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Gairdner was provisionally excited.
But a new, deep-pocketed buyer was cause for optimism.
(Quibi, which rhymes with Libby, is short for quick bites.)
And he was spending lavishly on his hunch.
I can honestly say Ive never been in such a cocky pitch environment, Gairdner recalls.
Theres massive jars of expensive, nice-seeming candy everywhere.
Its sleek and modern, and you see hundreds of people passing by.
And theres this energy of people who really believe theyve got the next big thing.
People on Quibi have $100,000 a minute to make content, Katzenberg tells me.
That doesnt exist on other platforms.
Producers who went into meetings with him skeptical walked out thinking he might be onto something.
To some storytellers, Quibi represented virgin creative soil.
Every ten minutes, youll get a swerve, a fork in the road.
That first day, the Quibi app rose to No.
3 in Apples App Store.
Instead, Quibi has foundered.
The apps ranking dropped to No.
I feel like every show on Quibi right now.
We realized people want to take Swift Sips of content, he says dryly.
Katzenberg and Meg Whitman, Quibis CEO, attributed the slow start in part to the pandemic.
T-Mobile, Quibis most important launch partner, could hardly flex its marketing muscle when most stores were closed.
The on the go users the app was meant to capture were now stuck at home.
One of themost striking things about Quibi is how fully and handsomely realized it is.
Before Quibi even had a name, Katzenberg was singing the gospel of chapterized stories for your cell phone.
And he considered the TV streamers to be playing a different game altogether than what he was envisioning.
In 1984, he and Eisner moved to Disney.
Katzenberg did little other than work, and he expected others to follow suit.
He was famous for booking three breakfasts every morning.
Hes just a machine.
Katzenbergs unyielding drive was instrumental to Disneys animation renascence in the 1980s and early 1990s.
The movie ended up grossing $330 million and winning four Oscars.
2 job at Disney and refused to pay him the large severance guaranteed in his contract.
Katzenberg sued Disney, eventually walking away with a $270 million settlement.
That kind of satirical take on a classic fairy tale.
Not that Katzenberg spent much time dwelling on his accomplishments.
Theres this enormous cultural impact, and thats got to feel really good.
He said, I never think about that.
I dont look backward.
Instead, he formed a holding company called WndrCo that would take stakes in a handful of media firms.
It would also birth a new company of its own.
By July 2017,Katzenberg was appearing on the cover ofVarietytouting something he called NewTV.
At both places, Whitman made bold moves to mixed effect.
By the time she departed, the companys growth had plateaued.
Whitman remained head of the new, business-facing HPE, which even after the spinoff struggled with declining revenue.
Katzenberg called Whitman the day she announced her retirement and asked what she was doing.
By evening, he was in Palo Alto, pitch deck in hand.
She was quickly persuaded by Katzenbergs vision.
Theres usually a premium version of what a service is, she tells me.
It often only attracts 5 to 10 percent of the market.
Sneakers, bottled water.
Water, by the way, is free.
People pay for convenience and premium.
Ad-supported TV was at its peak when HBO launched.
And I want to invest behind trends.
A few weeks later, she agreed to sign on.
(It would eventually amass a total of $1.75 billion.)
In the 100-year history of Hollywood, that never happened.
This is known as round-tripping.
There was really nothing for the studios to lose.
(Many of them asked that Quibi reciprocate their level of investment, a Quibi executive says.
Quibi did not agree to that.)
(It turned out whoops that there was already a company named NewTV.)
The new name was Quibi.
That would have really won over Wisconsin, a former insider notes.
Ultimately, Quibi won the day.
They never asked staff to weigh in on it, this person says.
People on staff thought it was cringey and would ask, Is it too late to change it?
For filmmakers, though, Katzenbergs new venture was happy news.
Apple+ spent $6 billion, and HBO and Hulu spent $2.5 billion each.
But creators still worried that the spigot would inevitably shut off, and a buyer was a buyer.
Some creators seemed also to embrace Quibis unique proposition.
Katzenberg has said Spielberg wants to make a scary show for Quibi that is watchable only after dark.
From the beginning, observers wondered how the Katzenberg-Whitman partnership would work.
They had complementary skills, but each was used to being in charge.
Whitman described herself to me as left-brain analytical to Katzenbergs right-brain storyteller.
(A Quibi executive denies that this happened.)
Whitman sits on the third floor, Katzenberg on the fourth.
Katzenberg was in the content corner.
Meg did everything else.
It was like, Oh, Mom and Dad are fighting again, this source adds.
(Weve formed a strong partnership based on strength and authenticity, Whitman says.
Were friends who admire and respect one another.)
But Quibis bigger problemswere more conceptual.
Who needed Quibi to break things up into snackable chunks for them to begin with?
As one longtime Hollywood executive told me, I have a pause button.
Some wondered whether Quibi was a feathered fish and Katzenberg had mistaken an incremental innovation for a grand disruption.
