Quibi, short for “quick bites,” one of Hollywood’s most ambitious startups, aimed to revolutionize entertainment with short-form content designed specifically for mobile phones. Investors who poured $1.75 billion into this idea did so largely because they trusted the gut instincts and vision of Jeffrey Katzenberg, the movie mogul who founded Quibi, and Meg Whitman, the former CEO of Hewlett Packard and eBay, whom he recruited as chief executive. Instead, they witnessed one of the fastest collapses in the entertainment business, the Wall Street Journal reported. According to interviews with current and former employees, investors, advisers and production partners, Quibi failed because the duo’s famed instincts proved wrong. Katzenberg and Whitman misjudged which programming and technology features would appeal to young consumers. They bet, incorrectly, that the service would ride a wave of stay-at-home streaming after launching at the peak of the coronavirus pandemic. And Katzenberg’s spending on advertising left little financial wiggle room when the company was struggling. Quibi anticipates it will have spent more than $1 billion of the money it raised through the beginning of 2021, and projected it would have at least $750 million in cash on hand at the end of October, the people said. Roughly $350 million will go back to Quibi’s earliest investors, including Disney, Comcast Corp.’s NBCUniversal and Sony Corp. , as well as Ms. Whitman and WndrCo, Mr. Katzenberg’s holding company. In a public letter Oct. 21, the day Quibi announced its shutdown, Katzenberg and Whitman said that the company likely failed because its idea wasn’t strong enough and the timing wasn’t good.
