Love him or hate him, Gawker Media overlord Nick Denton and his army of blogs have taken over the Web since first marching on print journalism in the early ‘00s. The new media mogul helped define “snark,” and has proceeded to saturate the public conscious in it. But aside from defining style on the rugged Internet frontier, the once-traditional journalist is above all a businessman. Denton’s controversial decision to pay bloggers bonuses based on traffic (and later unique visits) gives credence to accusations likening his company to a “sweatshop,” in the words of ex-employee and founding editor of the political blog Wonkette Ana Marie Cox. Questionable journalism ethics—like a history of burning sources and pursuing scoops at all costs, as in the time one of his minions stumbled upon a then-top-secret iPhone prototype and proceeded to blogged about it—don’t help Denton with bad press. But he’s laughing all the way to the bank, with 24/7 Wall St. estimating his company’s value at $300 million. And to think, for years Denton ran the company out of his SoHo apartment.