Hollywood Hates Netflix’s WBD Takeover & Apple Dazed By Leadership Exodus

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0:32Good morning for Daily Show. I'm Neil Freiman. And I'm Toby Howell. Today, why everyone is angry about Netflix's takeover of Warner Brothers. Then something is rotten inside of Apple. It's Monday, December 8th. Let's ride.

0:51Good morning and welcome back to the week. I know it's not exactly my lane to comment on design trends, seeing as I don't follow any, but couldn't help but notice that Pantone released its color of the year for 2026 late last week. And it was a true shocker, an off shade of white. The first time Pantone has gone white in the 26 years it's been choosing a color of the year. As Pantone sees it, the white shade called Cloud Dancer is, quote, a symbol of calming influence in a frenetic society, a blank canvas upon which we can start anew, peace, unity, and cohesiveness. Others saw it quite a bit differently, saying white was a bailout choice and at odds with the tempestuous political climate.

1:30Either way, Toby, I think this means you have to wear a white tux to your wedding next year. I think that's a good idea. I think there will be a white dress involved. So we got half of it covered already. Pantone's Instagram announcing this was a kind of a battlefield honestly there was 13 ,200 comments under the post the general vibe was white for real some people called it a recession indicator because how can the color of the year have no color and I thought I was going to be a hater of this too if not for one specific fact the name Cloud Dancer is sick oh what color is that wall oh that's Cloud Dancer what color is that cable knit sweater you're wearing oh this this old thing.

2:09This is Cloud Dancer, so the color itself, eh, the name, let's ride. All right, now a word from our sponsor, LinkedIn Ads. Neil, what's the last thing you spent$250 on, and did it make you truly happy? Gold and no. Turns out$250 doesn't get you a lot of gold. Well, that money could be better spent with LinkedIn Ads. They have the highest B2B return on ad spend of all online ad networks and a network of over 1 billion professionals and 130 million decision makers. You can target your buyers by job title, industry, company role, seniority skills, company revenue, so you can stop wasting budget on the wrong audience.

2:46Right now, spend$250 on your first campaign on LinkedIn ads and get a free$250 credit for the next one. Just go to LinkedIn.com slash MBD. That's LinkedIn.com slash MBD. Terms and conditions may apply. Netflix has sent an earthquake rippling from SoCal to D.C. after agreeing on Friday to buy Warner Brothers Discovery. Worth$83 billion, it's Netflix's largest purchase by far and cements the Silicon Valley disruptor as the new emperor of Hollywood. In buying WBD, Netflix will acquire one of the most valuable and iconic movie studios and libraries in existence, which includes DC Comics, Harry Potter, and HBO's entire portfolio.

3:26Speaking of HBO, Netflix will also take control of HBO Max, the third largest streaming service with about 130 million subscribers. You already know who's number one. Co-CEO Ted Sarandos acknowledged the deal was a departure from the company that has typically built things internally instead of buying them from the outside. I know some of you are surprised we are making this acquisition, he told analysts on Friday, but this is a rare opportunity that will help us achieve our mission to entertain the world. He's right about one thing. This is going to be entertaining because the merger announcement is just the start of what could be years of drama.

4:00Already, Hollywood labor groups and some politicians have come out against the deal, saying it would give Netflix an illegal monopoly over the entertainment industry. Plus, the companies that Netflix beat out to buy WBD probably aren't going to sit still. Paramount, whose all-cash offer for WBD was passed over by the board, could launch a hostile bid, taking its pitch directly to shareholders with a price above Netflix's. But let's start here, Toby. There doesn't seem to be anyone outside of Netflix and WBD that is happy about this deal. Yeah, Hollywood, not very happy whatsoever, usually because they've lived this before.

4:34Whenever consolidation happens, usually it ends up with job loss. Every major studio merger over the last decade usually ends up with people losing their jobs. If you go from Disney to Fox in 2019, the Skydance Paramount merger, they all lead to job loss, not as much job creation. And then there's also a bunch of fear about what Netflix is going to do to the theatrical landscape because Netflix is a streamer. They want you sitting at home Netflixing and chilling. They don't necessarily need you going into theaters. So when you bring a major movie studio like Warner Bros. under its wing, are they going to have the same theatrical release windows?

5:09Is it going to be a priority for them anymore? So there's both the immediate real-term effects of we're probably going to see some job loss here. And then also the long-term effects of what's going to happen to theatrical releases. Yeah, so Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos has talked about the business model of theatrical releases. and in the past quite a bit. And he said they are, quote, outmoded. He is not a huge fan. And then go to after the merger announcement, that was all the questions he was being asked. So what are you going to do after you acquire the Warner Brothers movie studio? Are you still going to have them do theatrical releases?

5:42And he said, right now, you should count on everything that is planned on going to the theater through Warner Brothers. So he's sticking to that business model. But a lot of people focused on those two words at the beginning of that quote, right now. and who knows what's going to happen in the future should this acquisition get close. And it has a complicated regulatory battlefield ahead. There's going to be a lot of antitrust scrutiny here because one, just immense market concentration in streaming, putting HBO Max alongside Netflix to the biggest streamers. Also just immense control over these IP libraries because Netflix has built up its own IP library.

6:19Now you toss in Warner Bros. as well. distribution plower. If you have both the content and the platform, that is a textbook case of antitrust scrutiny. All of that being said, it did look like Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos. By the way, he is always referred to as co-CEO Netflix. It's his title. He met with President Trump a few weeks ago, and Trump apparently gave the blessing of this Warner Brothers merger. He said that WBD should go to the highest bidder, so maybe it won't be as big of an antitrust scrutiny as we are thinking, but just on paper, it looks like it should be. But last night, Trump was hosting the Kennedy Center Honors.

