A quiet investor becomes a media powerhouse everyone and nobody knows

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/28/business/media/28vivi.html?partner=rssuserland&emc=rss&pagewanted=all

by robg • 18 years ago

33 12 18 years ago

crocus• 18 years ago

Has anyone considered the possibility that he was funded by the Israeli government? This would be one of the smartest ways to influence the US media, to finance a genuinely charismatic investor in media companies.

Create2• 18 years ago

old-new story. I guess the same ending. http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/november/5/...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Maxwell#Death

byrneseyeview• 18 years ago

Wow. Whenever Israel comes up, it's always "Never attribute to your own ignorance what can be explained by the involvement of Mossad."

In Maxwell's case, he was working with too many different countries to be totally loyal to one in particular. He was semi-famous for publishing translations of awful hagiographies of communist dictators in the 80's (and of censoring other books as a favor to friends).

akd• 18 years ago

Conspiracy theorizing is fun, but it's a lot easier to believe that he's just a talented investor.

breck• 18 years ago

Isn't the Israeli government partially funded by the U.S. government? In which case he is funded by the U.S. government, in order for the U.S. government to influence the media.

neilk• 18 years ago

What a strange story. It seems like it has to be a hoax, but there's a lot of news mentions about the guy after 2007 or so.

The guy seems like a James Bond villain -- doesn't every briefing by M start with "nobody knows how he makes his money, but he's taken the world of $X by storm"?. He even looks like a movie star, is engaged to a movie star, and dresses in mostly in black.

rokhayakebe• 18 years ago

"The loudest one in the room is usually the weakest". Noone is hearing Nevo. There are very well connected players, like Nevo, who do not like to be in the public eye. Nevo shows that social skills matter even more than we think (to bad for an introvert like me).

EDIT: Read "How To Win Friends and Influence People" by D. Carnegie. (Pick an old-less-edited version from your local library).

jimbokun• 18 years ago

Sounds like he has a Y-combinator style of investing in media companies. Relatively "small" investments (1MM in his case), but outsize influence in his ability to make personal connections between people who can complement each other.

menloparkbum• 18 years ago

This was a tough one. I wanted to pull out the "how is this hacker news?" hammer, but then decided I want to be this guy, and probably wouldn't have heard about him unless someone posted here.

beaudeal• 18 years ago

did anyone else think that a "modest inheritance" was going to be a bit smaller than 10 million dollars? with that much money, its [relatively] easy to make more money -- granted to turn it into billions you have to be extremely savvy (and probably a little lucky) but when i started reading i thought this was more of a rags to riches story, not a really rich to absurdly wealthy story haha.

A quiet investor becomes a media powerhouse everyone and nobody knows

Related Stories