The New Republic “needs a new vision that only a new owner can bring,” Chris Hughes, the 32-year-old Facebook co-founder who acquired the 102-year-old magazine in 2012, wrote in a memo (posted to Medium) on Monday.

Why did Chris Hughes post this at Medium rather than on The New Republic? https://t.co/aJ0QEONr99

— Ezra Klein (@ezraklein) January 11, 2016

“I will be the first to admit that when I took on this challenge nearly four years ago, I underestimated the difficulty of transitioning an old and traditional institution into a digital media company in today’s quickly evolving climate…” Hughes wrote. “The unanswered question for The New Republic remains: can it find a sustainable business model that will power its journalism in the decades to come?”

It’s not the first time Hughes has used the silver-bullet metaphor. “I wish I had a magic silver bullet that no one else in the media world has thought of,” he told WWD in 2012 shortly after acquiring the magazine. “We don’t. It’s going to be a long game.”

The New Republic's biggest asset is the fact that anyone cares it's being sold.

— Ben Thompson (@benthompson) January 11, 2016

He cited sites like BuzzFeed, ProPublica, and Vox as “bright spots,” and added, “This next chapter could take many forms. Perhaps it should be run as part of a larger digital media company, as a center-left institute of ideas, or by another passionate individual willing to invest in its future. There are many possibilities.”

It's hard enough to transition a formerly highly profitable, high-visibility traditional media brand into the digital age (e.g. NYT and WP)

— Neil Irwin (@Neil_Irwin) January 11, 2016

Taking a sub-100k circulation magazine that always lost money and turning doing that kind of transition seems, like, even harder.

— Neil Irwin (@Neil_Irwin) January 11, 2016

In December 2014, Hughes announced that he was restructuring The New Republic as “a vertically integrated media company.” That led to a big round of staff resignations: Editor Franklin Foer, literary editor Leon Wieseltier, and nearly 30 other employees chose to leave. Hughes also moved the magazine’s headquarters from Washington, D.C., to New York and cut the number of print issues published each year in half, from 20 to 10.

The magazine’s current masthead lists 54 employees including Hughes.

The New Republic received 2.3 million unique visitors in November, less than half the traffic it got before the resignations, according to comScore via The Wall Street Journal.

An unidentified source told the Journal that Hughes is already in preliminary talks and has “come to believe that a non-profit structure may ultimately be the best solution for the magazine.” Back in 2013, Hughes said, “I think it’s our challenge to ourselves, and to the world, to prove we can find a profitable model.”

David Bradley owned The Atlantic for ~11 years before it became profitable. Chris Hughes bought The New Republic less than three years ago.

— Robinson Meyer (@yayitsrob) January 11, 2016

Not that The @NewRepublic didn't need a huge shake-up. But to blow it up and then walk away — wow.

— Dan Kennedy (@dankennedy_nu) January 11, 2016