The past few months have been dizzying for big digital media upstarts, with BuzzFeed and Vox Media earning sky-high valuations and, just this week, Business Insider selling to Axel Springer in a deal valuing BI at near $450 million. They represent some amount of panic by traditional media companies behind all three deals, but they also represent a vindication for the early wave of digital media companies that had legions of doubters, according to Bryan Goldberg, co-founder of Bleacher Report and founder of millennial women’s site Bustle.
