Speaker 1: This is Bloomberg Business Week with Carol Masser and Jason
Speaker 1: Kelly on Bloomberg Radio. As our listeners know, Quimby, the
Speaker 1: new streaming service and short form video app. It launched yesterday,
Speaker 1: founded by Jeffrey Katzenberg. We talked with him yesterday. Well,
Speaker 1: lucky for us, today we have the CEO of Quimby,
Speaker 1: Meg Whitman, well known to our listeners, former CEO of
Speaker 1: Hewlett Packard and eBay. Meg. Nice to have you here
Speaker 1: with us. UM talked to us about Quimby. I mean,
Speaker 1: the timing is such a timely one considering the surgeons
Speaker 1: streaming that we're seeing because of so many of us
Speaker 1: sheltering in place. UM, talk to us about what you're
Speaker 1: seeing initially these first couple of days. Well, good, well,
Speaker 1: thanks for having me. Um. Yeah, we launched yesterday and
Speaker 1: we were very pleased by our first day response. We're
Speaker 1: number three in the app store, between behind TikTok and Zoom,
Speaker 1: and number two in their entertainment category, behind TikTok and
Speaker 1: ahead of Netflix and Disney Plus. So we're very pleased
Speaker 1: by that. It's day one, long way to go, but
Speaker 1: we're pleased by that. And UM, you know listen. It
Speaker 1: was a hard decision to decide to launch, right, I mean,
Speaker 1: this is a terribly you know, disruptive time for everybody.
Speaker 1: But we ultimately said, you know, we're not medical professionals,
Speaker 1: we're not first responders, but maybe we can bring a
Speaker 1: little joy and levity to people's lives with the content
Speaker 1: that we have, and so we decided to go for it,
Speaker 1: and we had to change everything about the launch. As
Speaker 1: you can imagine, we had a physical UM launch event
Speaker 1: with a big red carpet. But guess what our biggest
Speaker 1: TV buy was launch week the n C Double A Finals,
Speaker 1: which were to be last night, so we had we
Speaker 1: had all bought everything on March madness, and we were
Speaker 1: so excited that the finals were supposed to be last night,
Speaker 1: the evening of our launch. Okay, that all have to
Speaker 1: be scrapped. So there's been challenges UM, but but we've
Speaker 1: you know, the team has been great and our production
Speaker 1: partners have been amazing because let many of them are
Speaker 1: daily essentials are all being produced you know from home. Well,
Speaker 1: and I've been remiss. Are you're doing well, your family,
Speaker 1: your colleagues, everybody doing Okay? Yes, yes, very much. So
Speaker 1: when I have Um, you know, I live in l
Speaker 1: A now, but my husband is a medical professional. He's
Speaker 1: a neurosurgeon, and so I'm sheltered in place in Sacramento
Speaker 1: where he's at you C. Davis in Sacramento. Wow, So
Speaker 1: I decided to come up here because he's you know,
Speaker 1: he's on the front lines every single day. He's doing great.
Speaker 1: But it's you know, it's pretty tense out there, honestly,
Speaker 1: it really is. And what do you you know, Meg,
Speaker 1: You you've obviously been very politically active in a candidate
Speaker 1: for high office before you understand the collision of political
Speaker 1: and economic and business and all of that. What do
Speaker 1: you make for from that perspective as a leader of
Speaker 1: some of the responses that we've seen, I mean, Governor
Speaker 1: Newsom is you know, getting some some decent reviews, more
Speaker 1: than decent reviews there in California as you look across
Speaker 1: the country. I know we're a little off topic here,
Speaker 1: but what do you make of the response? Yeah, well, listen,
Speaker 1: this is unprecedented, right, No one, no governor, no president,
Speaker 1: no one has had to deal with something quite like
Speaker 1: this before, well maybe in seventeen or something. Um, so
Speaker 1: it's completely different. And I think you know, they're feeling
Speaker 1: their way. I think Governor Newsom was doing a very
Speaker 1: good job. He jumped on this early. He had us all,
Speaker 1: you know, sheltering in place. The curve appears to be
Speaker 1: flattening here, but but we'll see. Um. You know, I
Speaker 1: think it's a very challenging environment for leaders, you know,
Speaker 1: in the political sphere. Well. And you know what's interesting is,
Speaker 1: you know, we talk a lot meg um about how
Speaker 1: things are changing. Like I think about you were really wonderful.
Speaker 1: I did a breakfast of Corporate Champions with you about
Speaker 1: the breakup of HP and your panel, the panel, your
Speaker 1: colleagues that helped in that breakup and and what went on.
