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Zoom earnings, remote work and a terrible but possibly bright moment for startups

Disney is a box-office titan with some of the most popular movie franchises in history at its disposal.

The company earned $3.76 billion domestically and $11.12 billion globally in 2019, both box-office records. It made up 33% of the domestic market share last year — 38% if you count its releases from Fox, which the studio acquired last March (it has since been renamed 20th Century Studios). 

It's thanks to a film team that has positioned Disney's lucrative assets as the entertainment properties to beat. Under former CEO Bob Iger's leadership and in the span of under 15 years, Disney has acquired animation studio Pixar, home of "Toy Story" and "The Incredibles"; Marvel, home of the Avengers; Lucasfilm, home of the "Star Wars" franchise; and 20th Century, which houses the upcoming "Avatar" sequels.

Iger stepped down as CEO in late February and was succeeded by Bob Chapek, the former chairman of Disney parks, experiences, and products. Iger will remain with the company through 2021 as executive chairman, focusing on the creative side of the business. During an investor call, Iger called that his first priority now that there's a strategy in place for the Fox integration and Disney Plus has launched.

But Disney's success wasn't all on Iger. There's a group of executives in charge of those valuable assets.

For instance, Walt Disney Studios cochairman Alan Horn, a former Warner Bros. executive, has spearheaded Disney's film strategy since 2012. He now has Alan Bergman, the former Walt Disney Studios president, at his side as cochairman.

Disney is unlikely to come close to its unprecedented 2019 box office this year, especially if the coronavirus continues to spread, and the market could be more evenly distributed between studios. But the company still has a stacked lineup, both in 2020 and beyond, that could guarantee its dominance for the next decade. With the growing Marvel Cinematic Universe, "Avatar" sequels on the way, and more, Disney isn't slowing down any time soon.

That doesn't mean it hasn't experienced hiccups, though.

In January, Emma Watts, who oversaw 20th Century during the acquisition, resigned, leaving one of the key positions currently vacant in the Disney empire. Her departure comes at a time when Disney is dealing with box-office disappointments it inherited from the studio, such as last year's "Dark Phoenix" and, more recently, "The Call of the Wild."

Iger knew that the integration would take time.

"It will probably take a solid year, maybe two years, before we can have an impact on the films in production," Iger said during a Q3 earnings call last year. "We're all confident we're going to turn around the results of Fox live action."

Fortunately, there are more than enough key executives to pick up the slack until Disney decides on Watts' replacement.

If you have a tip about Disney, Marvel, or "Star Wars," contact the author at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. or DM him on Twitter @TravClark2.

Here are the main players who handle the feature film side at Disney:

According to the story in the WSJ, the company’s new investment contains both existing investors, like the Alibaba Group and Hollywood Studios, along with WndrCo, the investment firm and holding company launched by Quibi’s co-founder and Hollywood mogul Jeffrey Katzenberg.

To date, Quibi has raised $1.75 billion.

While the company touts its original approach to storytelling, and its list of marquee talent developing series for the app, the emphasis on short-form has been tried before by other companies (notably TechCrunch’s own parent company)… and the results were less than promising.

The idea that people need to consume short-form stories instead of … maybe just hitting the pause button… is interesting as an experiment to see what kinds of narratives or reality show-style entertainment needs to live behind a paywall rather than on YouTube or TikTok.

Perhaps Quibi will win with its slate of reality and narrative shows (which, to be honest, look pretty fun). The big names that Katzenberg and co-founder Meg Whitman promised are certainly on offer in the roster that is helpfully synopsized in a recent Entertainment Weekly article about the company’s programming.

Quibi, unlike some of the streaming services that it’s going to compete with, doesn’t have a back catalog of titles to tap to pad out the service, so it’s coming to market with a whopping 175 shows in its first year with 8,500 episodes, which run no longer than 10 minutes.

When it launches, there will be 50 shows on offer from the service. A lot depends on the reception of those shows. While many of the titles seem compelling, there are only a couple that seem to have the appeal to break through to the audience that Quibi hopes it can reach, and that will be willing to shell out money for its subscriptions.

The service is also hoping to differentiate itself by dropping new episodes daily — rather than weekly releases common on network television or the season-long binges that Netflix encourages.

The app itself seems to be fairly undifferentiated from the services available from other streamers. As we wrote when the company launched pre-orders for its app in February:

Much has been made about Quibi’s potential to reimagine TV by taking advantage of mobile technology in new ways, but the app itself looks much like any other streaming service, save for its last app store screenshot showing off its TurnStyle technology.

The app appears to favor a dark theme common to streaming apps, like Netflix and Prime Video, with just four main navigation buttons at the bottom.