In interviews, Katzenberg would adamantly emphasize Quibis novelty.
Some employees within Quibi wondered whether young people would pay for the service.
You never dissented on that point, recalls one of them.
Their fund-raise was predicated on a plan that showed revenue targets, so they could never unwind that.
Katzenberg says much the same when I ask him why Quibi doesnt have an ad-supported free offering.
Literally, he said, you cannot do the math.
One media investor suggested the quality of Quibis lineup reflected an adverse selection bias.
If it doesnt get traction, you pitch to Quibi.
Indeed, many of the shows Quibi picked up had been widely shopped elsewhere beforehand.
Jason Blum points out that a lot of excellent scripts still end up in desk drawers.
We wanted to get right to the interesting bits.
But any particular shows she likes?
Grant, she offered.
On the History Channel.
Its about President Grant.
(Apparently, her face fell, says a person briefed on the meeting.)
Afterward, she felt Katzenberg had understood her.
I know millennials better than millennials.
Katzenberg had at times been well served by his intuition, and he remained convinced of its acuity.
I say, Wheres your data?, Whitman says of their contrasting styles.
He says, There is none.
You just have to go with your gut.
Some welcomed them even if they disagreed.
For all his past successes, Katzenbergs sureness about his own instincts hasnt always been justified.
3-D wasnt the future after all.
Thats a microcosm of the Quibi story, a producer who has worked with the company says.
Everyone else is fucking wrong; Im just going to do it.
He willed it into being.
A series of top executives came and went.
Executive Tim Connelly, under whose leadership Quibi secured $100 million in advertising commitments, also left abruptly.
Its very Trumpian there, says a person with firsthand knowledge.
Unless you agree with them, youre a troublemaker.
Meg believes shes a marketing genius; Jeffrey believes hes a content genius.
People made fun of me, one ex-Quibite tells me.
They said I drank the Kool-Aid.
Were not raising $1.75 billion to start a pizza parlor in the East Village.
Were doing it to venture to compete for content with some of the worlds biggest streamers.
If theyd messaged that, they could have presented themselves as the small guys taking on the big guys.
But they allowed expectations to soar to the point where people started thinking they were a Netflix competitor.
Some of the industry skepticism seemed to have an edge of personal antipathy.
Katzenberg was a polarizing figure.
Make it French, like Botticelli.
During his DreamWorks years, some fellow moguls found Katzenbergs work ethic tiresome.
Hes a time suck of unbelievable proportions, says a longtime colleague.
He has thrown some sharp elbows over the years, leading some of his most important relationships to rupture.
(He and Geffen no longer speak.)
When Comcast-Universal bought DreamWorks, it was on the condition that he leave the company.
(Lets reiterate, a former friend says.
Comcast chose to overpay for DreamWorks Animation to not have him there.)
Blum chalks up the griping to jealousy.
And, as Katzenberg says, this was a marathon and not a sprint.
Almost immediately, it became clear justhow badly Quibi had failedto understand its digital-native audience.
WhenThe Golden Armdrew Twitters attention, the delight was followed by scorn as people realized Quibis screenshotting limitations.
And Quibi has had to contend with a lawsuit over its beloved Turnstyle.
It was hard to write off as a mere nuisance suit.
As of early July, over 5 million phones had downloaded the Quibi app.
In light of its disappointing user numbers, Quibis advertisers have reportedly asked to renegotiate their deals.
The company was forced to go into capital-conservation mode.
Executives took a 10 percent pay cut.
Some of Quibis own ads in the run-up to launch seemed ego driven.
Quibis marketing pushed the platform rather than the shows on it.
If theyd made the marketing aboutMost Dangerous GameandChrissys Court,they could be crowing about what hits they are.
(A Quibi executive denies this account.)
But not all of its damage-control efforts have been successful.
(A spokesperson for Quibi who was present for the interview maintains Katzenberg was clearly joking.)
Katzenberg and Whitman have tried to put the best face on things.
No question, weve launched at a difficult time, Whitman told me in May.
But she notes that weve only been in business 50 days.
I would say things are going really well, he said.
(Yeah, hes disappointed, his friend Jim Gianopulos, the head of Paramount, tells me.
But he ignores the possibility of failure in the pursuit of success.
Thats who he is.)
Whitman tells me investors arent freaking out: Interestingly enough, theyre all pretty calm.
Theyre all in businesses that have been affected by covid.
They know that were a start-up.
And Quibi is already starting to adapt.
A marketing pivot began in late June, focused on pushing the two new shows launching each week.
Quibi is also working to make screenshotting possible.
Meanwhile, the 90-day free trials will begin expiring this month.
The industry conversion rate from a free trial to a paid subscription hovers below 33 percent.
We dont know quite what to expect, Whitman tells me in late June.
A Quibi executive says it was canceled because it was not a strong enough script.
Four years later, amid anemic demand, the Arch Deluxe was discontinued.
