Francisco Gonzales traces Multimedios from radio and TV into print, digital, and cable. The group's strategy: reinvest profits instead of paying dividends, year after year. Family unity and strong governance kept the company stable as Netflix and Google reshaped media.
Kids, what you said caught my attention, didn't it? No, it wasn't about accumulating money, it wasn't about power. But a media company with the number of radio stations now, television channels, magazines and newspapers that they have. I mean, it's not for nothing that they call it the fourth estate, right? And you. Well, this construction of the group took place at a time when perhaps you won't agree with me, but it was still the fourth estate. It was what moved the other three. How did you experience that? Because I know that you've also been very good and you've had relationships with many local and foreign leaders. How did you experience this influence that perhaps through your father, your grandfather, the group, your family had? Indeed, it all starts at the foundation of the media. And it's strange, huh? Because we started in radio and television and then we went to print media and then art of home, to digital, outdoor, cable, etc. Because, well, normally it was the print media, right at that time, the reigning rule. But since I can remember, there were no dividends, it was reinvestment year after year. Everything that was earned in the media was invested in real estate and other businesses. Yes, we grew up in the media ecosystem, but the drive to create and undertake was always greater, always hand in hand with many professionals that honestly, we were successful, which is something that is not seen very often. Because talking about family businesses, and I tell you, in my country there are multiple cases of value destruction because there is no solid route between families, or where family is rewarded over professionalism, or where there is no good relationship between siblings, or where diversification was so much that they over leveraged themselves and went bankrupt, or where crises occurred. I think we have been fortunate that we have grown up with very good values and principles, that we remain super united. We are four brothers, two sisters, Jesus and me, Patricia, Valeria, Jesus, me. I am Machiko. We have managed what it means to be behind a communications group that fortunately has crossed borders. We have operations in several countries. Our strength is in Mexico, but we have managed the pressures, the successes, the failures, the challenges. I once wrote that with the incursion of big tech companies. I remember when I was studying in Austin, I received Netflix on Disc in 1999. It's in my software year as an industrial engineer and I know you're also an industrial engineer. And then Google came along and then Yahoo came along and we said, hey, this has changed. So when Covid hit, I mean, it's already our second Covid, that the media, you know how it's transformed and my grandfather's vision of calling the group's sub holding company multimedia, which has to do with media, was because he knew that everything, or he thought that everything, was going to converge. If right now we were in just one media vertical, it would be.
