Speaker 1: Welcome to another episode of Strictly Business, the podcast in
Speaker 1: which we speak with some of the brightest minds working
Speaker 1: in media today. I'm Andrew Wallenstein with Variety. We are
Speaker 1: months away from the launch of HBO Max, but you
Speaker 1: better believe my next guest is already plenty busy. He's
Speaker 1: Jeremy leg chief technology officer at Warner Media. He's the
Speaker 1: one who will make sure HBO Max is streaming into
Speaker 1: your home seamlessly, with all the bells and whistles of
Speaker 1: the product functioning. Thanks for coming in, Jeremy, Thanks for
Speaker 1: having me, and it's great to be one of the
Speaker 1: brightest minds. My staff is an elite, elite group of people.
Speaker 1: That's awesome. UM So we're sitting here talking in early December.
Speaker 1: The launch at this point is months away. I don't
Speaker 1: think you guys have said we're public about that, and
Speaker 1: so even though we're here in December, I'm just curious
Speaker 1: in the process of ensuring this thing goes off without
Speaker 1: a hitch. Where are you Well, So we're we're basically
Speaker 1: at our first beta. Um So. We just launched an
Speaker 1: internal beta recently um and brought in a lot of
Speaker 1: the content from Turner and HBO and Warner Brothers um
Speaker 1: and so we've expanded the HBO Now and Go application
Speaker 1: as consumers might think of it, and rebranded it as
Speaker 1: HBO Max and made it a multi tenant technology platform
Speaker 1: that can support not just the HBO brand, but all
Speaker 1: of the brands of the broader company. So we're it's
Speaker 1: internal right now, we haven't released it out to the
Speaker 1: broader consumer base, but there's an app there and it
Speaker 1: works and when you press when you press play, the
Speaker 1: video plays. Got it. And I assume there's you know,
Speaker 1: plenty of meetings with with the the Green Blacks and
Speaker 1: Riley's of the world. I'm talking about the gentleman who
Speaker 1: we are running the content side of this. Do they
Speaker 1: leave you to do your own thing? Or is it
Speaker 1: all everyone's getting in each other's businesses, regardless regardless of
Speaker 1: whether it's content or distribution. Well, I asked Bob and
Speaker 1: Kevin to write code for me regularly, but they but
Speaker 1: they but they have so far declined that honor. But
Speaker 1: we work very closely with them, right So they're obviously,
Speaker 1: you know, building the content, selecting the content, and then
Speaker 1: we work collectively on how that content is going to
Speaker 1: be featured in merchandise inside of the application, and also
Speaker 1: a lot of the product features associated with what we're building.
Speaker 1: So it's it's a you know, this is a this
Speaker 1: is truly a corporate wide effort um involving you know,
Speaker 1: both the leadership as well as the working teams across
Speaker 1: many organizations, and so we work very closely with them
Speaker 1: on all of this. And you're not starting from scratch.
Speaker 1: It's not as if the HBO or Turner brands are
Speaker 1: new to streaming. You mentioned, you know, HBO Go and HBO.
Speaker 1: Now how much of a leg up does that give
Speaker 1: you or from an infrastructure perspective, is it like a
Speaker 1: clean slate? It gives us a pretty significant leg up.
Speaker 1: I mean, there's some downsides to it, but I'll talk
Speaker 1: about the positives first. On on the on the positive
Speaker 1: side of the ledger, you know, we have a scaled platform.
Speaker 1: That platform delivered Am of Thrones. We did four point
Speaker 1: six four point seven million concurrent streams on the final
Speaker 1: episode and millions more before that, and so we know
Speaker 1: it can handle large video loads. We know it can
Speaker 1: handle lots of consumers coming into the application, and uh,
Speaker 1: you know it's a brand that you know, millions of
Speaker 1: consumers have access to today and use the application today,
Speaker 1: So you know, we're starting from a strong foundation, and
Speaker 1: so we're working now on how do you merchandise more
Speaker 1: brands inside of that application than just Hbo because obviously
Speaker 1: this becomes everything from DC Comics to you know, Turner
Speaker 1: Properties and other components or other content brands across the
Speaker 1: broader company on the other side of the fence. And
Speaker 1: the part that's a little bit more of a challenge is,
Speaker 1: you know, you've got millions of people using HBO going now,
Speaker 1: and they're going to start using HBO Max. So how
Speaker 1: do you get seamless consumer transitions from those legacy applications
Speaker 1: into um HBO max for example, UM how do you
Speaker 1: translate all of their personalizations and recommendations into the new app?
