Gerald M. Levin | |
|---|---|
| Born | (1939-05-06)May 6, 1939 |
| Died | March 13, 2024(2024-03-13) (aged 84) |
| Alma mater | Haverford College andUniversity of Pennsylvania Law School |
| Occupation | Businessman |
| Spouses | |
| Children | 5 |
Gerald "Jerry" Levin (May 6, 1939 – March 13, 2024) was an American media businessman. Levin was involved in brokering the merger betweenAOL andTime Warner in 2000, at the height of thedot-com bubble, a merger which was ultimately disadvantageous to Time Warner and described as "the biggest train wreck in the history of corporate America."[1]
Levin was born inPhiladelphia, Pennsylvania,[2] to aJewish family of Russian and Romanian origins.[3][4][5] His father was a "butter-and-eggs man" and his mother was a piano teacher.[2] He lived as a child in the suburbs of Philadelphia, inUpper Darby and thenOverbrook Hills. After graduating second in his class atLower Merion High School, where he was named to the Honor Society, he attendedHaverford College.[1] He graduated from theUniversity of Pennsylvania Law School in 1963.[6]
Levin spent most of his career withTime Inc. (laterTime Warner, thenAOL Time Warner), starting there in 1972 as a programming executive for the newHome Box Office (HBO) and eventually becoming CEO of the corporation after the ouster of his nemesis Nicholas J. Nicholas Jr. Interviewed by the journalistNina Munk, Levin would later admit: "It is absolutely true that I plotted the departure of Nick Nicholas after working with him for 20 years. And I don't have any justification for it other than I am a strange person."[1] Levin was best known for orchestrating the disastrous merger between AOL and Time Warner withSteve Case in 2000; the merger was at the height of thedot-com bubble and it destroyed $200 billion in shareholder value as the bubble collapsed. Following the deal,CNBC named him as one of the "Worst American CEOs of All Time".[7] According toThe New York Times, the merger is used by business schools as a case study of "the worst [deal] in history".[8] In her book about the deal, Munk writes, "The disastrous merger...epitomizes the culture of corporate America and Wall Street in the late 1990s. It records the climate in executive suites, where as long as a company's stock price kept going up and up, a CEO was all-powerful, like a king with divine rights."[1]
Whereas Levin had once been "perhaps the most powerful media executive in the world",[9] he largely disappeared from public view after the collapse of AOL Time Warner. In 2007, he was reported byNew York[9] to be "presiding director of Moonview Sanctuary, a “holistic healing institute” with a full-time staff of fewer than twenty people" founded by his new wife, Laurie Ann Perlman, a clinical psychologist. In 2013, he was named chairman of a start-up called Elation Media, raising $150,000 of seed funding, according to Crowdfund Insider, to launch a "live and on-demand service" with programming topics that include "alternative medicine, world peace, visionary art, personal growth and the environment."[10]
Levin was married three times and fathered five children.[11] His first wife was Carol Needleman; they divorced in 1970.[2] In 1970, he married Barbara J. Riley;[2] they divorced in 2003.[12] His third wife was Laurie Ann Perlman;[13] they divorced in 2020.[14][15]
One of his children, Jonathan Levin, a 31-year-old high school English teacher atTaft High School in the Bronx, was murdered on May 31, 1997, during a robbery by one of his former students, Corey Arthur.[16][17] The murder occurred after Jonathan had mentioned in the classroom that his father was Time Warner head Gerald Levin. Prosecutors said Arthur and alleged accomplice Montoun Hart, assuming that Jonathan was wealthy, stole Jonathan's bank card and tortured him to obtain the account'sPIN, obtaining about $800 from the account.[18] Arthur was convicted of second-degree murder and sentenced to the maximum allowed term of 25 years to life in prison in November 1998, with the judge concluding that Arthur had taken sadistic pleasure in the crime and shown no remorse. Hart was acquitted on the same charges in February 1999. While Hart had written a confession, jurors were not able to find out how it was obtained and felt it was unreliable.[19]
Jonathan Levin High School for Media and Communications inThe Bronx,New York City, is named after the murdered teacher.
Levin died at a hospital on March 13, 2024, having been diagnosed withParkinson's disease prior to his death. He was 84.[20]
Russian-Romanian.
| Business positions | ||
|---|---|---|
| Preceded by | Time Warner CEO 1992–2002 | Succeeded by |
| International | |
|---|---|
| National | |
