Speaker 1: Welcome to another episode of the Strictly Business podcast, where
Speaker 1: we talk with some of the brightest minds working in
Speaker 1: the media business today. On Variety co editor in chief
Speaker 1: Andrew Wallenstein, I'm asked what I think about a wide
Speaker 1: range of ventures here in Hollywood, but none lately more
Speaker 1: so than something called Quimby. That's the new mobile video
Speaker 1: app in the works from two legends from media and
Speaker 1: tech circles, former Disney and DreamWorks Animation chief Jeffrey Katzenberg
Speaker 1: and former Hewlert Packard CEO Meg Whitman. My conversation with
Speaker 1: them was recorded from the stage of the Innovate Summit
Speaker 1: in Los Angeles on December five. I hope you enjoy.
Speaker 1: For those who have been under a rock this past
Speaker 1: year or so, let's get the elevator pitch out on
Speaker 1: what you guys have been working on. Uh, talk about
Speaker 1: the state of Quimby. Yeah. Well, first of all, thank
Speaker 1: you for having us this morning. We're delighted to be here. Um.
Speaker 1: So we are building the first entertainment platform built mobile
Speaker 1: only for quick bite meaning short form under ten minutes
Speaker 1: quick bite content made by Hollywood's top creators. And uh,
Speaker 1: we have really been in business we raised our initial
Speaker 1: funding ground which we closed on July thirty one, So
Speaker 1: we've been in business effectively since August one. And uh,
Speaker 1: we are commissioning content, we are building the tech platform.
Speaker 1: We are hiring people. I think today we're at forty
Speaker 1: eight people, up from five on August one, and um,
Speaker 1: we are super excited about the opportunity that lies ahead.
Speaker 1: The name is a contraction of quick bites, which is
Speaker 1: what we have called this content for a long period
Speaker 1: of time. And so it's a contraction of quick bites.
Speaker 1: And people seem to like Quimby. You know, it's memorable,
Speaker 1: It rolls off people's tongue. It says what we do.
Speaker 1: And uh, so we're we're off and running and we're
Speaker 1: excited about it. And what is the roadmap ahead? You
Speaker 1: guys are developing stuff. You have some interesting projects that
Speaker 1: you're starting to announce. Uh, Jeffrey, what do you what
Speaker 1: do you see the next twelve months looking like for Quimby? Well,
Speaker 1: I think it's a it's a lot of things, and
Speaker 1: you know, I think may can expand on a good
Speaker 1: part of it. Um. But from a content standpoint, UM,
Speaker 1: we have to achieve two essential things for this to
Speaker 1: be successful one which is, as we have discussed, UM
Speaker 1: raised the quality to an unprecedented level, and which is
Speaker 1: make said we bring the very best quality, production, talent,
Speaker 1: financial resources UM to UM. Uh. You know what has
Speaker 1: been this world of UM. You know, pretty amazing work
Speaker 1: that's gone on on YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, snapchat. UM. But
Speaker 1: we're looking to do something at a pretty high level.
Speaker 1: And we can talk a little bit and give you
Speaker 1: a good and allergy about that. But at the same time,
Speaker 1: we also have to achieve a phenomenal volume of content.
Speaker 1: So just to put in perspective, once we go live,
Speaker 1: we will deliver in the first twelve months five thousand
Speaker 1: quick bites. So it's a it's a high bar. So
Speaker 1: on the content side, it's building the team out. Remember
Speaker 1: we don't produce anything. We commission our content. We are
Speaker 1: a licensor of content from everybody in the production Hollywood ecosystem. UH,
Speaker 1: you know, at the highest ends of it. UM. But
Speaker 1: at the same time, UH, we have to build UM
Speaker 1: a user experience UM in the way in which this
Speaker 1: unique content is consumed in an equally unique way. And
Speaker 1: so in the world of product, which is how people
Speaker 1: are actually going to experience and be served up our content.
