Rolling Stone magazine founder Jann Wenner is putting up his controlling stake in the company for sale, his company Wenner Media announced Sunday in a press release.
“I love my job, I enjoy it, I’ve enjoyed it for a long time,” Wenner told The New York Times. He said that letting go is “just the smart thing to do.”
“There’s a level of ambition that we can’t achieve alone,” said Wenner’s 27-year-old son Gus, who is chief operating officer of Wenner Media, Rolling Stone’s parent company. “So we are being proactive and want to get ahead of the curve. Publishing is a completely different industry than what it was. The trends go in one direction, and we are very aware of that.”
Both father and son said they will stay on at Wenner Media, the Times reported. Their decision to sell comes after several other famous editors have chosen to step down of late — Graydon Carter of Vanity Fair, Robbie Meyers of Elle, Nancy Gibbs of Time and Cindi Lieve of Glamour have all announced their exit from their respective publications.
“Rolling Stone has played such a role in the history of our times, socially and politically and culturally,” said the elder Wenner. “We want to retain that position.”
Rolling Stone has been an iconic part of pop culture for 50 years. Nonetheless, the Wenners have been whittling away at the assets in their media company over the last few years. Wenner Media recently sold its other two magazines, Us Weekly and Men’s Journal, and sold a 49 percent stake in Rolling Stone last year to BandLab Technologies, according to the Times report.