The first is a personalized For You page, where you’re presented a feed where you’ll discover new things Quibi thinks you’ll like.

A Search tab will point you toward trending shows and it will allow you to search by show titles, genre or even mood.

The Following tab helps you keep track of your favorite shows and a Downloads tab keeps track of those you’ve made available for offline viewing.

Otherwise, Quibi’s interface is fairly simple. Shows are displayed with big images that you flip through either vertically on your home feed or both horizontally and vertically as you move through the Browse section.

The company does promote its TurnStyle viewing technology in its app store description, though it doesn’t reference the technology by name. Instead, it describes it as a viewing experience that puts you in full control. “No matter how you hold your phone, everything is framed to fit your screen,” it says.

In vertical viewing mode, it also introduces controls that appear on either the left or right side the screen — you choose, based on whether you’re left or right-handed.

Quibi did not formally announce the app was open for pre-order.

The startup, founded by Jeffrey Katzenberg, is backed by more than a billion dollars — including a recently closed $400 million round.

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I was at a dinner event last night in Denver where, predictably, coronavirus (which I’ve been trying to call Covid-19, but everyone seems to default back to coronavirus) came up.

I’ve tried to avoid being “that person” who has a strong opinion because so much is changing so quickly. Instead, I’ve tried to have a “clear opinion” based on what I currently know and how it’s impacting my world. I was particularly sensitized to this since, at a board meeting earlier in the day where it came up, someone asked me directly, “How do you think coronavirus will impact things?” A few minutes later I realized I was stuck in exactly the kind of rant that I was trying to avoid.

Over the past year, as Ian Hathaway and I worked on our upcoming book The Startup Community Way, I’ve thought a lot about complex systems. We based our conceptual framework on the theory of complex adaptive systems (which we’ve shorted to complex systems in the book for ease of reading) and it has been a really enjoyable intellectual rabbit hole to go down with Ian.

How Covid-19 is playing out is a classic example of a complex system. One of the key attributes that we discuss is contagion – both positive and negative. And, with Covid-19, we are seeing negative contagion at multiple different levels, most notably biological and economic. But, there are several others including one I’ll label hysteria.

Here’s an example. When a large technology company in a city shuts down its offices, cancels all travel, and insists everyone works remotely from home, other large technology companies around the world and other companies in the city pay attention to this. Suddenly, there is a conversation going on everywhere that is the equivalent of “should we do the same thing?” The emotional cadence of this conversation is high, so companies over-index on trying to figure out the right answer, where there isn’t really one given the nature of a complex system. Rational thinking generally aligns with “we’ll do whatever the CDC is suggesting we do”, but anyone who either doesn’t trust the government or authority figures won’t be satisfied with this. They will become more agitated (negative contagion on hysteria), which will generate more conversations and potential actions. Regardless of the actions, the cost of the conversations will be high, generate more uncertainty and agitation, and the negative contagion will continue.

I’m not suggesting that Covid-19 is no big deal. I’m not asserting that companies shouldn’t shut down offices or people shouldn’t work for home. Rather, I’m giving an example of negative contagion on a dimension (hysteria) that is appearing in complex systems that I’m involved in.

Intellectually, it’s fascinating. Emotionally, it’s challenging.

Covid-19. Presidential Primaries. Gyrations in the Stock Market. Global Pandemic. Trisolarians arriving in their droplet to exterminate us.

It’s pretty intense out there right now. Somewhere. But not in my backyard where my dogs roam around.

I was in the hospital recently, attached to those devices they attach you to that monitor everything. I was trying to relax by closing my eyes, breathing deeply and slowly, and meditating. Every 30 seconds or so something beeped. After a few minutes of that, I asked the nurse if he could turn off the beeping. He looked at it and said my HR was going below 60 so that’s why it was beeping. I told him my resting HR is low 50s and could he turn the beeping off. He said he couldn’t turn it off because he needed to be alerted whenever my HR went below 60. I suddenly identified with Kafka.

People conflate worry, stress, and anxiety all the time, but they are different. Worry and stress create anxiety. There are different ways of dealing with each of them, and addressing them individually is better than thinking about them as a big clump of things bundled together. Or, not addressing them at all. But all three get in the way of concentrating on, well, anything.

When I’m worried, I realize that my obsessive worrying has negative value. Instead, I write down what I’m worried about and decide whether I can do something about it. If I can, I do. If I can’t, I don’t and let it go.

When I’m stressed, I focus on understanding what I can and can’t control. I put my energy against what I can control. I let go of what I can’t control. I exercise more and sleep more.

When I’m anxious, I slow things down. I take deep breaths. I sit quietly until the anxiety passes.