Speaker 1: Mega's put together a world class engineering team and product
Speaker 1: development team, and that bar for us is as essential
Speaker 1: and as high UM. So there's there's a lot of
Speaker 1: things to get on our to do list. Do you
Speaker 1: guys at this point know when you're going to be
Speaker 1: in market, So either the last part of or the
Speaker 1: first quarter probably, and it just depends on what's going
Speaker 1: on in the marketplace and how ready we are. We
Speaker 1: have one chance to launch, and we needed to be
Speaker 1: as absolutely close to perfect as it can possibly be
Speaker 1: from a content perspective and engineering perspective. So we'll see
Speaker 1: from the biggest challenge and we know this right now,
Speaker 1: is the volume of content to you know, to hit
Speaker 1: this quality that we want and the quantity UM. It's
Speaker 1: a tall order to deliver that in the next twelve months,
Speaker 1: but that doesn't mean we're not going to try. UM
Speaker 1: So we're giving ourselves a lot of flexibility where we're
Speaker 1: not going to get locked into something. As Meg said,
Speaker 1: when we come we have to hit a home run.
Speaker 1: I think what people sometimes forget is this is the
Speaker 1: first UM platform that has ever been launched without a library.
Speaker 1: There's no library to buy because no one has done
Speaker 1: this quality content in this format, and so every bit
Speaker 1: of content has to be made de novo with our
Speaker 1: with our partners. And it's the format question I want
Speaker 1: to dig into first, because you guys are are It's
Speaker 1: not that short form content doesn't exist, but you're doing
Speaker 1: it at a level that I don't think it's existed
Speaker 1: at volume. So when you're out there talking to the
Speaker 1: creative community, how do you even pitch this? Are they
Speaker 1: even thinking in five ten minute bites? Well, here's the
Speaker 1: I think. I think that's where and that's why we
Speaker 1: are trying to UM move ourselves into something where we're
Speaker 1: not in the short form business. It's why we sort
Speaker 1: of are embracing this idea of quick bites. And let
Speaker 1: me try and put that into context. UM. For for us,
Speaker 1: a lighthouse show is um a two to three hour
Speaker 1: story that you can actually consume in bites that are
Speaker 1: under ten minutes. UM. This is the convergence of two
Speaker 1: very try, true, tested and phenomenally successful existing forms of
Speaker 1: um UH filmed media. So what does that mean? So
Speaker 1: for the beginning, at the the beginning of the twentieth century, UH,
Speaker 1: we pioneered out on this path our industry and we
Speaker 1: made movies, and they quickly migrated into storytelling that is
Speaker 1: two to three hours in length, and that has worked
Speaker 1: and continues to this to the to today to be
Speaker 1: a widely accepted form of narrative film storytelling. In the
Speaker 1: middle of the twentieth century, television came along, and now
Speaker 1: we found a new form of narrative storytelling which posibly,
Speaker 1: not exclusively, but principally is in one hour chunks, and
Speaker 1: was formed and formatted to fit into broadcast television. And
Speaker 1: so for seventy years, uh many of the greatest talents
Speaker 1: and showrunners creators have been delivering their stories in chapters.
Speaker 1: We call them act breaks. In this town. The first
Speaker 1: act of this is US is eight and a half minutes.
Speaker 1: There's then a break, and there are five of them,
Speaker 1: and then they deliver a forty two minutes show. And
Speaker 1: it's not you know, forty one forty one week and
Speaker 1: forty two ten the next week. In it it's to
Speaker 1: the second forty two minutes. And so this idea that
Speaker 1: we're contracting together these two tried, true, tested, you know sciences,
Speaker 1: which it's a it's a proven science with a new
Speaker 1: application to it. The example which I've given to you
Speaker 1: before and you've actually written about before. Is what happened
Speaker 1: in publishing where Dan Brown just he was the one
Speaker 1: that just made the greatest impression on me. Is neither
Speaker 1: the first nor the only to do it. It's just
Speaker 1: the one that really, you know, landed for me. Is
Speaker 1: he wrote the Da Vinci Codes FO sixty four pages
Speaker 1: long and the has a hundred and five chapters. The
Speaker 1: average chapter is less than five minutes. So I get it.
Speaker 1: By innovating in terms of the increments of content, you
Speaker 1: guys are going to do something that feels more conducive
Speaker 1: to the mobile experience as opposed to TV or film.
