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Well that strategy has worked for other things. They’re not dumb. They took a bet. Not all bets work out Podcasts probably just aren’t that profitable. They j

Well that strategy has worked for other things. They’re not dumb. They took a bet. Not all bets work out Podcasts probably just aren’t that profitable. They just don’t have the same pull like a TV show, plus they’re so cheap to produce so there’s always so much competition

skippyboxedhero 4y ago
What other things? I can think of multiple other situations just in media where this hasn't worked: NFLX, AMZN, Overwatch League, YouTube Gaming/Facebook Gaming/Mixer...there are specific instances of companies doing the opposite (i.e. DIS, they just acquire something working and just pound out low-risk additive investments...and DIS only started doing this after, you guessed it, missing on some very high-risk, big budget investments like John Carter) and it working very well. But I wasn't even thinking of media. I think it happens most with M&A where a company makes a land-grab investment that is fundamentally defensive in character (I think Spotify felt they needed original content), and it almost never works because it largely comes from execs feeling the need to juice numbers for comp packages rather than actually put down a long-term plan for investing capital (so some much smarter person comes along and tells them they have a solution and basically robs shareholders blind, in this case it was Joe Rogan). And yes, they are dumb. The dumbness wasn't "the bet" but how they structured it. The investments were so large and aggressive, they were part of the "original content" bubble, the underlying thesis was unknowable, and they have ended up getting targeted by activists because the corporate governance here was so evidently bad (as I said, in this particular case there seems to have been a significant overlap between the social life of a prominent exec involved in this and some of the people being picked up). > Podcasts probably just aren't that profitable. You think? I thought their "bet" wasn't dumb.

skippyboxedhero 4y ago

What other things? I can think of multiple other situations just in media where this hasn't worked: NFLX, AMZN, Overwatch League, YouTube Gaming/Facebook Gaming/Mixer...there are specific instances of companies doing the opposite (i.e. DIS, they just acquire something working and just pound out low-risk additive investments...and DIS only started doing this after, you guessed it, missing on some very high-risk, big budget investments like John Carter) and it working very well. But I wasn't even thinking of media. I think it happens most with M&A where a company makes a land-grab investment that is fundamentally defensive in character (I think Spotify felt they needed original content), and it almost never works because it largely comes from execs feeling the need to juice numbers for comp packages rather than actually put down a long-term plan for investing capital (so some much smarter person comes along and tells them they have a solution and basically robs shareholders blind, in this case it was Joe Rogan). And yes, they are dumb. The dumbness wasn't "the bet" but how they structured it. The investments were so large and aggressive, they were part of the "original content" bubble, the underlying thesis was unknowable, and they have ended up getting targeted by activists because the corporate governance here was so evidently bad (as I said, in this particular case there seems to have been a significant overlap between the social life of a prominent exec involved in this and some of the people being picked up). > Podcasts probably just aren't that profitable. You think? I thought their "bet" wasn't dumb.