Mic is an American internet and media company based in New York City that caters to millennials. Originally known as PolicyMic, it rose to prominence after its on-the-ground coverage of the Tunisian Revolution in 2011. In April 2014, the company reached 19 million unique monthly visitors. On November 29, 2018, Mic laid off the majority of their staff—60 to 70 people—after Facebook canceled a deal to publish a news video series. History Mic was co-founded in 2011 as PolicyMic by Chris Altchek and Jake Horowitz, two high school friends from New York. In January 2014, the two were named to the annual list of Forbes 30 Under 30. In 2014, the company announced it would re-brand their organization to target millennials, renaming themselves as "Mic". The company purchased the domain name for a reported $500,000 and explained the name change as the company reflecting its "expanded focus and bold vision." Later in 2014, Chris Miles, the managing editor of news, was fired over allegations of plagiarism. Mic's news director, Jared Keller, was fired in February 2015 after the blog website Gawker found various levels of plagiarism in 20 different passages of his work. In March 2016, Mic acquired curated video app Hyper as well its developer, AntiHero. Past advisors to the company include David Shipley, executive editor of Bloomberg View and former op-ed page editor at The New York Times, and Jacob Lewis, the former managing editor of The New Yorker. Allison Goldberg, senior vice president of Time Warner Investments, joined Mic's board of directors in April 2017. Mic senior reporter Jack Smith IV was fired in September 2018 after several sexual misconduct accusations against him were published on Jezebel. On November 29, 2018, a majority of the staff were laid off after Facebook canceled a video deal with the company. Altchek notified staff during an all-hands meeting, saying that "Facebook caught us by surprise at a really bad time" and that "The majority of the teams including people, finance, HR, productions, video, editorial, marketing, revenue and executive team will be departing, effective today." The same day, Mic was sold to Bustle Media Group for less than $5 million, which was a fraction of the "hundreds of millions" that Altchek said the site was worth in 2017. Content Since 2018, Mic has produced video content covering social justice and progressive issues, described as "serious issues important to young people", distributed