Speaker 1: But is it possible that what mobile is about is
Speaker 1: giving people the ability not to consume these new shorter increments,
Speaker 1: but to go through films and TVs at their own pace,
Speaker 1: stopping and starting at their own leisure. So I think
Speaker 1: one of the things to consider is, remember Jeffrey said,
Speaker 1: we are not a studio, so we don't make any
Speaker 1: of our own content. But the other thing people often
Speaker 1: forget is this is a very different use case. This
Speaker 1: is on the go viewing. So you leave your house
Speaker 1: Dray morning with a little TV in your pocket. It's
Speaker 1: called your smartphone. And during the day, think about it.
Speaker 1: You have these in between moments ten minutes here, five
Speaker 1: minutes here, fifteen minutes there where you want to see
Speaker 1: something great. And whether it's waiting in line at Starbucks
Speaker 1: or waiting for a meeting to start, or waiting for
Speaker 1: friends for lunch, or at a doctor's office. And so
Speaker 1: it's a very different use case, and people are looking
Speaker 1: for things that are of a you know, something that's
Speaker 1: really like a gem for that little moment in time.
Speaker 1: And again, Jeffrey said it. YouTube has done a fantastic job.
Speaker 1: It is the most democratized video platform in the world.
Speaker 1: But what we want to do is a little bit
Speaker 1: the analogy of what HBO did when they launched. HBO
Speaker 1: launched at the height of advertiser supported TV. And remember
Speaker 1: what their tagline was, We're not TV where Hbo and
Speaker 1: so we're not short form you know, YouTube, Snapchat, Instagram,
Speaker 1: we're quimby and so it will be that much of
Speaker 1: a step up in the quality and storytelling. And think
Speaker 1: of the four things that HBO did. They eliminated commercials,
Speaker 1: they freed the form and formats they were not behold
Speaker 1: in the thirty sixty all right, so so far check
Speaker 1: those new boxes for us. Third is they were not
Speaker 1: beholding the standards and practices, so they could make any content.
Speaker 1: You could have sex in the city, you could have sopranos,
Speaker 1: you have the wire in this. And third they they
Speaker 1: spent UH at a level of production that an AD
Speaker 1: supported world simply could not compete with. So they ordered
Speaker 1: ten episodes a Band of Brothers for a million dollars.
Speaker 1: You translate that to today, that's like thirty million dollars
Speaker 1: in episode. So we check all of those four boxes
Speaker 1: when we say we're not short form, we're Quimby. And
Speaker 1: so to bring that kind of quality of production and
Speaker 1: talent UH to this um, you know, I just think
Speaker 1: it is a singularly and and and unique experience to
Speaker 1: anything that's there today. But you guys are going to,
Speaker 1: you know, hopefully be the brand for the way this
Speaker 1: new format is known. What I'm wondering though, is is
Speaker 1: it less realistic to expect people to have a Quimby
Speaker 1: app on their phone for this kind of experience as
Speaker 1: opposed to fishing, where the fish are having Quimby live
Speaker 1: on the platforms where consumption is already taking place. Going
Speaker 1: to the Facebook Acto into snap Jacko on the Instagram.
Speaker 1: Why go it alone via your own branded app, because
Speaker 1: we want to. First of all, we think we can
Speaker 1: get the distribution and the go to market through our
Speaker 1: own content. I mean, we are making content with incredible actors, actresses, directors,
Speaker 1: producers and wonderful story Second, we will do distribution with
Speaker 1: some of the big tailcos, whether it's a Verizon or
Speaker 1: an A T and T. But importantly we're going to
Speaker 1: do something quite different with the tech platform here. And
Speaker 1: one of the things Jeffrey and are trying to do
Speaker 1: is to bring the best to Silicon Valley together with
Speaker 1: the best of Hollywood. So Jeffrey said it. But the
Speaker 1: user experience, the search and fine metaphor, the recommendation engine,
Speaker 1: how content looks on mobile needs to be completely upgraded
Speaker 1: and different today. I think you know, listen, lots of
Speaker 1: people watch mobile on their video. In fact, they're watching
Speaker 1: over sixty minutes. Our target audience of five year olds
Speaker 1: is watching about an hour a day. But it's not
Speaker 1: an optimized experience. Here's a great analogy for you. Think
Speaker 1: about what Apple and Samsung have done for photography on
Speaker 1: the mobile phone. It's remarkable. I mean, I take pictures,
Speaker 1: I feel like I'm a junior only any Leibowitz. I mean,
Speaker 1: it's amazing how good those devices have made all of
Speaker 1: us look as photographers, we want to work to have
Speaker 1: video look that good on the mobile, and there's all
Speaker 1: kinds of challenges with that, as you can imagine, right.
