Laurene Powell Jobs — Steve Jobs’ widow — claims she named her charitable organization the Emerson Collective after Ralph Waldo Emerson, in honor of his essay “Self-Reliance.”
It just so happens Emerson Street was also the location of her first date with Steve. Coincidence? We think not.
Anyway, Emerson is equipped with $1.8B+ in assets and has recently been working to instill self-reliance in American journalism.
“Journalism is a cornerstone of our democracy…
… and we see that it’s dying,” Emerson’s director of media told the Columbia Journalism Review. “We want to try and help save it.”
Today, Emerson looks like a charitable VC firm. While its ~$250m investments in journalism include $37m to nonprofits, it also includes $110m for a 70% stake in The Atlantic.
Aside from The Atlantic — whose paywall brought in ~400k subscribers in 2020 — Emerson is also invested in for-profit media firms Axios, The Athletic, Anonymous Content, and Pushkin Industries.
Emerson is run like a business
The organization’s structure as an LLC — though mainly for privacy purposes — is symbolic of the fact that Powell Jobs expects investments will turn a profit.
In May, The Atlantic laid off 68 employees as revenue sunk. Then in August, Emerson cut ties with Pop Up Magazine, whose pre-COVID projections had it losing $3m in 2020.
Still, this could likely only be the beginning of Emerson’s foray into media. Last year, Powell Jobs told the New York Times her fortune “ends with me.”
**Pulls out calculator**… There’s a solid $22B+ to go.