Speaker 1: And I just think, remember, yeah, and I think you
Speaker 1: know how things change, right, and who would have thought
Speaker 1: HP the breakup? But it did happen, and we live
Speaker 1: in a different environment. I do wonder how you see
Speaker 1: today's environment, um, how it will impact the virus, how
Speaker 1: it will impact our world going forward maybe longer term. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think that's a really very interesting question. I mean,
Speaker 1: don't you wonder whether work from home has changed from forever? Yes? Um,
Speaker 1: I think it may have. We've all learned how to
Speaker 1: do this I mean I've been going into an office
Speaker 1: for forty years, and all of a sudden I've had
Speaker 1: to figure this out, which you know, it's been pretty easy.
Speaker 1: I've happened to be a chech exect but still, you know,
Speaker 1: and it's pretty efficient. So I wonder if that will
Speaker 1: have changed. I wonder if this will have changed how
Speaker 1: families communicate. I mean every weekend, now we're on with
Speaker 1: you know, both my husband's family and my family for
Speaker 1: an hour and a half, you know, doing a zoom call,
Speaker 1: because we never did that before, right, So no, I
Speaker 1: think that I think that's totally true. Well, and and men,
Speaker 1: you know, on the subject of media, I feel like,
Speaker 1: you know, we were just speaking with Susan Lyne and obviously,
Speaker 1: like you, she knows a huge amount about media and
Speaker 1: technology in the intersection. Uh they're in you know, you've been,
Speaker 1: you know, elbow neck deep in the creation of a
Speaker 1: new media company. How do you think media changes going forward,
Speaker 1: both in terms of this inflection point but also wrapping
Speaker 1: a in you know, the whole notion of this virus. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: well I think, um listen, you know, Hollywood is a
Speaker 1: surprisingly um uh entrepreneurial place. Think about it every time
Speaker 1: you start a movie. Okay, a movie is a startup.
Speaker 1: It's not different from a startup in Silicon Valley. And
Speaker 1: uh so they are adapting really fast to um this
Speaker 1: entirely new environment. And I think you may see different
Speaker 1: kinds of content. I think how it's consumed maybe different.
Speaker 1: Um you know, you wonder where everyone comes pouring back
Speaker 1: into the movie theaters or you know, that's fundamentally changed.
Speaker 1: I don't know, but people are exploring new ways to
Speaker 1: consume content. Um. We were excited because we thought, you know,
Speaker 1: if we could make watching um holiday Hollywood quality content
Speaker 1: on your phone, UM, terrific. You know, that would be
Speaker 1: something that hadn't been done before. It was technology enabling
Speaker 1: a new way to tell stories. And I think you're
Speaker 1: going to see a lot of that, you know, in
Speaker 1: part because the situation in which we find ourselves, but
Speaker 1: also the normal march and time of technology and its advancements.
Speaker 1: And uh, you know, given everything that's been going on
Speaker 1: with shutdown, how much sort of content do you have
Speaker 1: in the can? How much do you worry about sort
Speaker 1: of production shutdowns? Well, we have enough content, believe it
Speaker 1: or not, to get us through November. Might say one.
Speaker 1: Why did that happen? How did that happen? Well, we
Speaker 1: knew we needed to bank content because I thought, you know,
Speaker 1: what if if this, you know, was remarkably successful, maybe
Speaker 1: we need to pull forward some content. So we wanted
Speaker 1: to have enough content in our you know, in the
Speaker 1: archives if you will. But we also thought there might
Speaker 1: be a writer strike in May, so that was the
Speaker 1: other thing we did. And um, so we've got enough
Speaker 1: content now. Remember part of our content is Daily Essentials
Speaker 1: and that is produced every day. And um, so you know,
Speaker 1: our news partners are you know, doing it up in
Speaker 1: their studio, but many are doing it from home. We've
Speaker 1: got you know, music news, Um, we've got celebrity news,
Speaker 1: talk shows, sports, whether you name it, and so different
Speaker 1: of our partners are doing it different ways, but again
Speaker 1: super um, you know, entrepreneurial and figuring out how to
Speaker 1: make it great from people's living room. You've seen it
Speaker 1: all the time. It's crazy. So okay, i'd be remiss.
