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> And the founder came from Hollywood, neither of them had real founder experience. Quibi was a disaster and Whitman was probably the wrong person to lead it —

> And the founder came from Hollywood, neither of them had real founder experience. Quibi was a disaster and Whitman was probably the wrong person to lead it — and Katzenberg the wrong person to lead the creative — but to suggest Jeffrey Katzenberg doesn’t have real founder experience is just wrong. He was a founder of what was then known as DreamWorks SKG (he’s the K) and its DreamWorks Animation division. DreamWorks was the most audacious studio since United Artists, and although DreamWorks Pictures ultimately failed, DreamWorks Animation lives on even now. But regardless, to say that he doesn’t have founded experience is flat wrong. He co-founded one of the most high-profile media companies of the last thirty years. Quibi was a disaster and we can all have a good laugh at how much it missed the mark but Katzenberg is a founder — and I would argue a damn good one — and one of the most successful producers in Hollywood history.

bredren 6y ago
I disagree. Katzenberg is who he is because of what he did for Disney Animation. The Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin and Lion King. Yes, he did well with dreamworks animation but that was much more a Hollywood studio focused on content than a technology product. It just happened to require a lot of good tech. He’s a creative producer of long form content with a ton of Hollywood cachet that is the opposite of what upstart mobile video is today. The other letters in SKG, Spielberg and Geffen seem to know better than to wade into tech. Only time software or app appears on their Wikipedia entries is a 1989 collaboration and an article about Geffen blocking public beach access. I get why a mogul like Katzenberg would want to try at the app game, others have before him. But I am not surprised he’d fail to be successful with this company. If anyone is interested in learning about Katzenberg and some of the insane power politics from his time at Disney, I recommend The Operator: David Geffen Builds, Buys, and Sells the New Hollywood.
- girvo 6y ago
  > Yes, he did well with dreamworks animation but that was much more a Hollywood studio focused on content than a technology product. It just happened to require a lot of good tech. I am not seeing the distinction, personally, I'd love some more input on this. The tech they built was their moat, from my understanding, and one of the reasons they could deliver on their creative vision in a way that few other companies did?
  - bredren 6y ago
    The point is dreamworks animation was not a tech startup the way Quibi was. Dreamworks had large Babe Ruth level swings and to some extent got very lucky with chance. Mike Meyers was not the original voice of Shrek. It was Chris Farley, who played an entirely different character. Farley died and much of the film had to be redone. While Farley was a star, he wasn’t well and there’s no telling the movie would have been a hit like it was under Meyers. Without the early success of Shrek a moat would have been over-engineering. Quibi looked like they thought it would operate under similar forces, runaway successful content made cheaply. When in fact the medium of delivery and matching algorithms are more powerful than smash content. Worrying about and being good at the former is just not like what Dreamworks did.
    - mbreese 6y ago
      > tech startup the way Quibi I think the founding theory behind Quibi was that is wasn't supposed to be a tech startup. It was a media/content start up. We largely consider Netflix a tech startup, but their technology has two main areas: distribution and recommendations. The rest of their business (and likely the larger fraction) is in content production and procurement. Quibi wasn't supposed to be a tech startup, it was all about the content. This was their primary expertise and focus. Their main differentiating factor was that they were creating content for mobile consumption. It may well be that the rapid changes in media consumption due to Covid had a major part of their downfall. That and TikTok. It's hard to compete against free, mobile-first, viral content.
swivelmaster 6y ago
I wouldn't characterize Katzenberg as a founder in the 'startup founder' sense we're used to talking about here on HN. DreamWorks was essentially built to do exactly what he had already been doing at Disney: Make and/or distribute big blockbuster films. Film production is a pretty standardized thing, as is distribution, so if you know how to make movies then you can just plug into the distribution ecosystem and off you go! Building and distributing apps is, however, not a consistently repeatable solved problem. Unlike movies, scale, budget, stars, and connections don't dramatically increase your chances of success... even if the content is great. So no, I don't think Katzenberg has the type of "founder" experience that would naturally give him an advantage in learning how to understand a market that he has no experience with. Tangentially, I was just looking at Dreamworks' filmography, and it's VERY impressive. My mind is specifically blown, though, that Steven Spielberg released Minority Report and Catch Me If You Can six months apart in the same year. That is... pretty incredible.
- richeyryan 6y ago
  Its seems that Minority Report was in the can from July 2001 though you could imagine the amount of post-production required for that movie which would lead to it being released almost a year later. Catch Me If You Can was filmed between February and May 2002 to be released on December 25th. It seems like a busy year but doable, Spielberg only stepped in to direct after Gore Verbinski dropped out because the film was delayed due to DiCaprio working on Gangs of New York. Verbinski's original casting had James Gandolfini as Hanratty and Ed Harris as Frank Sr. Verbinski ended up doing The Ring instead. Its amazing how much of Hollywood production is a string of almosts and conflicting schedules.
LASR 6y ago
The guiding principle of a service offering a library of content is CHOICE. Spotify, Netflix, Amazon - all did reasonably well against competitors since they offered more choices to the user. They built a service that deliberately imposes limitations based on platform - leaving users unable to access whatever already severely limited content library it offers. It doesn't take business experience or even any education to spot this disaster from a mile away. So I am a bit puzzled as to what these leaders were thinking.

