8 years ago

“It’s the best time in history to be a content creator”

Watch interview CEO of Vice Media Shane Smith

Vice CEO: We’ll have to decide this year about IPO or selling company.

Vice Media will have a decision to make on whether to go public or be acquired by a larger company, its CEO said Wednesday.

“I always believe ‘strike while the iron is hot’ and we’re hot right now.”

“We’re having a very good year and at some point we’re going to be priced out of the market. So we’ll be too expensive,” Shane Smith said in an interview that aired on CNBC’s “Closing Bell.”

When asked who the ideal owner would be for the millennial-focused media company, Smith said, “going forward, I think if you look at companies like Apple, Google, Facebook, Snapchat, there’s a lot of synergies there.”

He also focused on traditional media companies that Vice already has partnerships with. Disney is a “great media company,” he said. Smith also called 21st Century Fox CEO James Rupert Murdoch a “really smart guy” who will take the company far and said Time Warner CEO Jeff Bewkes is a “great guy.”

On Wednesday, Vice announced it was expanding internationally with 50 new networks in places like Africa and India.

Photo credit: CNBC