Cultures clash as more brands buy media companies

A number of brands have parted ways with editorial entities they’ve acquired in recent months, as cultural clashes and personality mismatches prove challenging to navigate.  Penn Entertainment’s purchase of Barstool Sports came to an abrupt end last month, after a series of incidents that pitted the media company’s brash hosts against the highly regulated industry Penn operates within. At Stripe, IndieHackers was bought back by its founders earlier this year, citing a desire for independence. And at Robinhood, the Snacks podcast was reclaimed by its founders who spun it out as an independent company.  Whether to build or buy has been a hot topic for a few years as more brands have sought to “own” audiences and lower customer acquisition costs using content. As Kyl