On January 10, 2000, AOL forked over $182 billion of its highly inflated stock and debt to buy Time Warner. The media giant owned Warner Bros., HBO, CNN, TBS, and Time Warner Cable, as well as Time, People, and Sports Illustrated magazines, while AOL had just 30 million subscribers to its largely dial-up service. Later, this acquisition would be dubbed by me as “the heist of the century.”