Speaker 1: But with the thing that strikes me then is you
Speaker 1: have two massive challenges in the sense of you've got
Speaker 1: to ramp up this new content format format at both
Speaker 1: quantity and quality, and the experience of watching that content
Speaker 1: is something that you just described as being quite a challenge.
Speaker 1: You know, we're here at the Innovade conference, we're talking
Speaker 1: about machine learning, artificial intelligence. Are you bringing those kind
Speaker 1: of technologies to bear here? Sure. So there's a couple
Speaker 1: of things. One is, remember we have to have a
Speaker 1: different search and find metaphor, and we have to have
Speaker 1: different personalization that exists today. I'll just give you a
Speaker 1: perfect example. As many of you know, it takes about
Speaker 1: eight minutes to find what you're looking for on Netflix.
Speaker 1: This cannot take eight minutes because the viewing window is
Speaker 1: ten minutes. So we almost have to know what you
Speaker 1: want to watch before you know you want to watch it.
Speaker 1: And so the good news is every piece of film
Speaker 1: that is on our platform is only there because we
Speaker 1: say it's there. It's highly curated, and everything will have
Speaker 1: a script. So think about we can apply meta tagging
Speaker 1: to every single frame, which allows behavioral analytics and AI
Speaker 1: to be much more accurate and predictive than it is
Speaker 1: if you are retrofitting lots of you know, older movies
Speaker 1: or older TV shows, it's harder to actually meta tag
Speaker 1: to the level that we're going to do it. The
Speaker 1: second is we have to instrument this site. And this
Speaker 1: is one of the great joys of being a technologist.
Speaker 1: I kept to build a tech platform with no legacy,
Speaker 1: which you know, if you've been in business for more
Speaker 1: than five years, you have a legacy tech platform. Maybe
Speaker 1: have a legacy tech platform at variety, I don't know,
Speaker 1: and uh. And so we will be able to instrument
Speaker 1: this where we have data on usage patterns, on watching,
Speaker 1: on what works, what doesn't, and we will be filtering
Speaker 1: that into our recommendation engine, our choice of what content
Speaker 1: to make, and things like that. So this ought to
Speaker 1: be state of the art from an AI, behavioral analytics,
Speaker 1: machine learning. But then let's go back to the art
Speaker 1: of it all. You know, you're both out there and
Speaker 1: the creative community talking to people. Uh do they get it?
Speaker 1: Do they do you give them the vision of how
Speaker 1: ten minutes storytelling works? Or or has there just been
Speaker 1: this long suppressed out there. I've been dying to tell
Speaker 1: this ten minutes story. Um, well again, I'm gonna keep
Speaker 1: coming back and saying to you, we're not asking people
Speaker 1: to tell ten minutes stories. We're actually asking them to
Speaker 1: tell two to four hour stories increments of ten. Okay, Well,
Speaker 1: there's a huge difference in that. Sorry, I and I
Speaker 1: And so the answer is is that the challenge, the excitement,
Speaker 1: the enthusi yasm, the opportunity to be pioneering and innovative
Speaker 1: is something that has gotten people enthusiastic and our industry
Speaker 1: in a way that I have to say, is kind
Speaker 1: of the wind beneath our wings right now. It's everybody
Speaker 1: wants to play. And I would say when I say
Speaker 1: everybody wants to play, I mean you look at the
Speaker 1: lineup of people we've already announced. You know, Anton Fuqua
Speaker 1: was out there actually shooting tests for us right now. Um,
Speaker 1: we have a new project. Katherine Hardwick, Um, you know
Speaker 1: who one of our leading amazing directors female directors today.
