Bet on Forbes doesn't pay off

Keith Kelly of the New York Post writes Friday about how Roger McNamee, one of the co-founders behind the investment firm Elevation Partners, has resigned from the Forbes board after its investment bet in the magazine company has filed to produce results.

Kelly writes, “The resignation is the clearest sign yet that Elevation’s bet that Forbes’ Web site would more than offset the company’s declining print business and Forbes’ future growth is falling flat.

“McNamee, a legendary investor from Silicon Valley, admitted as much to Media Ink.

“‘When we invested, we were convinced that online advertising could more than outperform any decline in print,’ said McNamee in an e-mail. ‘That view has proved to be wrong for reasons that are no fault of Forbes.

“‘The deterioration in the advertising market late last year caused Forbes and Elevation to agree that we could no longer count on Forbes.com to offset declines in print. We agreed to a strategy shift from investment in the Web to aggressive cost cutting.’

“As part of that shift, McNamee will be replaced by Elevation’s Bre Pearlman, who has a reputation as an aggressive cost-cutter.”

Read more here.