Gawker Kingpin Explains Gothamist Sale

Gawker Media honcho Nick Denton offers a perspective on the announcement yesterday of the sale of Gothamist to Rainbow Media, which is owned by Cablevision. “It’s subject to long-term capital gains — but also to New York State tax. So that’s at least a quarter off. Let’s say Jake and Jen end up with $1.5m each. That sounds like a lot; but they’ve been at the job seven years. And my understanding is that the contract would require them to stick around for another three, making a decade in total. So that works out as about $150,000 per year — plus any compensation under the employment agreement they get from Cablevision.” He adds: “for several years they took very little out of Gothamist. Jen was working for Olive Garden and Jake did web consulting on the side.”