Speaker 1: She just committed to do a uh a new project
Speaker 1: with us, UM and I should make sure I say
Speaker 1: it all right here, which is how they made her UM,
Speaker 1: which was written by Jeff Leeber and Charlie McDowell McDonald UM,
Speaker 1: which is a really kind of fascinating story UM around
Speaker 1: a AI character, a real thriller, and she is actually
Speaker 1: out now shooting some tests uh for us as we speak.
Speaker 1: Um uh. But everyone from Anton Fuqua to uh uh,
Speaker 1: Giermo del Toro to um you know uh uh, you know,
Speaker 1: it's just it's been a there's so many names, Sam
Speaker 1: Rainy Uh. It's it's a good way. Lena Waite is
Speaker 1: doing this. Everybody's exciting. And by the way they're all pioneering.
Speaker 1: It's like we're not giving them some tight little box
Speaker 1: and asking them to, you know, to produce. We're actually
Speaker 1: just giving them sort of guardrails and saying experiment, you know,
Speaker 1: discover the path forward for us in it, and some
Speaker 1: insight about how these stories can be shot. So it
Speaker 1: looks better on mobile. So I don't most of you
Speaker 1: probably have watched some things on your mobile and it
Speaker 1: often looks quite dark, doesn't it. Well, that's because the
Speaker 1: actual shows need to be shot with more contrast to
Speaker 1: begin with. Right and then and when you're on mobile,
Speaker 1: you go from this environment which is quite dark, to
Speaker 1: right outside in the lobby to outside on the sidewalk,
Speaker 1: and you're changing light environments and it becomes increasingly more
Speaker 1: difficult or easier to watch the video. So there's visual
Speaker 1: optimization that we need to be able to do. And
Speaker 1: one of the things that we've been able to do.
Speaker 1: We have a test of this is you know when
Speaker 1: you go to if you have Apple phones, you go
Speaker 1: to that brightness slider in the your settings. Well, we
Speaker 1: now have moved that into the app where you can
Speaker 1: just use your fingers to change the brightness while you
Speaker 1: are in app, So as you move from spot to spot,
Speaker 1: you're not exiting the app going to settings, changing it
Speaker 1: and coming back. Which was not a problem that you
Speaker 1: carried your flat screen TV from here to the lobby
Speaker 1: to out on the street. No one had to worry
Speaker 1: about that. We do, you know, and so making that great.
Speaker 1: You know, the other thing that you talked about, uh
Speaker 1: and he is is um you know, why not be
Speaker 1: in the environment, you know, where the fish are, and
Speaker 1: the fact is where the fish are right now today. UM,
Speaker 1: as Meg said, is a phenomenal, phenomen amal environment, but
Speaker 1: it is an ocean. And the fact is is that
Speaker 1: we need to find a place where it's a premium experience.
Speaker 1: And we have seen this occur in other businesses UM
Speaker 1: and other related businesses. Meg made the note, which is HBO.
Speaker 1: When television was at the height of three TV over
Speaker 1: the air at its height, HBO came along and you know,
Speaker 1: launched a premium service, UM Spotify, Spotify and Apple Music.
Speaker 1: Six years ago, all music was available, thirty five million titles.
Speaker 1: All you had to do was type in the title
Speaker 1: and you could have any song that you wanted. Well,
Speaker 1: what did they did? They came along and they created playlists, recommendations,
Speaker 1: a set of features that suddenly made music curation convenient.
