Vice Media
- 🦄Became a unicorn2014
- 📈Peak valuation$5.7 Billion ’17
- 💔Became a UnitardMay 2023
- 💸Last valuationWiped out
How it happened
Vice Media grew from a punk magazine into an edgy digital-media empire spanning Vice News, an HBO show and a sprawling video operation, peaking at a ~$5.7B valuation in 2017 on investment from Disney, A+E Networks and TPG. Mounting losses and a collapsing digital-ad market gutted it; in May 2023 it filed for Chapter 11, and lenders Fortress, Soros Fund Management and Monroe Capital bought it out of bankruptcy at around $350M. Glassdoor reviews read like a countdown — near-quarterly layoff rounds, unpaid vendors knocking office software offline, staff learning of cuts from press reports or mass emails — and employees seethed that executive bonuses kept flowing while laid-off colleagues waited months for severance.
Employee accounts paraphrase anonymous, unverified reviews posted publicly on Glassdoor ↗. See our methodology.
Source: NPR / Variety / Axios ($5.7B peak valuation 2017 on Disney/A+E/TPG money; Chapter 11 May 2023; ~$350M sale to Fortress, Soros Fund Management and Monroe Capital, 2023)