Speaker 1: How far do you go with that? And so you know,
Speaker 1: those are things you wouldn't otherwise have to work through
Speaker 1: if you had a clean slate and you were launching
Speaker 1: the app for the first time. But I'll take those problems.
Speaker 1: I'll take the problems of having millions of people using
Speaker 1: your application and working through that rather than starting at zero. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's a nice standing start. Does that mean that brands
Speaker 1: like HBO Now will continue in the HBO Max era. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it does. I mean the HBO Now and Go brands
Speaker 1: are not going away. HBO as a brand, more importantly
Speaker 1: is not going away. It's you know, a central brand
Speaker 1: for the broader company. Um. The challenge for us is
Speaker 1: how do you maintain HBO as a brand and a
Speaker 1: product separate apart from HBO Max, but then also take
Speaker 1: HBO Max and make it a broader brand umbrella for
Speaker 1: the other properties of the company. So it's a you know,
Speaker 1: this is something we talked with with Kevin and Bob
Speaker 1: about regularly, Andy Forcel and Tony Consalves on the on
Speaker 1: the product side is how do we build the technology
Speaker 1: in such a way that the publishing and editorial teams
Speaker 1: can feature these applications in such a way that they
Speaker 1: maintain their brand identities. And so it's it's a you know,
Speaker 1: when I talk about sort of multi tenant, that's really
Speaker 1: what I mean is, you know, how do you have
Speaker 1: HBO live in there, but how do you also have
Speaker 1: DC Comics live in there? How do you also how
Speaker 1: do you also have the other brand properties of the
Speaker 1: company living there. It's it's an interesting challenge for us.
Speaker 1: You know, CNN is going to be in this application, um,
Speaker 1: and so you've got a lot of brands that normally
Speaker 1: people don't think about sort of coexisting together. And so
Speaker 1: you have to bring all that into one application and
Speaker 1: create a way for people to find that content, personalize
Speaker 1: that content, recommend that content, and navigate around the application
Speaker 1: in a coherent way. I guess I I never stopped
Speaker 1: to think of the as you put it, the multi
Speaker 1: tendency as as an issue because I just assumed you're
Speaker 1: grabbing a bunch of content. It all has different labels,
Speaker 1: network brands, and you dump them into the streaming service.
Speaker 1: I know I'm making this ridiculously simplistic, but are you
Speaker 1: somehow SI justesting that even though we're kind of moving
Speaker 1: away from the traditional linear system in this streaming world,
Speaker 1: that these brands maintain some kind of distinct presence. Yes,
Speaker 1: I mean, uh, you know there will be capabilities to
Speaker 1: cut across brand so as you you know, as you
Speaker 1: do search right, as you look at genres or things
Speaker 1: like that, those aren't brands specific. But some of these
Speaker 1: brands are very strong. They have um, you know, cult
Speaker 1: followings and fan followings, and we don't want to diminish that.
Speaker 1: So we want areas of the application to feature those
Speaker 1: brands and allow consumers to dive deep inside of those
Speaker 1: brands to discover things around Batman or Superman. I mean,
Speaker 1: these are iconic kinds of things, and so we don't
Speaker 1: want to simply merchandise things and just sort of throw
Speaker 1: it all into one funnel and say, go find your content.
Speaker 1: So they'll be you know, curated components of this. They'll
Speaker 1: be brand areas associated with this, you know, much of
Speaker 1: which we showed, for example, during Investor Day. But then
Speaker 1: they'll also be ways for consumers to navigate to specific
Speaker 1: content that they may want. So you know, you can
Speaker 1: go into the search bar and it is not brand specific,
Speaker 1: so you can go and find any content that you
Speaker 1: want in that way. From a product perspective, is there
Speaker 1: something about HBO max is a streaming service that you
Speaker 1: think will set it apart from some of the others
Speaker 1: in this space. Is there some sort of strategic tech
Speaker 1: that you guys are taking in terms of u X
Speaker 1: or infrastructure. Well, I think there's I think there's a
Speaker 1: couple of things that we're doing. One. I'll start on
Speaker 1: the product side and then another I'll talk on the
Speaker 1: tech side. On on the product side, Yes, we want
Speaker 1: there to be computer driven algorithms associated with personalization and recommendation,
Speaker 1: and we'll build those things. Those are valuable things, um.
