The Internet jabbed a knife into legacy media, and millennials twisted. Millennials are America’s largest generational cohort and consumer group. The problem is certain companies—especially the media titans—were never sure how to approach the defiant, smart-phone wielding bunch. They don’t pay for cable TV. News is a birthright, not an expense. The audacious idea that they would pay for ad-riddled television was met with cord-cutting. And only 40% of millennials pay for a news subscription. These developments are chilling to media companies and their corporate counterparts who fork over billions in advertising dollars.

It follows that a media company with the superpower to influence and engage millennials might be worth something.  Vice Media, which started as a Montreal–based punk rock magazine in the 90’s, is a household name among Gen Y. The digital media darling churns out edgy and millennial-centric news and content—from documentaries on drug use in the US to reporting on wars in far flung corners of the world—across a bevy of mediums including its websites and television station as well as social platforms YouTube and Snapchat. Over the summer TPG, the seminal buyout group, invested $450 million in Vice. The investment values the company at $5.7 billion, nearly double what the New York Times would garner in a sale today. And Vice is worth every penny.

But why is Vice the answer? Their billion dollar CEO looks like a House of Blues Bouncer. They publish lewd headlines about German sex dolls and generally possess a penchant for embracing political incorrectness. The company’s smash mouth style has done little to curb its skyrocketing valuation nor has it deterred industry incumbents like Disney and Rupert Murdoch from hurling financing at the upstart. The centerpiece of Vice’s value proposition is that it understands millennials in a deep, genuine way that mature companies both inside and outside of media do not. For the right price, Vice leverages its Gen Y savvy to help make other products cool too.

Vice’s differentiator is branded content, advertising that weaves together a legitimate, well-reported narrative about a brand or product. An example is Nike paying for a video detailing the history of its famed SB Dunks. It’s not wrong to say Vice is doing the work of Madison Avenue; Vice helps brands build an image and tell a story. From a business standpoint, Vice’s reliance on branded content isn’t a bad thing. Vice does not suffer from the illusion it will make money selling news. The WSJ reported most of Vice’s $800 million in projected revenue for 2016 would come from branded content. It doesn’t hurt that Vice has sharpened its journalistic credibility, either.  Rugged reporting assignments have included embedding a reporter in ISIS and sneaking founder Shane Smith into North Korea to film a covert video series.

Critics, including Vice’s defunct digital rival Gawker, have asserted Vice is capturing the attention of hip consumers and selling their attention to the very corporate monoliths those consumers eschew.  Shane Smith vigorously denies that corporate customers dictate Vice’s storytelling.  The truth is an investor doesn’t care where Vice’s allegiances lie. Vice has 25 million monthly visitors on its websites and access to another 25 million through sites that pay Vice to handle ad sales. In comparison, the NYT has about 80 million monthly visitors. Vice helps connect those millennial eyeballs to hip brands like Nike and unhip brands like Dell. It also teams with legacy media companies like CNN to help them get a seat at the cool table.  And for its services Vice earns $800 million a year in revenue.

Using the $450 million from TPG, Vice plans to pursue scripted programming and international expansion. However, solid reporting and lofty corporate ambitions aren’t enough to bring a media company to the Promised Land. But mix those attributes with a knack for understanding millennials, and an ability to turn that understanding into revenue, and the new face of media begins to emerge. Millennials are elusive, but their buying power is too large to ignore.  Companies, media and otherwise, must find ways to appeal to them.  For now, Vice owns the keys to the kingdom, and rightfully, a $6 billion dollar price tag.