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FORTUNE.COM// FEB.1 .19with $420 million. And Whitman, a billionaire since her eBay
days, took the HP job only after her short-lived political career
flamed out and HP’s stock sputtered under her watch. They’ve
both scaled mountains, yet each has something to prove.QUIBI SPRANG FROM KATZENBERG’Sfertile mind, and it’s the crown
jewel of his WndrCo, a consumer technology holding company
he founded in 2017. WndrCo incubates its own startups (such as
Quibi) and invests in existing businesses, like The Infatuation,
a digital dining guide, and AnchorFree, which makes security
software. Katzenberg modeled WndrCo after IAC, the media and
technology holding company helmed by his mentor, Barry Diller.
(Katzenberg moved from New York to Los Angeles in 1977 to
answer the phones of Diller, then CEO of Paramount Pictures.)sively is a nonstarter,” says Paul Verna, a video
analyst with the consulting firm eMarketer.
“The people who are going to be the audience
for this have no idea who Jeffrey Katzenberg
or Meg Whitman is. They don’t care, and they
don’t want to pay.”
If it seems audacious for two relative
dinosaurs to think they’ve cracked the code
for what people young enough to be their
grandchildren want to watch—Katzenberg is
68, and Whitman is 62—it’s also an opportu-
nity for each to rewrite their legacies. Katzen-
berg started raising money for Quibi shortly
after selling DreamWorks Animation to
NBCUniversal in 2016, a move seen as a defeat
in Tinseltown even though he walked awayDYNAMIC DUO: Chairman Jeffrey Katzenberg and CEO Meg Whitman
in the Hollywood headquarters of Quibi, located in a complex of shared office space.