7 ms·

The CEO of Quibi, Meg Whitman, admitted to not being an entertainment enthusiast. [1] I realize that a company CEO doesn't need to be a subject matter expert,

• mchusma 6y ago
  I think this hits the core of the problem on the head, that Katzenberg and Whitman thought they knew what millennials wanted, but they simply did not. They thought millennials wanted "shorter" based on the success of tiktok/instagram/etc. But their content was too long to be short. And the "golden age of TV" we are in basically proves that people don't really want shorter in scripted content. If anything, we want deeper stories. Novellas have never outsold novels. Movies were an outlier for a while, based on the fact it was so hard to produce content, but even movies are now becoming trilogy's+. Youtube is hugely successful because it satisfies niche content, the length is irrelevant. They thought it should be "mobile", but by limiting it to mobile they meant that you could only watch part of the time. Netflix is perfectly fine on mobile. The switching back and forth thing feels like a novelty like 1 time then you just do whatever you want and stick with that. Its also hard for creators as you don't know how people will use it, so you have to make it "worse in landscape" and "worse in portrait" so people can watch on either method. I absolutely LOVE people taking big risks on ideas. This was just a bad idea from the start. I wish they would have blown $1.8B on some shoot the moon healthcare idea or something.
  • notJim 6y ago
    > But their content was too long to be short Totally right, imo. I might be old and out of touch, but to me 10 minutes is way too long for content on mobile, and short enough to be kind of annoying on anything else. I'd rather watch a 25 or 30 minute show if I want something short on TV.
    • r7ry4g4xtyg 6y ago
      I can't help but wonder if this actually holds up under scrutiny. I liked Quibi a lot, the problem for me was always the extreme lack of content. If anything long format media feels tedious to me these days and I lean towards TikTok and YouTube for that reason. The problem that ultimately drove me away from Quibi was the absolute shortage of content. With even a little more content it might have worked for someone with a 30 minute commute but for someone locked inside due to Coronavirus there's just no way that their tiny library was worth the price.
  • TillE 6y ago
    This reminds me of how business types have somehow convinced themselves that the success of franchises like Chipotle is due to "choice", that people really care about choice in fast food nowadays. As if being able to pick from different types of beans was the key differentiator, and not making a popular type of food (not otherwise available at a national chain) and doing it pretty well. A more interesting, much smaller risk would've been something like a sketch comedy show where every clip is under a minute (Tiktok style). Yeah a ton of amateurs are already doing stuff like that, but - hire them!
    • webinvest 6y ago
      Lol, Chipotle is popular with me because you get good quality food that’s healthy enough to touch most areas of the food pyramid all in one meal. Also a filling amount of food at a fair price.
  • mruniverse 6y ago
    I don't know, seemed kind of unique. It could have taken off. I can see another startup picking up this format and doing it better. Or maybe Youtube could just do it and add it to their offerings.
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• fastball 6y ago
  Wow, people are still hiring Meg Whitman for CEO roles? Interesting.
  • cultus 6y ago
    It seems sometimes you just need to hit a certain level of status and then you fail upward from there.
  • jedberg 6y ago
    I've worked for and with Meg. She's brilliant. She's a very good manager when it comes to taking a successful business and making it a lot more successful. She's not so good at taking something that is new or failing and making it good. She definitely made eBay much bigger than it would have been without her, but it was already successful and growing when she joined. She ran HPE into the ground because it was already failing. She didn't succeed with Quibi because she doesn't know about how to find market fit.
    • EugeneG 6y ago
      What makes her brilliant/a good manager? Just curious about what specific habits made her stand out to you/
      • jedberg 6y ago
        She was good at setting a vision, expressing that vision, and making sure it was being followed and getting her direct reports to move things in the direction she wanted. As far as brilliant, I'm referring to raw intelligence. You could tell her new information and she would instantly digest it and apply that to new areas. Also, if you were in a meeting with her once, she'd remember you and what you talked about. If you mentioned that you had kids for example, the next time she saw you months later she'd ask how your kids are, for example.
    • fastball 6y ago
      You can be brilliant and a good manager while still not being a good CEO. If you can only do well in a company that already has a bright future ahead of it (with or without you), are you a good CEO? Is finding and maintaining P/M fit not the primary role of a CEO?
• dkdbejwi383 6y ago
  > not being an entertainment enthusiast What does this even mean?
  • taytus 6y ago
    Not interested in movies/TV/videogames I asume.
    • dkdbejwi383 6y ago
      Seems such a strange statement to make. I could understand someone saying they don't like action films for example, but to state that you don't enjoy any film and entirely reject the notion of being entertained is rather bizarre.
      • taytus 6y ago
        It’s also bizarre to shut down a startup with $1.7B in funding after only six months. So I will say that statement is very much on brand.
• axaxs 6y ago
  Maybe after her string of failures she can just admit to not being a very good CEO. Before anyone argues I'm being mean, just read her Wiki page.
• weare138 6y ago
  Who knew the former CEO of Hewlett Packard Enterprise wasn't a good choice to run an online entertainment media startup targeting young people? 'How do you do fellow kids?'
  • jariel 6y ago
    Jeff Katzenberg, the co-founder, has been 'making content and selling to kids' for 40 years to the tune of literally Billions. Star Trek films, The Little Mermaid, The Lion King, Shrek, How to Train your Dragon etc. etc. - just huge, monster titles. Whitman was the 'Business Person'. That said, the content format is really quite different, and it's hard to predict how '5 minute bits' would work, and they spent possibly way too much money on it, it would have been better to 'start small', to find the format that works, and then spend a fortune - which is probably something that Meg should have understood given her background in the Valley.
    • dhagz 6y ago
      > Jeff Katzenberg, the co-founder, has been 'making content and selling to kids' for 40 years to the tune of literally Billions. Star Trek films, The Little Mermaid, The Lion King, Shrek, How to Train your Dragon etc. etc. - just huge, monster titles. My argument against this point is simple: few of those were original content conceived by Katzenberg/DreamWorks/Disney. They were existing stories (most already successful as books). The only things I can see in his filmography that are possibly original and hugely successful are Star Trek: The Motion Picture, Kung Fu Panda, and Madagascar, Road to El Dorado, and _maybe_ Chicken Run.
• mruniverse 6y ago
  It was puzzling when she ran for governor. It didn't seem like she was interested in politics. It seemed like, "Well, what to do now..."
• ashtonkem 6y ago
  I'd argue that the CEO really should be a subject matter expert for the business domain. They can be ignorant on how it's all put together, that's the CTOs job, but they really should understand the domain. I think the thing that confuses people is that the true domain for some companies isn't what the end consumer sees. I worked for a car website for a while, and very few of the executives were really car people. But they were all incredible experts on how dealerships worked, and that was actually what our business was, not how cars work.
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• _zamorano_ 6y ago
  Perhaps, for an established company with a stable business and income going on, the CEO can afford being somewhat ignorant of the field they work for. But for an up and coming company, everybody in the top ranks should be involved and knowledgable of subject at hand
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