William B. Ziff Jr. passes away

I just heard the news, via some Ziff Davis Alumni, that William Ziff Jr. (born 1930), one of the great icons of publishing who took over Ziff-Davis Inc, from Willian Ziff Sr. in 1953, passed away in his sleep on Saturday morning. This has now been confirmed by the family.

I ran MacPublishing, a joint venture between IDG and Ziff Davis, between 1997 and 2001 by which time Ziff Davis had been sold by Bill in 1994 to Forstmann Little & Co. for $1.4 billion.  I never got to work for him but I did have the pleasure of spending a couple of days with Bill, back in 1991, at his wonderful home in Manalapan, West Palm Beach. At the time I was running Dennis Publishing, Ltd. and we were discussing the possibility of my joining Ziff Davis in the UK. The experience was remarkable and was chronicled by Forbes. Unfortunately the article is not online although I still retain a copy. Bill's insightful assessment of my personality and skill set was so remarkably accurate that when he inquired, "how he'd done" I stood up and asked how much I owed for the analysis. For a number of reasons I decided not to join Ziff Davis but when I eventually joined Ziff's arch rival, IDG in 1993, there was a personal, hand delivered letter of welcome. Bill had remarkable class. Despite his power and fame he generally stayed away from public attention and rarely gave interviews. A 1994 Wired article on Bill Ziff  appears here - Ziff Happens

I'm honored to have been able to spend some time with Bill and to work in an industry where his presence was felt everywhere.  He was one of the great architects of special interest publishing and his skills pushed us all to produce better product for our readers and for the market. My sincere condolences and respect to his wife and family.

New York Times Obituary

Bloomberg

Red Herring

PC Magazine

 

Comments

[scott briggs]

hi colin, you may recall i was present for your "interview" with bill in manalapan. altho' others were subjected to bill's peculiar notion of interviewing, your marathon set a record. we were quite disappointed when you didn't join us after all that effort!