Speaker 1: And somebody did the workforce and by the end of
Speaker 1: this month, six years, two hundred million people paying ten
Speaker 1: dollars a month for the exact same music that they
Speaker 1: had before. We need to make information convenient, which is
Speaker 1: a very big part of what we're doing. We talk
Speaker 1: about the lighthouse all the time, but the sort of
Speaker 1: second part of what we're doing is taking what is
Speaker 1: right now ubiquitously available information around video and curating it
Speaker 1: in a quality way and now making that convenient for
Speaker 1: people every day, which is why we are a daily
Speaker 1: We are a Monday through Friday, eight in the morning
Speaker 1: till six o'clock or eight o'clock at night. That's our
Speaker 1: use case. That's not where television. I would ask in
Speaker 1: this room anybody in this room who has watched a
Speaker 1: our episode of television between eight o'clock in the morning
Speaker 1: and six o'clock at night, and you watched it on
Speaker 1: this device, could you please raise your hand now? And
Speaker 1: Andy has one? I found there's one. Okay, well one.
Speaker 1: I'm not sure your boss will be really happy with you. Um,
Speaker 1: but so that but you understand, that's not where we
Speaker 1: watch quality of media today. And because we don't have
Speaker 1: an hour, there's not a single person in this room
Speaker 1: that doesn't have five or seven or ten minutes in
Speaker 1: the course of your day, ten times a day. Particularly
Speaker 1: our target audience five year old target audience is on
Speaker 1: their mobile phone four to five hours a day. Interestingly,
Speaker 1: the average session length is about six and a half
Speaker 1: to seven minutes. So think about how many times they're
Speaker 1: picking up putting down their phone for relatively short bits
Speaker 1: of time. We want to fill some of that time.
Speaker 1: You know, you're getting backing from really the who's who
Speaker 1: of the Hollywood studios, the biggest companies. I'm curious is
Speaker 1: there going to be much coordination with them in terms
Speaker 1: of the kinds of intellectual property that we can see
Speaker 1: show up in Quimby, so that you're able to sort
Speaker 1: of leverage existing intellectual property that is on the NBC's,
Speaker 1: that is on the Disneys, that is on the Foxes.
Speaker 1: Or is this going to be just sort of a
Speaker 1: world of intellectual property unto itself it is what they
Speaker 1: are participating. Well, there are investors, there are partners, the
Speaker 1: as you I mean, just to put this in perspective,
Speaker 1: this is the first time in the history of our
Speaker 1: industry in this town in which everybody and I mean everybody,
Speaker 1: every single media company has come in and been an
Speaker 1: investor um and help start this business up and committed
Speaker 1: to make their talent and their i P available to
Speaker 1: help build out this platform and for them actually get
Speaker 1: paid great value for doing that. It's a two way
Speaker 1: street here in this which is we're not asking for
Speaker 1: charity from anybody. We're not asking for people to work
Speaker 1: for less or non competitive, in fact, just the opposite.
Speaker 1: Our deal is actually one of the most tracted deals
Speaker 1: that anybody could work in in television or film today.
Speaker 1: Describe what makes it attractive. So, um, we pay a
Speaker 1: of the cost of our shows plus a margin, so
Speaker 1: a d and if it's long form, up to six
Speaker 1: million dollars an hour. So that's the top of scripted
Speaker 1: television today. There are literally not ten shows out of
Speaker 1: five hundred and fifty that spend more than six million
Speaker 1: dollars an hour. Um, we have a license where that content,
Speaker 1: for in its short form and it's quick bites, is
Speaker 1: exclusive to us for seven years. At the end of
Speaker 1: seven years, it reverts to the producer. Then you own
Speaker 1: it at the end of seven years. So one, it's
Speaker 1: going back to a model that worked in the sixties
Speaker 1: and seventies and eighties, where producers, production companies and creatives
Speaker 1: owned their content, except we're give delivering it back to
Speaker 1: them you much shorter window. Second is is that after
Speaker 1: two years you can take that content in its quick
Speaker 1: bites and put it together in long form. Long form
Speaker 1: to us is defined by over twenty one minutes, you
Speaker 1: own that and can monetize that after two years. So
Speaker 1: if somebody has made a two or three hour movie
Speaker 1: for us, which we've paid a d and of the
Speaker 1: cost of where you can't take an episode of Game
Speaker 1: of Thrones and cut it up into six ten minute pieces,
Speaker 1: if you actually created it in six ten minute pieces,
Speaker 1: you actually can put it together and it's a seamless
Speaker 1: hour of content. Now after two years, you own that,
Speaker 1: and you can now go sell that in the marketplace,
Speaker 1: and I believe will create one of the most powerful
Speaker 1: syndication markets that we've had since existed in television at
Speaker 1: the height of TV syndication, which was in the eighties
Speaker 1: and nineties. So the value for the studios and the
Speaker 1: creators is signific again. And I get those attractive terms.