Speaker 1: But what we also want to do is is add
Speaker 1: an element of curation to this that we don't really
Speaker 1: think exists in the spot space at the at the
Speaker 1: degree to which we have or to degree to which
Speaker 1: we're building into the product. So as you think about,
Speaker 1: you know, the sort of endless scrolls of tiles that
Speaker 1: exist across most of the spots us is they're largely
Speaker 1: just driven by an algorithm. We want sections in there
Speaker 1: where we can actually curate and publish content specifically by
Speaker 1: humans and have that capability there so that if we
Speaker 1: want to merchandise or feature certain things around you know,
Speaker 1: Batman or Superman or classic movies or whatever, it might
Speaker 1: be that they're publishing capabilities where you can feature things.
Speaker 1: So akin to if you think about the way you
Speaker 1: know Turner Classic Movies does thirty days of Oscar or
Speaker 1: thirty days of James Bond, those are human curated kinds
Speaker 1: of capabilities. We want those capabilities as well as algorithmic
Speaker 1: capabilities to deliver consumers at different experience. Okay, I'm curious
Speaker 1: also as we talk about HBO Max and launching into
Speaker 1: the teeth of the so called streaming wars, do you
Speaker 1: look around at the competitors. Are you kind of studying
Speaker 1: them Disney Plus obviously in the market now, Apple TV
Speaker 1: Plus in the market now or is it more like,
Speaker 1: you know, we just keep our head down and create
Speaker 1: the product we're going to create. Well, I mean, I
Speaker 1: hate to maybe a non answer answer, but the answers yes. Um,
Speaker 1: of course, we look at what the competitors are doing,
Speaker 1: and we look inside of their applications and the features
Speaker 1: that are there. The consumers have clearly decided they like,
Speaker 1: and we have to make value based decisions about, you know,
Speaker 1: whether we're gonna put that in our app or not
Speaker 1: put that in our app. Um. But with all that said,
Speaker 1: at the end of the day, you know, we can't
Speaker 1: spend all of our time worrying about what Disney does
Speaker 1: or what you know NBC does, or what Netflix does.
Speaker 1: We have an app we have to build, and we
Speaker 1: have to believe in the product that we're building. And
Speaker 1: so while we pay attention to it and we look
Speaker 1: up over the horizon and and certainly note the things
Speaker 1: that they're doing. Um, you know, we obviously went in
Speaker 1: and looked at the Disney Plus application when it launched.
Speaker 1: At the same time, we've got a roadmap that we're
Speaker 1: trying to deliver against. We've got a value proposition we're
Speaker 1: trying um to deliver against, which we think is a
Speaker 1: bit differentiated from our competitors. And we don't have time
Speaker 1: to worry about it. We we've got to launch an
Speaker 1: app and you know, five six months and there's a
Speaker 1: lot of work to do. Do you have like those
Speaker 1: next six months, uh six months you know sketched out
Speaker 1: within an inch of itself? And in other words, is
Speaker 1: there you just know everything that needs to happen operationally
Speaker 1: at this point and it's all sort of mapped out
Speaker 1: more or less. Yeah, I mean they're you know, we've
Speaker 1: got all of our scrum teams, you know, assigned work
Speaker 1: right up until the launch. We know when we're going
Speaker 1: into QA, we know when we're going into code freezes
Speaker 1: and all that. You know. With that said, there's always
Speaker 1: requirements that pop up here and there via discussions with
Speaker 1: the studio side of the house, the product side of
Speaker 1: the house, or the distribution side of the house, and
Speaker 1: so there are new things that pop up, and we
Speaker 1: we have to make prioritization decisions about squeezing one thing
Speaker 1: out and moving it to a subsequent release. But for
Speaker 1: the most part, the roadmaps pretty baked. I mean, uh,
Speaker 1: if to launch something of this scale, um, you can't
Speaker 1: be making it up at this age of the game.
Speaker 1: You need to kind of have your ducks in a row.
Speaker 1: I would imagine something like this. You know, in any company,
Speaker 1: you get a sense of what are priorities, what perhaps
Speaker 1: takes the oxygen away from other things. Is this kind
Speaker 1: of like an all hands, all consuming thing that to
Speaker 1: some degree presents a challenge in terms of balancing the
Speaker 1: resources there versus you know, keeping the lights on in
Speaker 1: other areas of the company. Yes, I mean, uh, certainly.
