Who Owns Nebula?
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Who Owns Nebula?
1–10 of 108 posts
Re: Who Owns Nebula?
#2Interesting analysis! From the facts in this post, I'd reach the following speculation: the creators have a contract that entitles them to vote on certain types of company action, a share of 50% of the revenue, and potentially representation of their votes in the form of one or two of the existing board seats. Essentially there being some company bylaws in place to enact that "ownership" mechanism.
This would match what Standard have said about the setup, would match the Wendover documentary and its reference to "wizardwry" making it all work, and provide for input from creators and revenue to creators. Combining this with the phantom stock and how a sale would be handled, I think calling this "ownership" when summing it up in a single word for the purposes of a YouTube advert is... uncontroversial?
The alternative would be having each creator on the cap table, and my understanding is that is actually quite tricky to do at scale, and brings significant legal and tax implications for the creators and Nebula.
While this is all very interesting, and I appreciate the blog post, I do wonder if the answer here just boring.
Re: Who Owns Nebula?
#3Interesting analysis! From the facts in this post, I'd reach the following speculation: the creators have a contract that entitles them to vote on certain types of company action, a share of 50% of the revenue, and potentially representation of their votes in the form of one or two of the existing board seats. Essentially there being some company bylaws in place to enact that "ownership" mechanism. This would match w…
That might very well be the case.
It would probably be more honest to give the content creators stocks or say “partly ran by content creators” instead of “owned by content creators” in this case, no?
Re: Who Owns Nebula?
#4Honestly, I feel like the criticism is missing some key points. Sam and the other founders are creators who've put a ton of work and resources into Nebula. They've made awesome original content like Jetlag and have invested heavily to support other creators on the platform. Nebula gives budgets for creators to produce their own shows, and they get a share of the revenue from subscribers they bring in—I wouldn't be surprised if they earn from views too. So saying it's misleading doesn't sit right with me. Creators on Nebula definitely get a bigger piece of the pie compared to other platforms. It might not be a perfect co-op, but it's way more creator-friendly than most out there.
Re: Who Owns Nebula?
#5For most respects and purposes, Standard Broadcast is the creators on Nebula.
Re: Who Owns Nebula?
#6Honestly, I feel like the criticism is missing some key points. Sam and the other founders are creators who've put a ton of work and resources into Nebula. They've made awesome original content like Jetlag and have invested heavily to support other creators on the platform. Nebula gives budgets for creators to produce their own shows, and they get a share of the revenue from subscribers they bring in—I wouldn't be su…
It /is/ misleading to say or imply that it is a co-op, though. It isn’t. It may be a progressive company which provides very favourable terms to creators, but it isn’t a co-op.
Re: Who Owns Nebula?
#7Real Engineering did a video titled "How Nebula Works" [1]. It details the technical problems. But seemingly deliberately dodges the legal and financial questions I clicked on that video to answer.
I love Nebula. But it's obvious that there is a shady component to their structure that prevents transparency that senior leadership knows about and knowingly obfuscates. I'm not arguing for a creator-owned co-operative; that would render the equity worthless, and they want (and should) retain the option to sell. But Nebula et al made a big fuss about refusing VC because of the incentives that creates while legally creating a two-tier structure that mimics those same incentives.
[1] https://nebula.tv/videos/realengineering-how-nebula-works
Re: Who Owns Nebula?
#8For most respects and purposes, Standard Broadcast is the creators on Nebula.
> For most respects and purposes, Standard Broadcast is the creators on Nebula
Then why shell them into a separate vehicle?
The purpose is to create two tiers of creators. That's fine. Some took a risk. Others didn't. But it's dishonest to then claim one is being transparent when the only reason for this structure, apart from incompetence or convenience, is obfuscation.
Re: Who Owns Nebula?
#9I think the last few paragraphs go off the rails. If creators didn't own (at least in some way) some controlling stake in Nebula, why would they publicly say that they do? Moreover, why would creators join Nebula if the terms were not beneficial to them in the first place?
I find it funny that the author writes
> It’s equally possible, however, that the system was set up in order to keep any meaningful power away from the creators.
Does the author really think that the chance that all of these creators are lying to their audiences is just as likely as them all telling the truth?
Also, the author even admits
> As I mentioned previously, some ownership of Standard has since been offered to other creators through stock options, but it’s unclear how much or what type of stock those options represent.
Owning equity (and thus voting power) in Standard also means that the creator has the ability to vote on how Standard operates Nebula. So the conclusion that the creators have no control over Nebula literally cannot be true. So the statement that "the creators own 0 percent of Nebula" is just misleading, and yet this is somehow the important conclusion that the author wants readers to know...?
Re: Who Owns Nebula?
#10Honestly, I feel like the criticism is missing some key points. Sam and the other founders are creators who've put a ton of work and resources into Nebula. They've made awesome original content like Jetlag and have invested heavily to support other creators on the platform. Nebula gives budgets for creators to produce their own shows, and they get a share of the revenue from subscribers they bring in—I wouldn't be su…
It /is/ misleading to say or imply that it is a co-op, though. It isn’t. It may be a progressive company which provides very favourable terms to creators, but it isn’t a co-op.
Yeah, I see your point—it might be misleading to label Nebula as a co-op since it technically isn't one. But I think what's important is how much Nebula does to empower creators compared to other platforms. The founders are creators who've invested a lot to make it a place where content makers get more support and a bigger share of the revenue. Even if it's not a co-op, it still feels like a step in the right direction for giving creators more control and benefits than they'd get elsewhere.