Former Apple intern buys Time Magazine

Marc Benioff, the billionaire co-founder of Salesforce, and his wife Lynne paid $190 million cash for the 95-year-old newsmagazine.

From the New York Times:

An impassioned and eccentric billionaire, even by Silicon Valley standards, Mr. Benioff was drawn to computers at an early age. He interned at Apple as a college student, and became a top salesman at Oracle, the enterprise software company. After burning out at Oracle, he traveled to India, decided to leave the company, and co-founded Salesforce in 1999. Today, Salesforce, a pioneer in the business model of offering software as a service, is worth some $120 billion. The San Francisco company occupies the new Salesforce Tower, the tallest office building west of Mississippi.

My take: Like many Time alumni, I’m breathing a sigh of relief today. The Benioffs have promised not to interfere with the magazine’s editorial decisions. I don’t remember hearing any such assurances when the Koch brothers put up $650 million as part of the $2.8 billion purchase of Time Inc. last year by Meredith Corp. (Better Homes and Gardens etc.). Nor when the National Enquirer’s David Pecker offered $325 million for three Time Inc. magazines, an editorial merger his friend Donald Trump had long championed:

.@TIME Magazine should definitely pick David Pecker to run things over there – he’d make it exciting and win awards!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 9, 2013