Speaker 1: You've only got about forty seconds left here about um
Speaker 1: Xerox giving up its pursuit of HP any any kind
Speaker 1: of final thoughts on that. Well, you know, listen, I
Speaker 1: always thought that seemed sort of a strange thing because
Speaker 1: HP is so much bigger than Xerox. I mean, if
Speaker 1: anyone was going to buy someone, who should be the
Speaker 1: other way around. And so, you know, I never quite
Speaker 1: understood the rational, um, and so I think listen, you know,
Speaker 1: the leaders at HP now are fantastic. Chairman of the board,
Speaker 1: chips are doing a great job. And um, you know,
Speaker 1: so I think it's it's you know, a great company
Speaker 1: and they'll do fine on their own. Listen, Meg, thank
Speaker 1: you so much, really appreciate your time. Good luck with quimby,
Speaker 1: and we look forward to talking to you again, um
Speaker 1: as the year progresses on. This is Bloomberg Business Week
Speaker 1: with Carol Masser and Jason Kelly on Bloomberg Radio. Well
Speaker 1: Susan Lyons professional background it is been in all worlds
Speaker 1: of media, publishing, multimedia. Also, she has become a venture
Speaker 1: capitalist and has been for several years. She's former president
Speaker 1: of ABC Entertainment. She ran Martha Stewart on the Media
Speaker 1: Oversaw a o L dot Com directed the board of
Speaker 1: Guilt Groups. So UM so delighted to have her back
Speaker 1: with us. She is the founder and president of BBG Ventures,
Speaker 1: making investments and women founded startups. Quite a portfolio, and
Speaker 1: she joins us on this Tuesday on the phone in
Speaker 1: New York, Susan, it is great to have you back
Speaker 1: with us. Really appreciate your time. I hope you your family,
Speaker 1: Uh folks are doing okay. Everyone's fine. I've got children
Speaker 1: in Brooklyn, I've got sisters here in Manhattan and uh,
Speaker 1: and I'm here in Manhattan too, so uh, we're all
Speaker 1: working from home at this point, like the rest of
Speaker 1: the world, right exactly. I do wonder when you look
Speaker 1: at this, um, the kind of the world that we're
Speaker 1: in right now. You know, we talk about people are
Speaker 1: doing more streaming, We're talking about changes that might come
Speaker 1: to education or medicine. I'm just curious, you know, with
Speaker 1: your investor hat on, you know, how you see it,
Speaker 1: how our world might be changing as a result of this.
Speaker 1: You know, this is the giants question out there. UM.
Speaker 1: I think we know the near term impacts, I think uh,
Speaker 1: and I'm happy to talk about some of the things
Speaker 1: we're seeing. I think the the more interesting piece of
Speaker 1: this is whether it will create um behavior changes over time.
Speaker 1: How much of what we are are being forced to
Speaker 1: do now will actually become part of our work lives
Speaker 1: or as you say, learning lives or UM or just
Speaker 1: the way we live UM and that I think will
Speaker 1: take time to really understand. But there are certain things
Speaker 1: that that I have to believe will never completely go back.
Speaker 1: You know, I can't imagine that companies are going to
Speaker 1: go back to spending as much on business travel, for example,
Speaker 1: because everyone has been forced to figure out how to
Speaker 1: do business across country using Zoom or whatever, uh, whatever
Speaker 1: video product your company h uses UM, and there's a
Speaker 1: ton you can get done. There's no question, and it
Speaker 1: can be very intimate in fact. So uh seems like
Speaker 1: that I think are going to have UM a much
Speaker 1: bigger impact than just keeping us in for a couple
Speaker 1: of months. And what do you Let's let's continue to
Speaker 1: talk about that, because this is the most fascinating piece
Speaker 1: of this to to me. Honestly, Susan and Carol and
Speaker 1: I talked about it on air off air all the time.
Speaker 1: We talk about it within our company because we are
Speaker 1: seeing things differently, uh, you know, working from home, candidly,
Speaker 1: spending more time with our families in many cases, I
Speaker 1: I hope, you know, more balanced parenting in some ways,
Speaker 1: I'm not so tired anymore so what's the net effect
Speaker 1: of that, you think. I think that, Look, I hope
Speaker 1: it's going to have um uh lasting impact on things
Speaker 1: like co parenting. That would be a beautiful thing. Um.
Speaker 1: And certainly I think there's a lot of men out
Speaker 1: there who are realizing, um, there's great pleasure in doing
Speaker 1: a lot more with their their families and maybe they
Speaker 1: were able to do when they were working sixteen hours
Speaker 1: a day. UM. I do think that there will be
Speaker 1: more working from home, just no question about it. There's
Speaker 1: a um there's value in it for companies. UH. Maybe
Speaker 1: not full time and certainly not for your entire team
Speaker 1: as who are forced to do right now. But there's
Speaker 1: a lot of jobs that can be done remotely and
Speaker 1: there are a lot of days in the week I
Speaker 1: think when you could organize things to do your work
Speaker 1: from a home office. So I do think that is
Speaker 1: going to have um uh runover effect um And I
Speaker 1: think there's going to be demands on both sides at
Speaker 1: the table for it. I think there are our companies
Speaker 1: who's who are going to realize they can be more
Speaker 1: efficient by doing this, And I think there are people
Speaker 1: in all levels of jobs who are going to say,
Speaker 1: you know what, I want to work from home to
Speaker 1: day to week. Well, listen, like I think even you know, TV, television, radio,
Speaker 1: who would have thought you mean, Jason and I are
Speaker 1: both you know where a state apart, where forty miles apart,
Speaker 1: and we're doing you know, a anchored show and television.