Speaker 1: I'm wondering though, whether you guys are setting yourselves up
Speaker 1: for a long term hangover seven years from now when
Speaker 1: a lot of your IP vanishes. We don't think so
Speaker 1: at all. And and and we've made a conscious decision
Speaker 1: here to partner and to make this the most attractive
Speaker 1: place for creators and studios to come work today, so
Speaker 1: that we get the best. You get what you pay
Speaker 1: for in this town and everywhere else in life, and
Speaker 1: we're gonna pay the best talent competitively, if not competitive. Plus,
Speaker 1: our bet what Meg and I are doing our investors
Speaker 1: is we're betting on the success of the platform. We
Speaker 1: are thrilled for the I P holders and creators to
Speaker 1: get full value out of that content. And by the way,
Speaker 1: it worked brilliantly in the sixties and seventies and eighties.
Speaker 1: You look at the alignment between broadcasters, which is before
Speaker 1: financial interest and syndication rules, suns said they weren't allowed
Speaker 1: to have a financial interest in their content. The studios
Speaker 1: never owned their content by regulation, they were prohibited from
Speaker 1: doing that. Right, and yet the studios got rich, the
Speaker 1: creators got rich, and the networks became blockbuster platforms in it.
Speaker 1: And so whether it was Happy Days or Laverne and
Speaker 1: Shirley or A Wife I've Oh or Star Trek are
Speaker 1: on and on and on, you know, Simpsons, hundreds of
Speaker 1: television shows. You know, we're tremendous, tremendous successes. We want
Speaker 1: to return for that and we think it will work,
Speaker 1: and we don't want to compete with our suppliers. And
Speaker 1: I think what Jeffrey said is exactly right. That what
Speaker 1: we want to do is have the best content, the
Speaker 1: best artist, the best creators on the best platform with
Speaker 1: the best user experience and search and fine metaphor, which
Speaker 1: therefore drives more subscribers and advertising, which therefore allows us
Speaker 1: to reinvest back in the core of what will make
Speaker 1: this platform great. And we want the creators to feel
Speaker 1: that this is an incredible deal. Why would they not
Speaker 1: want to do this. Maybe we should be the first
Speaker 1: choice of what they end. Our content, particularly our Lighthouse content,
Speaker 1: is going to get marketed by it because that's our
Speaker 1: subscriber acquisition. So every one of these Lighthouse series, and
Speaker 1: by the way, we were at least one every every
Speaker 1: other Monday, literally every other Monday, twenty six of them
Speaker 1: will be a Lighthouse. Every one of them. We have
Speaker 1: to market the way we would come from a world
Speaker 1: where we market the release of a movie, because we
Speaker 1: have to make it that compelling. I grew up in
Speaker 1: an industry where there are two things that move the dial,
Speaker 1: fame and fortune. And here's the deal. If you have
Speaker 1: fame and you don't have fortune, you're not so happy.
Speaker 1: And the reverse is true, you got fortune and you
Speaker 1: don't have fame, you're not so happy. Quimby is going
Speaker 1: to deliver both fame and fortune to people that come
Speaker 1: partner and work for us. Meg, you didn't a really
Speaker 1: great tech platform. You the best. You did not grow
Speaker 1: up in this industry. You grew up in the industry
Speaker 1: of building tech platforms. What has it been like dealing
Speaker 1: with content and art and things that aren't so easily controlled?
Speaker 1: But we think engineers are artists as well. I couldn't
Speaker 1: agree more. What is it? But um, so listen there, Um,
Speaker 1: there are an enormous differences between Silicon Valley and Hollywood. Um.