Speaker 1: You know, I think one of the challenges that our
Speaker 1: company has had, and I think a lot of media
Speaker 1: companies have had, is that you know, if you look
Speaker 1: at a Netflix or or you know, a spot service
Speaker 1: out there, um, and they you know, they do a
Speaker 1: great job with their product, and you know, consumers have
Speaker 1: clearly decided that they like it, but they have thousands
Speaker 1: of people that work on one app UM, and historically
Speaker 1: most of the major media companies really haven't done that.
Speaker 1: You know, we're supporting dozens of applications and broadcast plants
Speaker 1: and all those kinds of things. I think one of
Speaker 1: the big things that's really changed in in the roll
Speaker 1: out of HBO Max, and I would suspect it similar
Speaker 1: at some of our media appears, is that people are
Speaker 1: taking this much more seriously than they have in the past.
Speaker 1: They're throwing significant content resources against it and technology resources
Speaker 1: against it. And so does it UM, you know, mean
Speaker 1: that the sort of capital distribution across the technology organizations
Speaker 1: is slanting towards HBO Max. The answer is yes, UM.
Speaker 1: What I would also say with that is it should
Speaker 1: you know it. We are at a moment in time,
Speaker 1: I think, in our business model and cycle where we
Speaker 1: have to start throwing more of the capital against UM,
Speaker 1: both the innovations that we're doing in the streaming space
Speaker 1: as well as as well as the product side of
Speaker 1: the house. And that doesn't mean no other brands receive capital,
Speaker 1: but it does mean that that you know, we're we
Speaker 1: are really putting our shoulder behind doing this. It sounds
Speaker 1: like a lot of plaque pressure too. It is, but
Speaker 1: you know, this is actually the fun stuff, you know.
Speaker 1: I mean, yes, it's pressure, and and if it doesn't work,
Speaker 1: there may be a new CTU of Warner Media at
Speaker 1: some point. But but you know, you're building things, you know,
Speaker 1: I mean, you're you're you're playing offense, um, and you're
Speaker 1: gonna release a product, honestly that the company I think
Speaker 1: will be very proud of. And I think that even
Speaker 1: though people are working very hard, they're excited about what
Speaker 1: they're doing because it will not only be a significant
Speaker 1: event for the company, but we think it will be
Speaker 1: something that resonates in the marketplace. UM. So that's sort
Speaker 1: of the good pressure. There's other things that are bad pressure.
Speaker 1: But but you know, I don't enjoy doing budgets all
Speaker 1: the time, and I don't you know, enjoy, you know,
Speaker 1: doing cost reductions. But you know, you have to do
Speaker 1: some of those things in order to free up capital
Speaker 1: to do things you know, where you're playing offense. And
Speaker 1: as long as as long as you know, look, we're
Speaker 1: gonna have three swings at the plate on this and
Speaker 1: and I feel good about our batting average. Well when
Speaker 1: Disney Plus stepped up to the plate, as I'm sure
Speaker 1: you saw tremendous demand, but then some technical problems that
Speaker 1: came with that. Do moments like that give you pause
Speaker 1: that you say, oh my god, I hope we don't
Speaker 1: have to deal with that, or uh, what can you
Speaker 1: really do even to to take precautions? Yeah, I'd say
Speaker 1: that there is an unwritten code amongst c C t
Speaker 1: O s where you feel for the other person. That's
Speaker 1: that's going through it because anyone who's you know, run
Speaker 1: large organizations or or you know how direct to consumer products,
Speaker 1: you know, you've had stumbles and that's what technology. Uh,
Speaker 1: that is unfortunately a reality of building scale technology. So
Speaker 1: you know, I feel for my peers on the other
Speaker 1: side of the world, and that's certainly not something that
Speaker 1: they wanted to have to have happened. With that said,
Speaker 1: you know, there are learnings associated with with UM. You
Speaker 1: know all these things, and a lot of them are
Speaker 1: around scale UM and how much scale you build in
Speaker 1: the public cloud, not just for streaming, but for authentication
Speaker 1: systems and entitlement systems and building systems. And you've got
Speaker 1: to run through a pretty robust set of use cases,
Speaker 1: both in terms of human banging on this and testing it,
Speaker 1: but also automated scripting and automated testing to do load
Speaker 1: balancing across all of these different areas so that you
Speaker 1: feel like you're releasing an app that um is pretty
Speaker 1: battle tested. I don't know exactly what happened on the
Speaker 1: Disney application, but at the same time, they had enormous
Speaker 1: demand for it out of the gates. So if if
Speaker 1: you had to pick a reason that something failed, too
Speaker 1: many people trying to get in, it is probably probably
Speaker 1: problem of a high class problem. And you know, if
Speaker 1: I I hope we don't have any technology failures, but
Speaker 1: if we do, I hope it's because the demand so
Speaker 1: high that that uh that UM, you know, we're we're
Speaker 1: trying to meet the demand. UM, not for other reasons.
