PARTNERSHIPS | COMMUNITY | PODCAST | FRIENDS | | | | | | | David Ellison's Warner Bros. Win Is All About Going Big |  | Paramount Warner Bros. Discovery A Skydance Corporation // Illustration by Kate Walker |
| After surprisingly winning the bidding war for Warner Bros. Discovery, David Ellison will now control one of the largest media empires in Hollywood history. | The Big Picture: David Ellison, the son of Oracle founder Larry Ellison, has gone from owning a relatively small studio, Skydance, to becoming one of the most powerful media moguls in just a few short years. At only 43, Ellison now has the opportunity to build a traditional studio that rivals Disney in both scale and value. | Behind The Scenes: When the dust settled, WBD sold for a whopping $110 billion, making it the biggest movie-and-TV studio acquisition ever. | The deal comes out to $31 a share — a major jump from Paramount's initial offer of $19 a share. $47 billion in equity will be provided by the Ellison family and RedBird Capital Partners, while $54 billion in debt will come from Bank of America, Citigroup, and Apollo. That's a significant amount of debt layered onto an already debt-heavy WBD, which is why the company is targeting at least $6 billion in synergies (read: cost savings), including efficiencies, real estate consolidation, and, yes, plenty of layoffs. The deal is expected to close in the third quarter of 2026 — a notably quick timeline — and the company appears to have cleared federal antitrust review (expect state AGs to fight it, though). In a twist, both Paramount and Netflix saw stock bumps following the news — Paramount was up 20%, while Netflix rose 10% after walking away (shareholders weren't loving the idea of the acquisition).
| Final Deal: With both companies under his control, Ellison would command a library of more than 15,000 film and TV titles (along with plenty of marquee IP), top-tier sports rights like the NFL and NCAA Basketball, and a broad cable portfolio that includes news brands CBS and CNN. That's on top of owning two streaming services — HBO Max and Paramount+. Wow. | Of course, the big question in Hollywood around either the Paramount or Netflix deal was theatrical moviegoing — the crown-jewel business at both studios. Ellison is promising to run the studios as independent entities, each releasing at least 15 movies with a minimum 45-day window and traditional pay windows. It's a big bet that, when it comes to in-person moviegoing, more will be merrier. | Coming Soon: With Oracle as a major shareholder in the new American TikTok, expect the combined Paramount/WBD entity to pursue a strategic partnership with the platform. |
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| | | | | Jack Dorsey Replaces Block Workforce With AI |  | Blocked out // Illustration by Kate Walker |
| Last week, Jack Dorsey's Block — the company behind Square, Cash App, and Afterpay — laid off roughly 40% of its workforce… despite being a strong and profitable business. | Why It Hurts: So, what's behind the housecleaning at Block? AI, of course. It's part of the white-collar workforce shrinkage that AI leaders have been warning about for the past couple of years — and it could totally reshape the makeup of companies across nearly every industry. | Between The Lines: In his infamous no-caps writing style, Jack Dorsey let the world know he was cutting his company's headcount nearly in half — from 10,000 to under 6,000. | Dorsey posted on X that AI has made his employees more productive — and rendered many positions obsolete. Instead of laying people off in rounds of cuts (or even more rounds of cuts), he's ripping off the Band-Aid — while offering a solid severance package to help ease the pain. Moving forward, Block will operate with "smaller and flatter teams" that have AI at their core. Block's stock jumped 20% on the news, with shareholders clearly happy about the prospect of continued growth with lower costs.
| Closing Thoughts: No surprise, but Silicon Valley had plenty of thoughts about Dorsey's decision — including calls to help people become entrepreneurs to offset a shrinking workforce, fears that tech companies will continue to rise in value while the broader economy struggles, and predictions that more companies will follow Dorsey's lead to signal to investors that their AI strategy is solid. Case in point: Klarna CEO Sebastian Siemiatkowski has cut the payments company's headcount in half over the past four years… and is boasting he's not done yet. | But hey, the World Economic Forum predicts that while 92 million people will lose their jobs to AI by 2030, 170 million new roles will be created… even if some of them end up double-checking the work AI agents do. | The Future: Expect calls for a universal basic income to grow over the coming year. After all, people still need to pay their bills. |
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| | | | | | How do you feel about Paramount and Warner Bros. joining forces? | | 42.5% of you voted Rarely in Friday's poll: How often do you use a drive-thru? | "Occasionally for banking, but never for food." | "Never eat fast food unless it's the only option, and I'm absolutely starving." | "Only on road trips." | "I live in a small town that doesn't allow chain restaurants or stores, so there are no drive-thrus here. When I travel to a larger city, I might use a drive-thru — but only occasionally." | "Once a week, I'll happily endure a 30-minute drive-thru line for an In-N-Out Burger." | Let's keep the conversation going. Join Poll Of The Day, so your opinions can shine. Discover how your views line up with your peers', check out cool insights, and have some fun. It's data with personality. |
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| | | | | QUICK HITS | → Entertainment / Media | 📺 Netflix let go of the exec in charge of its unscripted live shows after interactive programs like Star Search failed to take off. | 📖 Spotify rolled out a Top Audiobooks chart… and Wuthering Heights debuted on top. | 🏎️ Apple Maps is getting a 3D, interactive tracking feature for this year's Formula 1 circuit — so you can stare at your phone when the cars aren't in sight. | → Technology | 🤖 OpenAI has officially completed its $110 billion funding round, with $50 billion from Amazon, $30 billion from Nvidia, and $30 billion from SoftBank. | 👀 The Pentagon has labeled Anthropic a "supply chain risk" — a designation typically reserved for companies tied to foreign adversaries — after the AI firm refused to allow its tech to be used for autonomous weapons or mass surveillance. | 🫠 Government agencies are on edge after the Trump administration gave the green light for xAI's Grok to handle classified material. | → Fashion / E-commerce | 💸 FedEx announced that it will pass potential tariff refunds on to customers after the Supreme Court struck them down. | 👕 The EU is set to roll back its strict sustainability rules for fashion and retail supply chains. | 👗 Gucci debuted the first runway line from new creative director Demna, focusing on a more "wearable" collection rooted in clean minimalism and practical design. |
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| PARTNERSHIPS | COMMUNITY | PODCAST | FRIENDS | Today's email was written by David Vendrell.
Edited by Nick Comney. Polled and Copy-edited by Kait Cunniff.
Published by Darline Salazar. |
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