Jeff Lawson, co-founder and recently departed CEO of enterprise infrastructure software company Twilio, is the proud new owner of a satirical online newspaper The onion.
“Okay, the news is out – yes, I bought The onion” Lawson wrote in a LinkedIn post today after it first surfaced The New York Times yesterday.
The onionConsidered by many to be “America’s premier news source,” is a digital media institution that has been serving up satire by the spoonful for more than three decades – first as a weekly print edition beginning in 1988, then as an online edition beginning in 1996, with physical publication discontinued in 2013. The fake stories were often linked to real news, but The onion has become a staple of the digital media landscape as it takes an “alternative” approach to some of the world’s biggest events – some real, some completely made up – and in the process has spawned memes like “Area Man” while mimicking the reporting style of more traditional news outlets.
Our stupid century
The Onion has counted several owners over the years, including Spanish-language broadcaster Univision, which acquired a majority stake in 2016 before selling it along with Gizmodo in 2019 to private equity firm Great Hill Partners, which formed a new media holding company called G/O Media founded Inc.
Now The Onion has landed in the hands of a new Chicago-based company called The Onion Global tetrahedronwhich is actually a reference to a fictional company that appears in a satirical book published by The onion collaborators in 1999, called Our Dumb Century.
The mind behind the new thing Global tetrahedron is Jeff Lawson, co-founder of Twilio in 2008, to help companies easily embed communications features such as SMS and calling into their apps via an application programming interface (API). The company went public in 2016 at a valuation of more than $1 billion and reached a valuation of nearly $70 billion during the pandemic – before settling in the $10-15 billion range in recent years. Brand leveled off.
Lawson announced back in January that he was stepping down from Twilio and has since been pursuing a “personal goal” as part of a career break, according to his LinkedIn profile.
But why would Lawson buy any? The onion? Well, because he likes it and has the means to buy it.
“The Onion is an institution, a national treasure, and we need it,” Lawson said in his announcement post. “But its success is based on something different than most media companies. The onion has been oppressed, like most of the internet, by byzantine cookie dialogues, paywalls, bizarre belly fat advertising and clickbait content. And we have had enough. The internet sucks and it’s time to make it better. It’s time to refocus on customers – end users.”
Lawson assures us that there will be more in the future – new products, new media – but for now he’s asking everyone to raise some money for the cause. At the time of writing this article The onionLawson’s homepage is littered with “breaking news” and “trending” stories dedicated solely to this acquisition, where Lawson is asking those who share his mission to donate exactly $1. For nothing in return.
“If you are interessted The onionIf The onion Ever made you laugh – give us a dollar,” Lawson writes. “For that dollar you get…absolutely nothing. Just a smug feeling that you’ve spent less again The onion than it’s worth in your life.”