Speaker 1: But is the nature of this kind of product, you know,
Speaker 1: streaming software based the years, is it really no different
Speaker 1: than say, back in the fifties when the television picture.
Speaker 1: We'll have all sorts of problems. Is it the kind
Speaker 1: of thing where these kind of problems you just have
Speaker 1: to say okay for a technology in its infancy, this
Speaker 1: kind of comes with the territory. Yeah, I think, UM,
Speaker 1: to a degree, that's true. UM, you know the you know,
Speaker 1: I run the broadcast side, for example, of the company
Speaker 1: as well, and those you know, deliveries to a television
Speaker 1: set today and largely historically have been in closed ecosystems.
Speaker 1: You know, the technology is largely wholly owned by the
Speaker 1: programmer and the distributor, and so you have a higher
Speaker 1: degree of confidence that when you deliver a video bit
Speaker 1: from point A to point B, that it's going to
Speaker 1: make it there because there aren't as many ways for
Speaker 1: it to be interfered with. This is Internet distribution, and
Speaker 1: you know, you you don't own the end to end
Speaker 1: way that video is delivered. You don't own the device,
Speaker 1: you don't own the operating system on the device, you
Speaker 1: don't own the browser on the device. You own the
Speaker 1: app on the device, but it's built for that specific
Speaker 1: operating system. And the way video actually makes its way
Speaker 1: down through a CDN, or through the web, or through
Speaker 1: you know, the various other methods that video goes down
Speaker 1: to a device, you don't generally own those either. So
Speaker 1: you're building software that sits on top of all of
Speaker 1: these other things, and so the number of places where
Speaker 1: you can have problems that you don't control U are
Speaker 1: just broader than they are on the broadcast side of
Speaker 1: the fence. Consumers don't care. Right. The consumer expectation is
Speaker 1: is that this is going to work as well as
Speaker 1: it does when I turn on my TV set, exactly right,
Speaker 1: And so they don't care about all the sausage and
Speaker 1: how it's made on the back end. Um, I have
Speaker 1: to do that. And so you know, we we for
Speaker 1: the way videos delivered over the Internet, are going to
Speaker 1: take our lumps around how we deliver this, whether it's
Speaker 1: on demand video or live video, which is even a
Speaker 1: completely separate challenge on the Internet. Um, until we get
Speaker 1: it right. And it's certainly vastly improved than it was
Speaker 1: ten years ago. Um, but it's not all the way
Speaker 1: to where it needs to be relative to meeting consumer
Speaker 1: expectations about the way traditional television was delivered. And I
Speaker 1: guess in taking your lumps, you learn, you figure out
Speaker 1: where the problems the vulnerabilities are and you're better off
Speaker 1: for it. Or is that just kind of well you
Speaker 1: you do and and you know, look there's this and
Speaker 1: I think it's just this interesting trade off right now
Speaker 1: is that on traditional television, for the most part, the
Speaker 1: video works when you turn it on, but the consumer
Speaker 1: experience around the video isn't great, you know, if it's
Speaker 1: a traditional set top box, whatever it might be, And
Speaker 1: consumers have clearly said, I don't really like the way
Speaker 1: that this video is delivered to me, even though it
Speaker 1: comes on right away when I turn on my TV
Speaker 1: or I changed the channel. On the Internet side, it's
Speaker 1: feature rich, it's software based, in the set of capabilities
Speaker 1: and ways you can watch video is vastly better than
Speaker 1: it is on traditional television. But the video delivery ecosystem
Speaker 1: that sits behind that, uh, is not wholly owned and
Speaker 1: it's not a closed system. So yes, I mean, the
Speaker 1: short answer to your question is is you do have
Speaker 1: to learn about all these different mechanisms and figure out
Speaker 1: methods that you can use in order to smooth things over.
