The New York Times Company

For the entire 20th Century, you’d be hard pressed to find a
better business than an American newspaper — Warren Buffett
famously described them as “franchises” — and no American
newspaper stood taller than the New York Times. Controlled by a
single family bound by a legal oath “to maintain the editorial
independence and integrity of The New York Times and to continue
it as an independent newspaper, entirely fearless, free of
ulterior influence and unselfishly devoted to the public
welfare”, the Times served as the paper of record for generations
of Americans and people around the world. But no good thing lasts
forever, and the dawn of the 21st Century saw both the Times and
this once-mighty industry devastated by the dual disruptive
forces of the internet and the 2008 financial crisis. And yet by
2021, The Times, essentially alone of its former peers, has
reemerged from the American newspaper wreckage and transformed
itself into a thriving digital business with an order of
magnitude more subscribers than its print heyday. Curious how it
all happened? We dive into 170 years of history to find
out! 





Sponsors:


WorkOS: https://bit.ly/workos25

Sierra: https://bit.ly/acquiredsierra

Sentry: https://bit.ly/acquiredsentry

Anthropic: https://bit.ly/acquiredclaude25






More Acquired!


Get email updates with hints on next episode and follow-ups
from recent episodes

Join the Slack

Subscribe to ACQ2

Merch Store!



Copyright 2015-2025 ACQ, LLC


The New York Times Company Playbook is available on our website
at https://www.acquired.fm/episodes/the-new-york-times-company





Links:


The 2014 NYT Innovation Report:
https://archive.org/details/pdfy-59s-4-I2qSvG6MnA/mode/2up

Mine Safety Disclosures’ NYT presentation:
https://minesafetydisclosures.com/blog/newyorktimes



Carve Outs:


Ben:


Titan by Ron Chernow:
 https://www.amazon.com/Titan-Life-John-Rockefeller-Sr-ebook/dp/B000XUDGHG

Iteratively: https://iterative.ly



David:


Sabaa Tahir’s Ember in the Ashes series:
https://www.amazon.com/Ember-Ashes-3-Book/dp/B074VDZB17