Jeffrey Katzenberg is the founder of Quibi and co-founder of WonderCo. He discusses returning capital to investors after shutting down Quibi.
Opinion
Katzenberg: Hollywood publicly humiliates failure while Silicon Valley embraces it
“In Southern California, you know, so let me just start with the following... Failure comes with huge public humiliation... In Silicon Valley, you know, you fail, you get onto the next thing. Like failure makes you smarter, makes you stronger.”
Prediction Not checkable as stated
Katzenberg: Silicon Valley layoffs will fuel the next generation of startups
“Harry, I'm going to say to you, not only do I feel it's not dead, I'm going to take a contrary point of view that what in fact is going on in the Valley today is going to create a whole new crop, a whole new generation, because all the downsizing that's going …”
Insight
Katzenberg: Delaying firing bad hires for months kills companies
“Because if they're not going to work out inside of your enterprise, your company, whatever it is that you're building, the faster you get to that, the better. That's one of the lessons I learned along the way, which is, I had seen, ok, well let's give them thr…”
Assertion Supported
Katzenberg: Bringing Steve Jobs and Pixar to Disney was transformative
“For me, probably the most transformative moment is when you know, I reached out to Steve Jobs and John Lasseter and brought them into the Walt Disney Company and made a home for Pixar.”
What-if
Katzenberg: DreamWorks' survival depended on pivoting to computer animation
“And for me, having lived through the disruption of hand-drawn animation to computer animation I would say was, you know, probably one of the greatest challenges, and our survival literally depended on our ability to make a pivot. It was brutal. We lost a lot o…”
Assertion Contradicted
Katzenberg: Quibi was his first time losing investor money in 40 years
“In my entire career, I have never lost money for somebody who invested or backed me in what I was doing ever before this, which for someone who spent 40 years in media and entertainment, that's a unicorn.”