Speaker 1: So you know, here here's just a simple example. The
Speaker 1: reason primarily that live video when it travels over the
Speaker 1: Internet lags the delivery time associated with television, right, and
Speaker 1: your notes it's seven or ten seconds behind on you know,
Speaker 1: in some cases will be up to fifteen seconds behind
Speaker 1: on live video streaming over over the open Internet is
Speaker 1: so that you can fix video problems upstream before they
Speaker 1: ever hit the consumer device, right, and so you can
Speaker 1: fix video bit problems along along the video river that's
Speaker 1: going down to the device. Um, and so lots of
Speaker 1: that kind of stuff happens, and there's a little checkpoints
Speaker 1: along the way for the way video is delivered that
Speaker 1: enable people to fix it before the consumer ever sees it.
Speaker 1: Over time, that will prove over time you will get
Speaker 1: to low latency video feeding, low latency video feeds all
Speaker 1: the way down to the device. Um. But today, uh,
Speaker 1: it's harder to do that because the tech stacks are heterogeneous.
Speaker 1: So the more heterogeneous the end in tech stack is,
Speaker 1: the harder it is to do those types of things.
Speaker 1: You've been at Warner Media long time before it was
Speaker 1: called Warner Media, back at the time Warner days Turner. Um,
Speaker 1: I'm the last I think A O L refugee that's still. Yeah,
Speaker 1: there's there's only I know that everyone they wanted only,
Speaker 1: but there's not many of us left. Yeah, I actually
Speaker 1: originally started at A O L. So it's uh, there's
Speaker 1: a few of us hiding out with our A o
Speaker 1: L T shirts on. Well, the thing I was wondering
Speaker 1: about and it's it's actually this question I think becomes
Speaker 1: more interesting by your A o L background as well.
Speaker 1: Is is there something about launching this massive streaming software
Speaker 1: based product within not just a traditional media company, but
Speaker 1: also now that a T and T is in the picture,
Speaker 1: you know, a telco, uh, not a traditional tech company
Speaker 1: like a Google or a Facebook. Is there a cultural
Speaker 1: challenge that comes with taking this on in that kind
Speaker 1: of environment? Um? Yes, in the sense that you know,
Speaker 1: they've been very focused on traditional telco infrastructure, and so
Speaker 1: you know, you're working with telco building systems and other
Speaker 1: types of things that you know aren't things that you
Speaker 1: would normally encounter it an Amazon or at Google. But
Speaker 1: I think that's honestly more than offset by the distribution
Speaker 1: opportunity that we have through bundling with wireless and bundling
Speaker 1: with fiber, and a lot of the infrastructure capabilities that
Speaker 1: a T and T has, you know, I mean they've
Speaker 1: got now it is a hundred and fifty or some
Speaker 1: odd million direct to consumer relationships that we can now
Speaker 1: leverage to distribute HBO Max. And so while there are
Speaker 1: technical challenges in doing bundling with the way that you know,
Speaker 1: wireless accounts are created, did that's a problem were solving? Um?
Speaker 1: Because it's a unique proposition that we have given that
Speaker 1: all that sits in the same company, where we can
Speaker 1: look at how we bundle HBO Max with other owned
Speaker 1: properties across the broader A T and T enterprise. But
Speaker 1: culturally speaking, is there something about product building that is
Speaker 1: uniquely a function of a true tech native culture or
Speaker 1: you know what if media or telco's spend enough time
Speaker 1: and money on it, it's the same thing. Um, I
Speaker 1: would say culturally there are differences, um, you know, because
Speaker 1: there are. You know, it's really the difference within you know,
Speaker 1: say an A T and T between a pure software
Speaker 1: culture and then a networking and infrastructure culture. You know,
Speaker 1: and and it's all tech and it's all important tech,
Speaker 1: and consumers don't get to watch anything if all that
Speaker 1: stuff doesn't work together. But obviously most of of A
Speaker 1: T and T s broader organization, and it's a big one,
Speaker 1: is focused on wireless, you know, last mile fiber delivery,
Speaker 1: UM and networking infrastructure. And they're excellent at doing that,
Speaker 1: and they're better at it than we are. Um. We
Speaker 1: are more of a software based culture. And that's not
Speaker 1: to say there aren't certain parts of A T and
Speaker 1: T that have that, but you know, they don't release
Speaker 1: a lot of apps UM, and so we work with
Speaker 1: with different parts of that organization that have the software
Speaker 1: based culture. That's that's more consistent with the way that
Speaker 1: we've worked in the past, but we're also learning how
Speaker 1: to work with some of the other organizations that exist there.
