Last week, I shared a post about Roy Thomson’s strategy for growing his media empire. It focused on cash flow. He bought small-town newspapers, many of them monopolies in their communities, that had strong cash flows. The newspapers were low to no growth in some cases but generated healthy cash. Roy then used those yearly cash flows to purchase more cash-flowing newspapers and other media assets.

I’m now reading Newhouse: All the Glitter, Power, & Glory of America's Richest Media Empire & the Secretive Man Behind It by Thomas Maier. It’s about Samuel “Si” Newhouse Jr. and his family’s media empire. This billionaire family owns numerous newspapers through Advance Publications and also owns Condé Nast, which publishes famous magazines like Vogue, Vanity Fair, GQ, and The New Yorker. Advance Publications owned 26.5% of Reddit when it began trading on the public stock market this year (see here, page 194). As of this writing, Reddit’s market capitalization (i.e., valuation) is just under $12 billion.

As I read more about Si and his family’s growth strategy for their media empire, I see that it’s similar to that of the Thomson family and others, including Warren Buffett and Mark Leonard of Constellation Software. The Newhouse family initially purchased cash-flowing newspapers and used the cash from those businesses to buy more businesses. They’ve done this over decades and built a sizable empire.

It’s notable that several people (and families) who’ve achieved outsize business success have used a similar strategy.

I’m curious to learn more about the Newhouse empire and family members, especially the patriarch, Samuel Irving Newhouse Sr.