By James Ledbetter of The Big Money
Last fall, I was on panel with a Portfolio writer who made a cutting remark about the vulnerability, in the age of Wall Street’s evaporation, of new business publications such as the one you’re reading. I challenged him to a bet: I’d wager $100 that TBM would outlast the print version of Portfolio. He declined to take the bet, which tells you just about everything you need to know about the sad, incredibly expensive history of that magazine: Even the people who continued to work there didn’t, in recent months, think it could last.
I look forward to reading the numerous obituaries that will appear in coming days and weeks and will particularly salute anyone who can put a plausible dollar amount on how much Condé Nast spent trying to publish Portfolio. (You see the $100 million figure everywhere, but it could easily be 30 percent higher or lower than that.) Still, the trickier question is: Did it have to die? Is there anything that could have saved it?
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