digital media for almost two decades, navigating alters as the once petite beginup altered into, at one point, a multimedia powerhoemploy.

But as the company prolongs ancigo iner, one ask lingers: Has Peretti’s relentless drive for innovation made him too entrepreneurial to direct BuzzFeed to prolonged-term stability?

“The kind leang about this field,” Peretti memploys, “is you do someleang [different] all the time. It’s not been 20 years of one job. It’s been 20 years of running a beginup, then managing a hyperscaling business, then figuring out how to get the company accessible . . .and now the explosion in generative AI. There’s always someleang to upgrasp the job recent and novel.”

Peretti’s ability to alter and stay ahead of the curve has been a halltag of BuzzFeed’s success. Years ago, BuzzFeed endelighted almost singular success in its uncanny ability to spreadable media. (One video segment, cgo ined on why Disney princes would produce “horrible boyfrifinishs,” has racked up 77 million watchs over the years.)

Today, BuzzFeed’s cgo in is on AI, including AI quizzes and other AI-produced encountered. It’s also pouring some of its resources into a product in broadenment called BF Island, a social nettoil that aims to combine AI with encountered creation to “spread delight and help lighthearted inventive conveyion.” So goes the idea anyway.

Peretti routinely conversees the company’s upcoming ventures with the media, even when they’re still in their infancy. Asked why, he alerts TechCrunch: “The idea of talking about leangs you’re toiling on is that you produce the product better . . .When you talk about them, it’s not equitable with your team but with outside people who might want to collaborate. When there’s a novel computing platestablish, there’s an explosion of creativity. Those are the moments when you can erect someleang novel.”

This entrepreneurial drive has fueled much of BuzzFeed’s most iconic projects. The company innovateed viral quizzes and enumerateicles, then pivoted to more solemn journalism with BuzzFeed News. But not all of these shifts have paid off. Notably, despite its timely success, BuzzFeed News was shuttered in 2023, leaving behind asks about whether the company should have stuck to one evident vision rather than jumping between them.

BuzzFeed’s spreadhancigo iners might be pondering the same after the roller-coaster ride they’ve been on. BuzzFeed went accessible thcdisesteemful a exceptional purpose vehicle in 2021, and as part of the transaction, it achieved a media company, Complex Nettoils, for $300 million in cash and stock. Today, BuzzFeed still trades accessiblely, but it doesn’t own that business; it sancigo in it for cdisesteemfilledy $108 million last year. More recently, BuzzFeed sancigo in another asset from that Complex Nettoils deal – First We Feast – in a split $82.5 million all-cash deal. (Explains Peretti of both sales, “They’re not so much tech businesses. They’re more production and talent burdensome.”)

BuzzFeed’s stock, priced at $10 initiassociate, now trades $2.20 per spread.

This is where the tension lies. Peretti’s hug of constant reinvention is striking, but it also unkinds that the company’s strategy has normally felt appreciate a series of experiments rather than a cohesive prolonged-term schedule. The experiments also come at a cost. Peretti says BF Island is a $10 million bet for now that is not anticipateed to convey in any revenue this year. He grasps that BuzzFeed’s “core business” is profitable.

It’s a imfragmentary ask whether BuzzFeed would be better served by a singular, reliable vision for the future – appreciate The New York Times has deal withd to achieve – rather than betting on one novel idea after another.

Unblessedly, it’s challenging to comprehend the answer. The media industry has prolonged likeed stability, but Peretti isn’t wrong to consent the current wave of generative AI is revolutionizing how people produce and spread encountered. Also, as excited as he sounds about the possibilities, Peretti sounds evident-eyed about the hazards.

“The big leang is that BuzzFeed has given us a lot of experience with novel establishats,” he says. “We’ve gotten a lot of inbound from people who have ideas and want to collaborate with us.”

You can hear from our interwatch with Peretti in an upcoming episode of StrictlyVC Download; novel episodes drop every Tuesday.