A Father, a Son and Their $108B Push for Media Moguldom (Larry Ellison) | Hacker News Reader

A Father, a Son and Their $108B Push for Media Moguldom (Larry Ellison)

nytimes.com

26 pointslateforwork18 comments

The article suggests Larry thinks his son has demonstrated brilliance as a media executive:

Their relationship grew warmer as David Ellison achieved professional success, they said. Larry Ellison has always considered himself wise about Hollywood, and one of his best friends, Steve Jobs, mentored the son about the business as well.

Larry Ellison was initially skeptical of Skydance, the Hollywood company that his son started and that bought Paramount. But he has told friends in recent years that he considers his son to be one of the smartest people in the business world, trusts his judgment and tends to agree with him on corporate matters, several people with knowledge of the Ellisons said.

Is Skydance/Paramount under Ellison ahead of other Hollywood firms in terms of successful development of profitable film/streaming properties? A quick look at the list of successes shows IP that was initially developed outside of Skydance ... Mission Impossible, Terminator, Star Trek, etc.

https://archive.ph/kEGmQ

This story is about Oracle's Larry Ellison and his son's quest to reshape US media.

My hope is that media outlets that have lost all journalistic credibility are quickly becoming a thing of the past—abandoned by readers, advertisers.

So long.

That only works if there is competition, right? At some point, if all media is owned by oligarchs there won't be any competition.

I imagine that shitty, captured journalism will itself create competition.

The popularity of Fox News amongst MAGA would beg to differ with you

Yes, we should abandon the practice of journalism, and replace it with... checks notes... some conspiracy theories from substack.

It began with Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission. Since then, we’ve been steadily drifting toward an oligarchy. As oligarchs gain control of the media, they shape the narrative and decide what citizens hear, pushing people to rely on foreign outlets for the truth.

Soon, understanding what is truly happening in the United States may require turning to foreign outlets like the BBC.

We have not been “drifting.” People who benefit from the consolidation of power have been pushing the US towards oligarchy.

Soon is sooner than you think. This week, I had to download a bootleg copy of a banned 60 Minutes segment.

I don't think 60 Minutes has been honest / independent in at least a decade if not longer. As an institution it's been in a long steady decline like media organizations in general. This latest chapter is just continuing that trend imo.

And yet, they're doing reporting on the administration that's too dangerous to air. That tells you where we are — anything but outright Trumpian sycophancy is being actively attacked in the United States.

People say this but the rot goes back to the founding of the US constitution. The founding fathers absolutely hated democracy and the idea of the bill of rights (see the elites that wrote the constitution voted down the idea immediately when raised, it wasn't until multiple states threaten to not ratify was it included (yes if saying elites wrote the constitution is an attack, please tell me how the local baker in New York could have left his job unpaid for 4 months to go to Philadelphia to help advocate for what they believe in?)).

Every single right we have is the result of constant struggle by the people dragging society forward at the defiance of the elites.

I mean look at something like Shay's Rebellion and read what the elites thought of it as the time, people were fighting back against actual tyranny and they were scared of the peasant revolt hurting their profits they had to rewrite a constitution that removed emancipation from over half the population while keeping all the actual control (creating the Presidency, courts, and senate while only giving the people one single house) for themselves.

I'm honestly amazed we have as many rights as we do now. It's a testament to humanity's innate desire toward freedom and this freedom has always expanded beyond what society claims to be capable of.

Your claims oversimplify history: the Founders designed a republic to avoid direct democracy's pitfalls like mob rule, not out of hatred, while the Bill of Rights emerged from Anti-Federalist pressure as a ratification compromise crafted by Madison.

This nation was literally founded upon slavery, if anything you have the simplified version if you can't see the massive disenfranchisement and the opposition faced by the elites for every right that was won for the citizenry.

  > Mr. Trump has privately said Larry Ellison assured him that he would turn CBS News, which the Ellisons took over when they bought Paramount, into a more conservative outlet, two people with knowledge of the president’s comments said.

Oh yes, of course. Remember where the term conservative came from: to conserve the power of the oligarchy over democracy. It literally means they want to go backwards in time. Power and wealth in the hands of the few, delusions and narratives for the others.

Wealth inequality in the US was better in the past: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wealth_inequality_in_the_Unite...

That is why I fear any AI crash will be so devastating. The stock markets are only up if you count the massive bankrolling of Vibe Inc.

Have mercy with the maga voters, because if that goes boom, their lives get significantly worse. You only have to look Midwest America for how things look like during an all-high Wall Street. I fear the fallout will be worse than the '30s, and I have doubts if the US can money print themselves from the ashes.

I don't want to play dr. Doom, but the signs aren't great.

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