Netflix $72bn Warner offer: ‘I never saw it coming’ says co-founder Marc Randolph
Netflix’s former CEO and co-founder, Marc Randolph, said the $72bn bid by his former company last week for Warner Bros.’ film studios and streaming business, “came as a shock”.
Speaking at Abu Dhabi Finance Week, Randolph told the audience, “I will confess I never saw that [move] coming. I haven’t worked at Netflix for quite a few years, and Netflix continually surprises me.”
Last Friday, Netflix dominated the headlines after it moved to acquire Warner Bros. Discovery’s TV and film studios and HBO Max streaming assets, following a bidding war with Paramount and Comcast.
Netflix’s offer was $72bn in equity, but would total to $82bn with cash and stock.
However, since that move, Paramount Skydance launched a hostile takeover bid for Warner Bros Discovery (WBD), throwing Netflix’s bid into uncertainty.
On Monday, Paramount said its all-cash tender offer of $30 (£22.50) per share provides shareholders $18bn more than Netflix’s $27.75 per share offer. Paramount chief executive David Ellison, the son of Donald Trump’s friend Larry Ellison, said, “We believe our offer will create a stronger Hollywood.”
Less Kombucha, more trust in workers
“Obviously, this is a perfect time to talk about Netflix, because it’s a big week for Netflix,” Randolph told the audience in the UAE’s capital.
“I was commenting with someone that at the very beginning, before we even launched, I was trying to buy a better domain name than Netflix, and it was $50,000, and I go, ‘oh my god, it may as well be $50m, I can’t afford $50,000’.”
“To see Netflix [seek to] spend $82bn on something is completely mind-blowing, and so many things Netflix has done since I left are astounding and unpredictable,” he stated.
However, he added, “I can’t predict what’s gonna happen”.
Netflix was founded in 1997 by Randolph and Reed Hastings, initially launched as a DVD-by-mail rental service before evolving into the global streaming giant.
In his full keynote to the crowd, Randolph reflected on Netflix’s “unique culture”, which includes a lack of formal policies like annual leave or travel policies.
He stated that workers don’t want the “firemen’s poles or nap pods or kombucha on tap, or any of the other garbage that companies [throw out]”.
“It’s actually remarkably simple, and it’s simply to treat your employees the way you would want to be treated. Give them agency, give them control over their days and over their weeks and over their objectives, give them context, not control. And if you do that correctly, it is amazing,” he stated.