Speaker 1: And it's worth doing because you know, when you when
Speaker 1: you think about UM, you know, high end video delivery,
Speaker 1: you want to work with the five G people at
Speaker 1: A T and T, you know, you know, so those
Speaker 1: kinds of things, while culturally it's a little bit different.
Speaker 1: You know, a wireless network engineer is not a software engineer.
Speaker 1: That's a that's a marriage that's worth trying to broker
Speaker 1: between the software person and then the network engineer because
Speaker 1: ultimately you can deliver video down to the humor at
Speaker 1: higher quality and lower cost if you get those two
Speaker 1: people talking the same language. I also wanted to drill
Speaker 1: a little more into this notion of A T and
Speaker 1: T s leverage. It's some giant mobile footprint. I feel
Speaker 1: like that gets to the whole underlying rationale for the
Speaker 1: A T and T acquisition of Warner Media. This combination
Speaker 1: of distribution and content could do great things. So for
Speaker 1: if I'm the consumer, if I'm an A T and
Speaker 1: T handset owner, uh am, I going to see things
Speaker 1: with HBO Max that will be uniquely examples of what
Speaker 1: it is to combine these two things. Yeah, I mean,
Speaker 1: certainly they're they're on. There's several answers to that question.
Speaker 1: Certainly on the marketing side. You're going to see that
Speaker 1: in the way that we bundle, you know, HBO Max
Speaker 1: with the different A T and T products, for example.
Speaker 1: But the other things that we're able to start you
Speaker 1: know doing, some of which will be at launch and
Speaker 1: some of which will be later, are tho way of
Speaker 1: folks authenticate into the product. So I mean, if we
Speaker 1: know and already have a directed consumer relationship with you,
Speaker 1: why do you have to sign in twice? Right? You know?
Speaker 1: Why why can't you do things like simcard based authentication.
Speaker 1: Why can't you do things where you enter a certain
Speaker 1: set of credentials into an A T and T phone
Speaker 1: and it automatically authenticates you into HBO Max and do
Speaker 1: various flavors of single sign on. So things like that.
Speaker 1: We are very much investigating as to how we we
Speaker 1: essentially remove the friction between the consumer and the application itself.
Speaker 1: That's not to say that we wouldn't do that with
Speaker 1: other providers. Um, we certainly would, but it's obviously easiest
Speaker 1: to start with ourselves and build some of those sets
Speaker 1: of capabilities so that you know, the the experience that
Speaker 1: a consumer has through an A T and T phone
Speaker 1: is as optimized as it can be. So I'm guessing
Speaker 1: these days, HBO Max, it's taking your time or upwards
Speaker 1: of that. What else does a CTO you at a
Speaker 1: television company in terms of broadcast operations? What other things
Speaker 1: are or maybe not as top of mine as HBO Max,
Speaker 1: but top of mind. Yeah, I'd sort of divided into
Speaker 1: several buckets. So you know, we work very closely on
Speaker 1: on the data and advertising side. So both are you know,
Speaker 1: are digital across all of our digital properties, whether it's
Speaker 1: CNN dot Com or or um you know, March Madness
Speaker 1: or other properties that we serve. So we still have
Speaker 1: to you know, serve that video and enable advertising in
Speaker 1: it and work with Zander and and the other parts
Speaker 1: of A T and T to leverage the data that
Speaker 1: they have to create audience segments that help us target
Speaker 1: advertising and target content to consumers. So we spend a
Speaker 1: lot of time working on that we've recently actually deployed
Speaker 1: you know what I think is the largest I P
Speaker 1: broadcast facility certainly in the country. UM. And so all
Speaker 1: of our networks, inclusive of HBO and CNN and our
Speaker 1: entertainment properties run under an IP broadcast UM model at
Speaker 1: this point. So I ronically need no JS developers on
Speaker 1: HBO Max and I need them in our broadcast world
Speaker 1: because that's formally transitioned. And then obviously we have the
Speaker 1: election coming up, so I spend a lot of time
Speaker 1: on on CNN and and you know, whether it's the
Speaker 1: primaries or it's the debates or all those things. You know,
Speaker 1: we provide the technical infrastructure that sits across all of
Speaker 1: that UM as well as CNN Digital and those other
Speaker 1: and those other digital properties. So it's, UM, it is
Speaker 1: a very busy time between HBO Max and the election.
