one year of independence

Jonah Peretti, co-founder and CEO of Buzzfeed, sent this memo in 2019 to his employees and other close friends and associates to share his vision on how to save the internet.

for all the criticisms (some fair, some not) I’ve seen levied at this space by non-believers, I’ve seen, with my own eyes, magic being made nearly every day — through refreshed optimism, through hard work done fast, through groups coming together to do what individuals alone cannot.

The first thing I’ve come to learn is that pursuing something as open-ended as internet reform requires intentional scoping and goal-setting. The New Internet was never a single thing. It was fractured and messily connected from the jump. This messiness was used as feedstock to accelerate its consolidation under what became the crypto industry. It ... See more