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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 w

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.

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.