Heads up! Yet another tech billionaire now owns a media empire, and a notable one at that.

“Austin Russell became the youngest self-made billionaire in 2021; now he owns Forbes,” TechCrunch reported.

The problem is, no matter that tech wunderkinds might have made a fortune in their chosen fields and become vaunted in the media: that doesn’t translate into the ability to run a media property being in one’s wheelhouse.  It’s terra incognita and always a good idea to stay in one’s lane, from what we can tell as a result of tech billionaire devouring media stalwarts so far.

Jeff Bezos owns the once-venerated Washington Post; Steve Jobs’s widow, Laurene Powell Jobs, owns the once well-respected Atlantic, and Salesforce founder Marc Benioff owns Time.

And it is odd that at around the same time, trust in the MSM plummeted.

Not that the tech-first publications are particularly distinguishing themselves, considering that both BuzzFeed and Vice are failing, although it seems the Soros Group (is) Preparing to Swoop in and Buy Major Media Company Out of Bankruptcy: Report – and that would be Vice, although this just in: Vice and Motherboard owner files for bankruptcy.

We wonder if Russell will remain hands off, despite telling the Wall Street Journal that he has no plans to get involved in the day-to-day.

And not that his track record in tech is particularly stellar. He made his fortune and saved his company through a SPAC, TC reported. It otherwise would have run out of money and for the record, the stock, which was worth $3.4B, is now valued at roughly $2B, and the company recently reported “wider than expected losses.”

Time will tell if the SPAC was a stop-gap measure, and the company will ultimately fail.

Or be acquired by an adult.

But there used to be an expression for that: pouring good money after bad.

We understand that it’s presently tough times pretty much all around in the tech world, and that even in the best of times, it’s not unusual to see a stock drop precipitously after its original run-up, which goes to show you that it’s one thing to be able to raise money and quite another to be able to run a business.

Profitably.

Or even sustainably.

And can a tech bro successfully manage and grow even a tech-first media property over time? Which is the true litmus test. There was a time when “Vice had become the tenth-highest-valued private company in America, according to CB Insights, at a valuation of $5.7 billion, and as recently as 2016, (founder Shane) Smith had told The Wall Street Journal that by the end of the decade, Vice could be worth $50 billion,” said NY Magazine.

Did we mention that they’re now in bankruptcy?

As for Russell’s background: yet another Stanford drop-out and yet another brash young thing, not unlike BuzzFeed founder Jonah Peretti, Vice’s Shane Smith and how could we not include that apotheosis of the brash young thing, WeWork founder Adam Neumann, media stars all, who thanks to the adoration of the press, came in roaring, no matter that their business models were not sustainable over time.

Maybe that’s the crux of it: that we’ve gotten so deep into the weeds and have become so enamored with the thought of unicorns that we have lost the ability to distinguish the difference between a true and lasting unicorn – and a paper tiger. Onward and forward.