bredren 6y ago

I disagree. Katzenberg is who he is because of what he did for Disney Animation. The Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin and Lion King. Yes, he did well with dreamworks animation but that was much more a Hollywood studio focused on content than a technology product. It just happened to require a lot of good tech. He’s a creative producer of long form content with a ton of Hollywood cachet that is the opposite of what upstart mobile video is today. The other letters in SKG, Spielberg and Geffen seem to know better than to wade into tech. Only time software or app appears on their Wikipedia entries is a 1989 collaboration and an article about Geffen blocking public beach access. I get why a mogul like Katzenberg would want to try at the app game, others have before him. But I am not surprised he’d fail to be successful with this company. If anyone is interested in learning about Katzenberg and some of the insane power politics from his time at Disney, I recommend The Operator: David Geffen Builds, Buys, and Sells the New Hollywood.

girvo 6y ago
> Yes, he did well with dreamworks animation but that was much more a Hollywood studio focused on content than a technology product. It just happened to require a lot of good tech. I am not seeing the distinction, personally, I'd love some more input on this. The tech they built was their moat, from my understanding, and one of the reasons they could deliver on their creative vision in a way that few other companies did?
- bredren 6y ago
  The point is dreamworks animation was not a tech startup the way Quibi was. Dreamworks had large Babe Ruth level swings and to some extent got very lucky with chance. Mike Meyers was not the original voice of Shrek. It was Chris Farley, who played an entirely different character. Farley died and much of the film had to be redone. While Farley was a star, he wasn’t well and there’s no telling the movie would have been a hit like it was under Meyers. Without the early success of Shrek a moat would have been over-engineering. Quibi looked like they thought it would operate under similar forces, runaway successful content made cheaply. When in fact the medium of delivery and matching algorithms are more powerful than smash content. Worrying about and being good at the former is just not like what Dreamworks did.
  - mbreese 6y ago
    > tech startup the way Quibi I think the founding theory behind Quibi was that is wasn't supposed to be a tech startup. It was a media/content start up. We largely consider Netflix a tech startup, but their technology has two main areas: distribution and recommendations. The rest of their business (and likely the larger fraction) is in content production and procurement. Quibi wasn't supposed to be a tech startup, it was all about the content. This was their primary expertise and focus. Their main differentiating factor was that they were creating content for mobile consumption. It may well be that the rapid changes in media consumption due to Covid had a major part of their downfall. That and TikTok. It's hard to compete against free, mobile-first, viral content.

swivelmaster 6y ago

I wouldn't characterize Katzenberg as a founder in the 'startup founder' sense we're used to talking about here on HN. DreamWorks was essentially built to do exactly what he had already been doing at Disney: Make and/or distribute big blockbuster films. Film production is a pretty standardized thing, as is distribution, so if you know how to make movies then you can just plug into the distribution ecosystem and off you go! Building and distributing apps is, however, not a consistently repeatable solved problem. Unlike movies, scale, budget, stars, and connections don't dramatically increase your chances of success... even if the content is great. So no, I don't think Katzenberg has the type of "founder" experience that would naturally give him an advantage in learning how to understand a market that he has no experience with. Tangentially, I was just looking at Dreamworks' filmography, and it's VERY impressive. My mind is specifically blown, though, that Steven Spielberg released Minority Report and Catch Me If You Can six months apart in the same year. That is... pretty incredible.

richeyryan 6y ago
Its seems that Minority Report was in the can from July 2001 though you could imagine the amount of post-production required for that movie which would lead to it being released almost a year later. Catch Me If You Can was filmed between February and May 2002 to be released on December 25th. It seems like a busy year but doable, Spielberg only stepped in to direct after Gore Verbinski dropped out because the film was delayed due to DiCaprio working on Gangs of New York. Verbinski's original casting had James Gandolfini as Hanratty and Ed Harris as Frank Sr. Verbinski ended up doing The Ring instead. Its amazing how much of Hollywood production is a string of almosts and conflicting schedules.

LASR 6y ago

The guiding principle of a service offering a library of content is CHOICE. Spotify, Netflix, Amazon - all did reasonably well against competitors since they offered more choices to the user. They built a service that deliberately imposes limitations based on platform - leaving users unable to access whatever already severely limited content library it offers. It doesn't take business experience or even any education to spot this disaster from a mile away. So I am a bit puzzled as to what these leaders were thinking.