VICE's Bankruptcy Filings Show That Its Executives Cashed Out On $1 Million Of Bonuses Just Before Laying Off 100+ Employees Who Still Haven't Been Paid Severance
Yikes. Another sad update to the downfall of VICE Media, which was once worth $5.7 billion, that seems to just get worse and worse with each passing day. Twitter users are now joining in waves saying that Vice also owes them money, including $100,000 of unpaid bills to a Brooklyn gardening company? What type of gardening services were they getting? There's 139 pages of its recent filings with the US Bankruptcy Court, which you can read in its entirety here if you're bored, but the most alarming part is the tweet above about its bonuses given to executives totaling over a million only weeks before they laid off a bunch of minimum salary employees.
Cuts in media are unfortunately common these days, and this blog would be 10000 words if I listed each one that has happened recently, but the VICE story is truly remarkably ugly stuff. There's clearly money in media and journalism, and it's proven by these execs that are out eating $6,000 comped dinners knowing it's all about to crash down. The craziest part about VICE is that they apparently had $1.6 billion in funding that disappeared in less than a decade. Listen, I love those documentaries where they send some nerd to go film some cartels too, but A BILLION AND A HALF DOLLARS? Portnoy has ran this pirate ship for much much much less.
The Head of HR getting an extra $100k for firing everyone is quite the plot twist. I could sit here and link a bunch of tweets of random freelancers that say they're still owed thousands from VICE, but you can just go on Twitter and search "Vice owes me money" for that. Just some silly executive decisions all in all that will end up biting VICE in the ass in court. This whole thing reminds me of that story a few months ago when the CEO of MillerKnoll said sorry guys, no bonuses this year, except for my 4 million dollar one. There's a lot more to come on this VICE stuff, especially since the bankruptcy just filed, and it's certain to get far uglier. Just one giant yikes all around.