Speaker 1: I don't know how you're gonna sleep in, but yeah,
Speaker 1: it's UM. I mean that's the fun part, you know.
Speaker 1: I mean it's it's a lot of pressure. UM. But
Speaker 1: you know, that's kind of the stuff you remember when
Speaker 1: you you know, if you look back on your career,
Speaker 1: you remember those moments, UM and and how well you
Speaker 1: did or you didn't do in those moments, So enjoy that.
Speaker 1: And I have a great team that that assists this.
Speaker 1: It is, but it is hardly me that's doing all this,
Speaker 1: that's for sure. Well, speaking of that team, is it
Speaker 1: a team that I assume has been beefed up considerably
Speaker 1: as all these new challenges come to your on your plate. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we're we're you know, certainly the HBO Max team has
Speaker 1: expanded significantly, you know, since we really made that commitment,
Speaker 1: and then we've done a variety of things in terms
Speaker 1: of combining technology organizations, primarily between Turner and HBO UM
Speaker 1: to really give us more scale and specific areas. And
Speaker 1: then we recently did this on a global basis, so
Speaker 1: it's both domestic and international UM and uh, you know,
Speaker 1: those organizations support all of the aforementioned brands and properties
Speaker 1: UM and so in some cases we've cut back because
Speaker 1: those businesses no longer warrant, you know, the levels of
Speaker 1: attention that they've had historically. But it's essentially a capital
Speaker 1: redeployment exercise. It's not a let's cut for for cutting sake.
Speaker 1: It's you know, these are the places the companies decided
Speaker 1: to invest, and so whether it's you know CNND Digital,
Speaker 1: or its sports, or it's you know, data and advertising, HBO,
Speaker 1: max As or you know, probably the four biggest pillars
Speaker 1: associated with our growth. And and so we're we are
Speaker 1: open for business and have a lot of open roles.
Speaker 1: Uh that so any engineers that are out there paying
Speaker 1: me on LinkedIn, I mean imagine it's probably quite a
Speaker 1: race out there between you and other companies in terms
Speaker 1: of getting the best engineering talent. You feel that, oh, absolutely,
Speaker 1: I mean it it. Uh, there's there's a race for
Speaker 1: tech talent. And you know, I I like our position here. Um,
Speaker 1: we have a lot of geographic diversity. You know, we
Speaker 1: have a significant presence here in l A. We have
Speaker 1: a huge presence in Seattle and New York as well
Speaker 1: as in Atlanta domestically, and then we have international locations
Speaker 1: from London to Amsterdam, duennas areas. So it's, um, there's
Speaker 1: a lot of opportunities and a lot of different parts
Speaker 1: of the globe. And you know, we were you know,
Speaker 1: there's a sort of essentially call it the race to
Speaker 1: the middle. You know, we've got we've got media companies
Speaker 1: that have been great at content for a long time
Speaker 1: that are now trying to get great at tech, and
Speaker 1: you've got a lot of tech companies that have been
Speaker 1: great at tech for a long time, and they're trying
Speaker 1: to get great at media. And we're all kind of
Speaker 1: racing to the same place, but on two different paths,
Speaker 1: and we're all now competing for the same group of
Speaker 1: tech talent. And so, you know, the way we recruit UM,
Speaker 1: we're recruiting the same groups of people, but our pitches
Speaker 1: are a bit different, you know. UM. You know, one
Speaker 1: of the best recruiting tools that we have beyond obviously
Speaker 1: you know, paying competitively and those types of things, is
Speaker 1: you walk someone around the studios at HBO or CNN
Speaker 1: or Warner Brothers and say, hey, you know, would you
Speaker 1: like to come here and work on this stuff? And
Speaker 1: you know, we usually get those people. So it's there's
Speaker 1: a compelling value proposition between you know, really being in
Speaker 1: a scaled content company and then a technology arm of
Speaker 1: a content company that's in investment mode. And you know,
Speaker 1: so we've had a lot of success, you know, pulling
Speaker 1: folks from some of the traditional technology companies UM and
Speaker 1: historically they've pulled folks from US and UM. I like
Speaker 1: the trends well My guess is you're gonna be doing
Speaker 1: a lot on the hiring front this coming year. Looking
Speaker 1: forward to seeing HBO Max come out of the gate
Speaker 1: in t Thanks for coming in to talk to me today. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it was great. I appreciate it, so thanks for having me.
Speaker 1: This has been another episode of Strictly Business. Tune in
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