You'd have thought that a job running North American ad sales for Google was sufficiently demanding, and sufficiently rewarding, to occupy any mortal executive. But not for Tim Armstrong, one of the search engine's most ambitious execs. Armstrong, whose bio boasts he's one of 100 "people to know" in global media, has an extraordinary side gig, at a startup called Associated Content.
I presume he got the official nod for his outside directorship, but Armstrong's involvement in the "people's media company" goes way beyond a monthly board meeting: word is the busy Google exec is spending one or two days a week on the project, and helping the company raise $10m in funding, in a deal which would value the startup at $40m.
So, how is an embryonic startup, which pays writers to write filler articles on arcane subjects such as ocular migraines, worth quite so much? Well, Associated Content, beneath the guise of a media company, is a cynical search engine ploy, and these articles are designed to be accompanied with plenty of text advertising. And who's going to supply the advertising? Well, Tim Armstrong's other employer, Google, of course. How cosy.
