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The worst acquisition in history, again

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Re: The worst acquisition in history, again

#81

Post by JeremyNT »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #56
pinkmuffinere wrote: post #20

> With his new toy having a leverage ratio north of 6x, David Ellison has promised $6 billion in “synergies” within three years. (Netflix Co-CEO Ted Sarandos put the figure closer to $16 billion, after examining WBD’s books. What is it that these CEOs think they are seeing, that everyone else is missing? I can believe they have inflated egos, but they’re not totally crazy, right? My impression is that Netflix is fair…

> that everyone else is missing? To be fair, sometimes they do. Musk saw genuine bloat at Twitter. I’m doubtful one can optimize that much out of WarnerBrothers. But Hollywood isn’t exactly known for being efficient.

I mean he bought Twitter for clout / soft power, the business is mostly irrelevant.

He arguably single handedly shifted the entire Overton window in the US to the right, and got his preferred candidate elected.

It's reasonable to assume that Ellison is interested in the exact same kind of power, but over the broader culture.

Re: The worst acquisition in history, again

#82

Post by keeda »

alephnerd wrote: post #9

Something I've mulled about this acquisition is that it appears to be a form of succession planning by Larry Ellison for his kids David (Skydance) and Megan (Annapurna). Oracle was always an Ellison driven enterprise, but neither David nor Megan had much aptitude or interest in enterprise SaaS, and a newer generation of operators took the reigns at Oracle in the 2010s like Catz, Hurd, Scilia, Magouyrk, and even Kuria…

I don't quite follow, how does this acquisition fits in with the family succession planning? It seems the son and daughter each has their own going enterprise and they're not interested in their daddy's business, but now daddy is fighting to acquire WBD for his son's enterprise? How does this affect the daughter? The dynamics are not quite clear to me, could you explain?

Re: The worst acquisition in history, again

#83

Post by jaredklewis »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #56
pinkmuffinere wrote: post #20

> With his new toy having a leverage ratio north of 6x, David Ellison has promised $6 billion in “synergies” within three years. (Netflix Co-CEO Ted Sarandos put the figure closer to $16 billion, after examining WBD’s books. What is it that these CEOs think they are seeing, that everyone else is missing? I can believe they have inflated egos, but they’re not totally crazy, right? My impression is that Netflix is fair…

> that everyone else is missing? To be fair, sometimes they do. Musk saw genuine bloat at Twitter. I’m doubtful one can optimize that much out of WarnerBrothers. But Hollywood isn’t exactly known for being efficient.

Very hard for me to believe Musk didn’t overpay for Twitter. So whatever he saw, I don’t think was there. Hard to know completely for sure given it is private. But I strongly suspect that money definitely would be making him more in passive investments.

If the argument is that it was a stupid business decision, but he had other motives (clout, etc…), sure whatever.

Re: The worst acquisition in history, again

#86

Post by rasz »

ribosometronome wrote: post #64
MengerSponge wrote: post #41

This is the same as acquiring the Washington Post or Twitter, right? It's more about media control than any classic business case. Once you start meddling with the money machine it's not just Net Profit = Revenue – All Expenses (COGS + Operating Expenses + Interest + Taxes)

Netflix's deal included spinning off the news networks. If the Ellisons just wanted that, they could have had that for a considerably more digestible price point. They genuinely want Harry Potter and the Sopranos, too.

its all propaganda, movies and all

HBO Told 'The Pitt' to Make ICE Storyline More 'Balanced' https://www.forbes.com/sites/paultassi/2026/02/28/the-pitt-h...

Re: The worst acquisition in history, again

#87

Post by bluegatty »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #56
pinkmuffinere wrote: post #20

> With his new toy having a leverage ratio north of 6x, David Ellison has promised $6 billion in “synergies” within three years. (Netflix Co-CEO Ted Sarandos put the figure closer to $16 billion, after examining WBD’s books. What is it that these CEOs think they are seeing, that everyone else is missing? I can believe they have inflated egos, but they’re not totally crazy, right? My impression is that Netflix is fair…

> that everyone else is missing? To be fair, sometimes they do. Musk saw genuine bloat at Twitter. I’m doubtful one can optimize that much out of WarnerBrothers. But Hollywood isn’t exactly known for being efficient.

Musk saw bloat at Twitter but made it instantly unprofitable? I see the logic, but not sure about it.

Re: The worst acquisition in history, again

#88

Post by lotsofpulp »

cyanydeez wrote: post #50
ViktorRay wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This doesn’t make sense. Surely paying taxes would be cheaper than buying Warner Bros?

That's what a poor person would say. Fox news managed to get Donald Trump elected, whose net worth has gone up by billions. Also, it's not real money, it's debt equity. Equity transfers are just rich people toys. They move the actual cost into the entity they purchase, and if it fails, whatever, it didn't cost them anything.

And all the other investors in the market just ignore this debt when deciding the price they are willing to pay for a share?

Shares of businesses with excessive debt relative to income do not do well for their shareholders.

Re: The worst acquisition in history, again

#89

Post by ben_w »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #56
pinkmuffinere wrote: post #20

> With his new toy having a leverage ratio north of 6x, David Ellison has promised $6 billion in “synergies” within three years. (Netflix Co-CEO Ted Sarandos put the figure closer to $16 billion, after examining WBD’s books. What is it that these CEOs think they are seeing, that everyone else is missing? I can believe they have inflated egos, but they’re not totally crazy, right? My impression is that Netflix is fair…

> that everyone else is missing? To be fair, sometimes they do. Musk saw genuine bloat at Twitter. I’m doubtful one can optimize that much out of WarnerBrothers. But Hollywood isn’t exactly known for being efficient.

> Musk saw genuine bloat at Twitter.

I'm reminded of a saying: "Just because they are out to get you, doesn't mean you're not paranoid."

That he was able to cut a lot from Twitter, doesn't mean he cut wisely, for reasons connected with reality. It survived the loss of teams dedicated to ongoing feature development, but the loss of teams dedicated to community management appears (from the outside) to have been the proximal cause of the loss of trust that many advertisers, users, and governments have had with the company. Cutting both at the same time suggests the action was not done from a place of wisdom, but rather that it was luck one of the cuts wasn't critical.

(This is what I expect given a Muntzing strategy: discover which components are load-baring by seeing what happens when they are removed. But when did I learn about Muntzing, and was it after Musk did his thing with Twitter?)

Re: The worst acquisition in history, again

#90

Post by ben_w »

rayiner wrote: post #65
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> that everyone else is missing? To be fair, sometimes they do. Musk saw genuine bloat at Twitter. I’m doubtful one can optimize that much out of WarnerBrothers. But Hollywood isn’t exactly known for being efficient.

Can’t you replace a lot of Hollywood with AI now? What am I missing?

Not "a lot" of Hollywood, not yet.

Short clips are doable, but the coherency duration before it goes weird just isn't there yet, unless you're OK with very short segments (like, single-digit seconds) between each AI-equivalent of a cut. That will probably improve, but the tech isn't there yet for "a lot", it's like CGI in the 90s rather than CGI as it is today.

That's aside from how AI output isn't copyrightable, which may or may not matter depending on if your goal is money or propaganda.

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