Patricia Nilsson’s Book Exposes Porn Billionaires, Tracing 5 Years of Hidden Ownership
Updated
Updated · The Guardian · Sep 29
Patricia Nilsson’s Book Exposes Porn Billionaires, Tracing 5 Years of Hidden Ownership
1 articles · Updated · The Guardian · Sep 29
Summary
Five years of reporting underpin Patricia Nilsson’s new book, which argues the biggest online porn groups are controlled by largely anonymous bankers and tech operators rather than public-facing moguls.
Bernd Bergmair — the ex-Goldman Sachs banker who owned MindGeek from 2013 to 2023 — is presented as a model case: a secretive investor focused on dividends, not pornography, while Pornhub later removed millions of unverified videos in 2020.
Nilsson says that opacity makes regulation harder because sites can multiply across jurisdictions, shielding owners from public scrutiny even as MindGeek was sold in 2023 to Canadian private equity firm Ethical Capital Partners and renamed Aylo.
Her broader argument is that porn’s business logic now shapes the wider internet: streaming, creator monetisation, addictive feeds and shock-driven content all migrated from adult platforms into social media and online culture.
The book also links the rise of online sex work to economic pressure, arguing that for many women the turn to explicit content reflects a harsher labor market and a normalized culture of monetizing personal exposure.