Katzenberg Says Years in Hollywood Have Been Key to His Profession As a VC

Jeffrey Katzenberg says Hollywood and enterprise capital have one massive success consider frequent.

“Storytelling is actually elementary to each enterprise,” Katzenberg mentioned on an episode of the “Logan Bartlett” podcast launched on Saturday.

“That is the one place the place these 45 years of expertise even have direct software to doing this,” Katzenberg mentioned about his time in filmmaking.

Katzenberg served as chairman of Walt Disney Studios for 10 years till 1994 and cofounded DreamWorks after his departure. As DreamWorks’ CEO, he oversaw the manufacturing of hits like “Shrek,” “Madagascar,” and “Kung Fu Panda.” He stepped down in 2016 and cofounded VC agency WndrCo with former Dropbox chief monetary officer Sujay Jaswa in 2017.

Jaswa was additionally a visitor on Saturday’s podcast and talked in regards to the duo’s partnership. WndrCo’s investments embrace Databricks, Deel, and Figma.

Katzenberg mentioned that storytelling is crucial to each step of the startup journey, together with convincing individuals to work for a nascent firm, persuading traders to put in writing checks, and pitching new clients.

“Sitting with a founder and truly going by way of their gross sales deck with them and serving to them body it, excellent it,” in underneath half-hour, the VC mentioned, “it is an artwork and a science.”

Katzenberg mentioned that Hollywood’s tradition could be very completely different from Silicon Valley’s. For instance, failing does not have the identical “stigma” in Silicon Valley because it does in motion pictures, TV, sports activities, and music, he mentioned.

“Hollywood, it is a black eye, it by no means goes away sadly,” he added.

In 2018, he teamed up with former eBay CEO Meg Whitman to launch Quibi, a short-form video streaming service designed for individuals to take pleasure in reveals on their telephones. The platform raised practically $2 billion earlier than Quibi even launched, however shut down solely after six months due to an underwhelming lineup of content material and poor advertising.

On the podcast, Katzenberg referred to as Quibi a “massive swing and a miss” however added that Silicon Valley understood that “you may’t hit a house run in the event you do not swing for the fences.”

“I am OK proudly owning my failures,” he mentioned.

Pivoting or branching out into investing has turn out to be a well-liked playbook for a lot of within the leisure and sports activities industries.

For celebrities, it is a technique to diversify their wealth or assist causes they’re keen about. For startups, being backed by a family identify helps appeal to different traders and clients.

Celebrities, together with actor Ashton Kutcher and rapper Jay-Z, have launched their very own VC companies and invested in notable corporations, together with Airbnb, Uber, Spotify, and Robinhood. Tennis champion Serena Williams and NBA stars Kevin Durant and LeBron James have additionally invested in meals and tech corporations by way of their VC companies.