It owned and published over 100 magazine brands, including its namesake Time, Sports Illustrated, Travel + Leisure, Food & Wine, Fortune, People, InStyle, Life, Golf Magazine, Southern Living, Essence, Real Simple, and Entertainment Weekly.

Time Inc. also co-operated over 60 websites and digital-only titles including MyRecipes, Extra Crispy, TheSnug, HelloGiggles, and MIMI.

Nightly discussions of the concept of a news magazine led its founders Henry Luce and Briton Hadden, both age 23, to quit their jobs in 1922.

Historian Alan Brinkley argues the move was "badly mistaken", for had Luce been allowed to travel, he would have been an enthusiastic cheerleader for American forces around the globe.

[12] Luce, who remained editor-in-chief of all his publications until 1964, maintained a position as an influential member of the Republican Party.

An instrumental figure behind the so-called "China Lobby", he played a large role in steering American foreign policy and popular sentiment in favor of Nationalist leader Chiang Kai-shek and his wife Soong Mei-ling in their war against the Japanese.

[20] During the summer of that same year, Paramount Communications (formerly Gulf and Western Industries) launched a $12.2 billion hostile bid to acquire Time Inc. in an attempt to end a stock swap merger deal between Time and Warner Communications.

[38] On January 14, 2014, Time Inc. announced that Colin Bodell was joining the company in the newly created position of executive vice president and chief technology officer.

[46][47] In July 2015, Time Inc. acquired League Athletics in Tucson, SportsSignup in Saratoga Springs, and iScore in Los Alamitos.

[52] On February 11, 2016, Time Inc. announced that it has acquired Viant, a leading people based marketing platform and owner of MySpace.

[60][61] Prior to the sale closing in January 2018, Time Inc. sold Essence Communications to Richelieu Dennis, the founder of hair- and skin-care products maker Sundial Brands.

[63] In March 2018, only six weeks after the closure of the deal, Meredith announced that it would lay off 1,200 employees, and explore the sale of Time, Fortune, Money, and Sports Illustrated.

[66] In September 2018, Meredith announced that it would re-sell Time to Marc Benioff and his wife Lynne for $190 million.

[67] In November 2018, Meredith announced to sell Fortune to Thai businessman Chatchaval Jiaravanon for $150 million.

[68][69] In December 2021, Meredith was acquired by IAC's Dotdash and became Dotdash Meredith;[70][71] Barry Diller, the head of IAC,[71] had previous relations with Time Inc. in the early 1980s when he was head of Paramount and helped make Time Inc. at one point a co-owner of the USA Network.

This incidentally, did not apply to their 153 New Bond Street, London W1Y0AA UK premises; it too was baptized "Time & Life Building" when it was built in 1951–53 as the then-European headquarters of "Time & Life International, Ltd.", but contrary to its New York City counterparts, it kept the name after the company had vacated the premises in late-August 2009.

[76] In the early years, when the company was just Time magazine, Luce served as business manager while Hadden was editor-in-chief, and they annually alternated the positions of president and secretary-treasurer.

On Hadden's sudden death in 1929 Luce took his position and business management was entrusted to Roy E. Larsen, who had been one of their first hires.

Luce cultivated a philosophy of "church and state", where the editorial and business management were separate up to the board of directors level.

[77] McManus left the board of what had become Time Warner shortly before retiring,[78] and his replacement Norman Pearlstine and successors John Huey (2006–2012) and Martha Nelson (2013) were never directors of the parent.

The Time, Inc. (the comma remained part of the formal title until the Warner merger but the company ceased to use it in 1933)[83] corporate entity diversified out of publishing in the 1970s and 1980s, purchasing what was later spun off as Temple-Inland paper company and various broadcasting and cable television operations such as HBO and what became Time Warner Cable.