Speaker 1: We've all seen people from their homes who would have
Speaker 1: thought that we would be able to do. I'm not
Speaker 1: saying that this, you know that we're the most important
Speaker 1: industry hardly, but it would have been one of those
Speaker 1: things you're like, no, you can't do that from home, Well,
Speaker 1: yeah we can, Yeah, absolutely, And I think it's um.
Speaker 1: Someone said to me the other day that that they've
Speaker 1: seen the inside of people's homes and apartments so much
Speaker 1: more frequently in the last three weeks than they ever
Speaker 1: had in their lifetime. So there's there's definitely things you
Speaker 1: learn about your co workers too, when, uh, when you're
Speaker 1: operating like this. So Susan line back with us. Susan,
Speaker 1: thanks for hanging on gott to ask you, you know,
Speaker 1: given all of your experience in the media world, what
Speaker 1: do you make of the media world right now? We're
Speaker 1: at such an interesting inflection point and we're testing all
Speaker 1: these different things, given everybody streaming and consuming in a
Speaker 1: different way, what do you see out there? Yeah, look,
Speaker 1: I think this is a really interesting moment um, certainly
Speaker 1: for as you said, streaming media. I think it's obviously
Speaker 1: much tougher for for scripted media. For entertainment, UM, there's
Speaker 1: tons of it being consumed right now, but until and
Speaker 1: unless they can get back to actually producing, UM, it's
Speaker 1: gonna be far more difficult. But there's no question moments
Speaker 1: like this, UH make people hungry to understand what's going
Speaker 1: on in the world, and hungry too, you know, be
Speaker 1: entertained to laugh. And there are so many options for
Speaker 1: re viewing at this moment. I think the mainstream media,
Speaker 1: what you can see just by the ratings snumbers, UM,
Speaker 1: they've doubled uh their audience in some cases even more
Speaker 1: than that for what we consider may stream media, things
Speaker 1: like cable news, UM. And I think that will continue
Speaker 1: for a while. But I think the issue is how
Speaker 1: do you keep that kind of UM. I would say,
Speaker 1: solution to what people need, what people want on a
Speaker 1: daily basis, once they're not completely isolated and uh, and
Speaker 1: once they're UM, they're no longer concerned about the immediate
Speaker 1: health threat. Yeah, exactly like I. We will see how
Speaker 1: much of this, you know, ultimately stays with us. I mean,
Speaker 1: I'm one of those people who's you know, I've been
Speaker 1: binged on Tiger King, but I think I'm done, Susan.
Speaker 1: I do wonder we're gonna be talking with Meg Whitman
Speaker 1: of Quimby CEO Quimby. They launched us yesterday. When you
Speaker 1: look at the media world, what are the types of
Speaker 1: investments that you find interesting? Well, I think Quimby is
Speaker 1: really interesting. We tend to invest less in what I
Speaker 1: would call traditional media, largely because, um, it's been a
Speaker 1: challenging sector. Uh, because it's hard to figure out how
Speaker 1: to monetize it. So our focus has been much more
Speaker 1: on um on technology, investments, on commerce, investments, on on services,
Speaker 1: things that uh, we know our core customers are looking for. UM. Really,
Speaker 1: when when you when you dig into what female entrepreneurs
Speaker 1: are building, their problem solvers, their consumer problem solvers. So uh,
Speaker 1: they look at some aspect of life and saying, you know,
Speaker 1: either this is missing or I can create a much
Speaker 1: better experience. UM. And I know it's it's like making
Speaker 1: you pick up on your children, but you only have
Speaker 1: about a minute left here, Susan, what's one thing in
Speaker 1: your portfolio that you would point to that's representative of that. Well,
Speaker 1: I'll tell you about two because they're sort of opposid
Speaker 1: ends of the spectrum. One is the Wing, which has
Speaker 1: been deeply impacted by b COVID, but they are well
Speaker 1: capitalized and they uh, they will be reborn once this
Speaker 1: is over because it it created um a very safe
Speaker 1: place for women and a joyful place for women. And
Speaker 1: I think that the need for a place to work,
Speaker 1: to learn, to come together, to meet your next partner
Speaker 1: or to whatever. You're still going to be there, Susan,
Speaker 1: it just got twenty seconds left forgive me, okay. The
Speaker 1: other one is Squad. So this is a screen sharing
Speaker 1: app that allows you to hang out with your friends.
Speaker 1: Think Zoom for friends and family UM. And they have
Speaker 1: just taken off, So you know, two very good time Maconese.
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, interesting, all right, We can't wait to catch
Speaker 1: up with you again. We really appreciated Susan Lyne, founder
Speaker 1: and managing partner of BBG Ventures, Carol, thank you so much.
Speaker 1: Day Safe. Susan really appreciate it.