I sense an enormous amount of worry, stress, and anxiety around me with many of the people I interact with. I’ve always been a huge absorber of other people’s worry, stress, and anxiety, which is a strength of mine, but at a real cost to me. Figuring out how to continue to be an absorber, without it having as much of a cost to me has been an important part of my last few years. I notice this more as things amp up, and they are pretty amped up right now.

If you are feeling any of this, consider how you are dealing with it and what it is doing to you. Take action on what you can impact and let the rest go.

Good morning! This is the tech news you need to know this Tuesday.

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Le Wagon launches part-time coding bootcamps

Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey won a high-profile ally on Monday, as Elon Musk voiced his support for Dorsey amid an escalating battle to oust him from the top job. 

"Just want to say that I support @jack as Twitter CEO," Musk tweeted, adding that Dorsey has a good heart, using the heart emoji.

Dorsey is under attack from billionaire Paul Singer's activist hedge fund Elliott Management, which has amassed a nearly 5% stake in Twitter and is launching a pressure campaign to replace Dorsey in the top job, according to media reports. Elliott will make that case that Dorsey, who is also CEO at Square, is not focused enough on Twitter, according to Bloomberg, which first reported the news.  

Musk is also the chief executive of two companies, wearing the CEO hat at electric car maker Tesla and space exploration company SpaceX. And Musk has a long history of picking fights with financial foes, particularly the short-sellers that have long targeted Tesla's stock.

 

On Monday, Twitter employees rushed to defend their leader, firing off tweets with the hashtag #webackjack. 

"I can't stand people that make it difficult for good people to do good," wrote one Twitter employee. "With everything going on in the world we deserve more good people." 

Earlier this year, Musk made a virtual appearance at a Twitter employee event, telling Dorsey and the audience how he would fix the social network, recommending action against the trolls and bots on the platform.

Most of Google's 8,000-strong office in Dublin, Ireland — the tech giant's European headquarters  — have been told to work from home on Tuesday after a member of its staff reported flu-like symptoms. Other tech companies like Twitter and Coinbase are also following suit. 

Google stressed that the day-long measure was precautionary, and in accordance with the advice of medical experts. 

"We continue to take precautionary measures to protect the health and safety of our workforce, in accordance with the advice of medical experts, and as part of that effort we have asked our Dublin teams to work from home tomorrow," a Google spokesperson told Business Insider.  

COVID-19, the disease caused by coronavirus, has spread well outside its place of origin in Wuhan, China since its outbreak at the end of last year. The disease, which has infected around 88,000 people around the world, with the vast majority of cases in China, is now also disrupting businesses as multinational businesses reconsider their conferences, travel, and their employees' daily commutes.  

Google has been tightening up its policies after a Google employee tested positive for the coronavirus in Zurich last week. It has restricted its employee travel and cancelled Google Cloud's biggest event of the year as concerns around the outbreak grow. 

Precautionary work-from-home policies are now also being adopted among other tech companies, like Twitter and Coinbase. 

Twitter is now recommending that all employees around the world, nearly 5,000 in total, work from home. The company announced its recommendation out of an "abundance of caution" in a blog post on Monday, after it suspended all non-critical travel for employees and its CEO Jack Dorsey opted out of attending the SXSW conference in Austin later this month. 

"We are strongly encouraging all employees globally to work from home if they're able. Our goal is to lower the probability of the spread of the COVID-19 coronavirus for us  — and the world around us," the post said. 

Dorsey is already a big proponent of remote work, and hinted that the company would be taking more steps to support a more global, remote workforce earlier this year. Twitter's blog post referred back to that announcement, noting, "while this is a big change for us, we have already been moving towards a more distributed workforce that's increasingly remote." 

Cryptocurrency exchange platform Coinbase also announced a similar measure, according to a document that Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong linked to Twitter. 

"We're asking some employees to start working home this week," Armstrong tweeted. "Working from home is not a complete solution but it may help slow the growth of infections." 

A linked document elaborates on Coinbase's updated policies. 

"Employees that are likely to get sick more easily or for whom getting sick would be particularly problematic should now work with their manager to move to 100% Work From Home (WFH)," Coinbase's communications document said. It also says that business travel will be restricted to "essential travel only," and travel to China, Hong Kong, Japan, Italy and South Korea will be completely restricted. 

Other Silicon Valley tech companies have yet to ask its employees to work from home, but they have instituted other measures to lessen the likelihood of infection spreading. Facebook is asking its employees to stop bringing guests to work, and a Gizmodo report says Amazon is putting on-site job interviews on hold. 

Meanwhile, Business Insider reported on Monday that some Microsoft employees don't feel that the company is doing enough to help employees stay safe amid the outbreak.