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Who owns Pornhub's parent company MindGeek? Net worth and everything about Montreal pornography conglomerate

In 2013, MindGeek was described as 'the largest adult entertainment operator globally.' They currently generate more traffic than Amazon, Facebook, or Twitter, trailing only behind Google and Netflix in terms of bandwidth consumed
UPDATED DEC 17, 2020
(Getty Images)
(Getty Images)

After 40 women in California launched an $80 million lawsuit against PornHub's parent company, MindGeek, details are spilling about this pornography conglomerate founded in Montreal, Canada. Besides PornHub, MindGeek owns and operates a long list of the biggest porn sites on the internet like Brazzers, RedTube, YouPorn, XTube, Reality Kings and others.

Even though it refers to itself as an "IT company", the massive suit details how it partnered and profited from videos made by a sex trafficking operation 'GirlsDoPorn'. MindGeek's reach is global, with offices in the US, Cyprus, Romania, Canada, and the UK, and its pockets are very deep. It was once also referred to as the "Not-so-secret tech giant of Montreal" by McGill University's 'The Bull & Bear' business magazine.

While MindGeek, formerly also called Mansef and Manwin, is legally headquartered in Luxembourg, its main office is still in Montreal. It was established over a decade ago by student programmers from Concordia University — Stephane Manos, Ouissam Youssef, Feras Antoon, and Matt Keezer.

In 2013, the adult industry news website XBIZ described MindGeek as “the largest adult entertainment operator globally.” They currently generate more traffic than Amazon, Facebook, or Twitter, trailing only behind Google and Netflix in terms of bandwidth consumed.

Pornhub alone has around 3.5 billion users every month and attracts about 120 million visitors daily. It makes its money through banner ads which advertisers pay for. It also has some premium pay-for-content videos and media. It reported revenues worth $460 million in 2015, which has only grown since.

In 2012, the then owner Fabian Thylmann, a young German programmer, was arrested on charges of tax evasion. In 2010, Thylmann had bought MindGeek's porn-related properties for $140 million and spent another $360 million buying other adult websites. But his legal troubles brought him low and led to the sale of the company back to founding member Feras Antoon and David Marmorstein Tassillo for the low price of $100 million. But as of December 2020, Pornhub alone has a net worth of $1.5 billion.

Feras Antoon is now the CEO, while David Marmorstein Tassillo is the COO. So who are Antoon and Tassillo exactly? Antoon is Canadian and an engineering graduate of Concordia University, involved in creating not just Manwin (or MindGeek as it later came to be called) but also Brazzers. Less is known about Tassillo but he is referred to as the "Jewish Porn King" and once was also an engineering student at Concordia University in the early 2000s.

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