Speaker 1: I lived here before. I worked for Disney for four years,
Speaker 1: so I've lived in l A before. We have a
Speaker 1: number of friends here. Um, but it's an entirely different
Speaker 1: um community. And I'll just give you my sort of
Speaker 1: executive summary of this. In many ways is Silicon Valley
Speaker 1: is a community of left brain engineers who are highly linear, logical,
Speaker 1: data driven people. And this town, largely in the creative community,
Speaker 1: is right brain storytellers, and um, in some ways embodied
Speaker 1: in Jeffrey and I and uh and so you know,
Speaker 1: merging those two is not for the faint of heart.
Speaker 1: And my view is that actually, the two of us
Speaker 1: have got to do something that I never been done before,
Speaker 1: which is, you know, how do you have the most
Speaker 1: incredible users variance with the most amazing content in a
Speaker 1: way that the engineers and the creators don't kill each other?
Speaker 1: And uh and so far, and we're the first test
Speaker 1: case of that, which is we've been in business for
Speaker 1: a year. We are complete opposites in every fashion japer.
Speaker 1: We laugh about it all the time in it, right
Speaker 1: we when we're a year, we haven't killed each other yet.
Speaker 1: So and you know the power of opposites it's if
Speaker 1: actually if they attract, it's you get one plus one
Speaker 1: equals eleven. And that's what's happened for us because I
Speaker 1: know what I know, and I know she knows what
Speaker 1: I don't know, and vice versa. I mean, we could
Speaker 1: not do this without Jeffrey, right. So, but it's been
Speaker 1: fascinating because I really am I'm not an engineer by training,
Speaker 1: but I've been in technology for so long I think
Speaker 1: like an engineer. I'm highly left brain, highly analytical, and
Speaker 1: Jeffrey is a right brain storyteller. And so often when
Speaker 1: we're you know, arguing or deciding what we're gonna do.
Speaker 1: You know, we come at things from completely different places,
Speaker 1: and when we are at our best, increasingly they one
Speaker 1: plus one equals you know, ten, and it's it's quite powerful.
Speaker 1: Discounted me. Well, that's that's that's kind of that's a
Speaker 1: left range. She discounts every it's a reality chick. I'm
Speaker 1: sort of the warrior and I'm the you know, I
Speaker 1: don't know, let's think about that. So there's there, there's
Speaker 1: there's the dreamer and the warrior, and that's a different
Speaker 1: yin yang altogether, and the and the analyst and you know,
Speaker 1: but it's it's actually a very powerful partnership and quite
Speaker 1: a bit of fun. I mean, Jeffrey and I've known
Speaker 1: each other for thirty years and we worked together at Disney.
Speaker 1: I was on his board at DreamWorks when he took
Speaker 1: DW a public and uh then HP, where I was
Speaker 1: most recently, had a long term technology deal. Our technology
Speaker 1: powered the Dreamwork studio. So we've known each other a
Speaker 1: long time, but you know, we had to sort of
Speaker 1: work it out because like day to day, you know,
Speaker 1: it's I mean I talked to Jeffrey eight times a day,
Speaker 1: so and I will remind you and again we are.
Speaker 1: Partnership that we had at HP is emblematic of this.
Speaker 1: DreamWorks Animation was a technology and storytelling company. You know,
Speaker 1: we were in the state of the art creation of
Speaker 1: digital imaging UM and we couldn't do what we did
Speaker 1: without actually having the support in this case of HP
Speaker 1: and a couple of other technology partners. And that's what
Speaker 1: took me to Silicon Valley. And you know, DreamWorks Animation
Speaker 1: had a studio, you know, down the street from Meg
Speaker 1: with eight people at it, and we called our engineers
Speaker 1: artists that DreamWorks always did well. I hope the two
Speaker 1: of you going to keep this as much as we do,
Speaker 1: keep this going. Best of luck and keep us posted
Speaker 1: on all things Quimby, Well, thank you very much for
Speaker 1: having us. Thank you. This has been another episode of
Speaker 1: Strictly Business. Tune in next week for another helping of
Speaker 1: scintillating conversation with media movers and shakers, and please make
Speaker 1: sure you subscribe to the podcast to hear future episodes.
Speaker 1: Also leave a review in Apple Podcast let us know
Speaker 1: how we're doing.