6:56He was asked about this deal on the red carpet. He said the takeover quote could be a problem because of the size of market share. So it seems like he's waffling, but in the end, it's not necessarily up to him. He could probably put his thumb on the scale because he is the president of the United States and an especially active one in the private markets. It will come down to the DOJ, which does review all of these mergers. And then besides the antitrust scrutiny, this deal has an uphill climb because of those other bidders that were offering submissions for WBD, Paramount, and Comcast. They could launch what's called a hostile bid, where they go over the top of the board and appeal directly to shareholders.

7:34And Paramount already gave a signal that it would maybe do that because last week, while Netflix was circling this particular deal, Paramount released a letter calling the process rigged and saying that the board always had it in the bank for Netflix so they could say, hey, shareholders, we're giving you more money. This is a raw deal that Netflix is giving you and try to persuade them that way. So this thing is juicy. It's just getting started. But for Netflix, wow, like this is a sign that Silicon Valley has taken over Hollywood. Netflix is constantly reinventing itself, breaking its own rules and said it would never do ads.

8:11It recently launched an ad here. It said it would never do sports. It's now hosting an NFL game on Christmas Day. It said it would never make big purchases and only build things internally. Well, now it's buying the biggest, one of the biggest movie studios in the entire planet. Let's move on. Apple has always been the eldest child of the tech world. Never one to cause drama. Always straight A's. Steady as she goes. The Neil Fryman of the tech world. But now the tech giant is losing talent in droves, falling behind in the AI race and getting unsolicited product advice from Justin Bieber. He posted on X that he hates the fact that the speech-to-text button stops your music if you hit it accidentally.

8:48In the last week alone, Apple announced that four main execs would be leaving the company. Alan Dye, the VP of Interface Design, is joining Rival Meta. Its general counsel, Kate Adams, is retiring next year. Lisa Jackson, its VP of Environment Policy and Social Initiatives, is also retiring next year. And AI chief, John Giandrea, is retiring next year. And yesterday, the information reported that its semiconductor chief is also contemplating his departure. It's a lot all at once for Apple, especially for a company that has had a grand total of two CEOs since 1997. So what is going on? It probably leads back to AI as other companies have steamed ahead in the AI game.

9:29Apple keeps delaying its big Siri upgrade and has yet to put forward a coherent strategy. It's also led to whispers that all the executive turnover is a signal that the big kahuna himself, Tim Cook, could be on the way out as well. Right now, prediction markets have it at about 50-50 shot. He is still the CEO by the end of 2026. Neil, a rather tumultuous stretch of brain drain for a company that isn't used to this level of turbulence. Another aspect that you have to bring in is just demographics. A lot of these people, as you mentioned, have been at Apple for decades through the jobs era, through the Tim Cook era.

10:04And he's now been there for well over a decade. They're in their 60s or they're getting close to it, which means that, you know, we're going to be there one day and we're going to say, yeah, I don't want to work anymore. So I think a lot of it does. You can chalk up to the fact that people are just they're at retirement age. That said, the folks who aren't retiring in the leadership ranks and also in the AI engineering ranks are going to one of two places. They're either going to Meta or OpenAI, which are two of Apple's chief rivals in this big technological race to develop artificial intelligence, which many in the tech industry think is the next, quote unquote, industrial revolution.

10:38So the fact that you have some of your best talent decamping for your rivals at a time when everyone is racing to build the thing that will unlock what they think is trillions of dollars worth of value, it is a little spooky. Think about what Apple is good at. They're really good at interface design. They're really good at UI, UX. And if you are a meta and you're trying to bring this new class of AI wearables online, you do want to poach Apple's talent. You do want to lean on Apple's internal strength to, you know, build your own new vision for what AI wearables will be. And then OpenAI is also kind of building an anti-Apple hardware team.

11:14They're trying to actually redefine the smartphone era entirely. So they do want to bring some old people from the smartphone era in to inform those decisions as well. So when you're creating a new category of computing device, you do want to raid the old category as well. It just makes a lot of sense that these people are poaching from Apple right now. And it stinks if you are Apple. Zuck forever, for over a decade, has said, I hate that he hasn't said it, but he's thought, I hate the iPhone. I hate that I built my social media and I'm beholden to the iPhone and Apple's devices. He thinks he's building the next iPhone or the next smartphone or the next computing device, which is glasses.

11:50And then OpenAI's poaching of Apple talent goes back to last year when Sam Altman paid over$6 billion to acquihire Steve Jobs' best designer, which was Johnny Ive, who designed all of Apple's iconic products. They are working together to create some sort of AI device that we don't know exactly what it will look like. But OpenAI's poaching of Apple talent goes back years, so does Metas. And Apple is looking to the future saying, where are we going to get this new pipeline of talent? Now, Justin Bieber may have, you know, Justin Bieber went on X this. Everyone's like, why are you bringing Justin Bieber onto this?

12:25And there is a point to this. So Justin Bieber made fun of this Apple interface where the send button and the dictation button are the same thing. And I and a lot of people hopped in to say, yeah, Justin, like you are right. Get Apple working on on better UI. And my point here is that maybe, you know, changeover or turnover is a good thing for Apple because there are some mistakes that it's made in the past. It hasn't done so well in the AI race. So maybe getting some new, fresh talent, getting the old people out, getting some other people in could be, you know, something that kicks lights a little fire under them as they are far behind in the AI race.

13:02It was very funny that people were saying Justin Bieber is already a top 10 percent product manager already. His gripe was the fact that it stopped his music. So he's coming from a very specific place. But it was funny that maybe Jay Beavs is, you know, heading to the upper ranks of Apple. I do think the final point we have to make here is that compensation plays into all of these decisions as well. We have talked ad nausea about Meta and Zuck laying out these gargantuan AI researcher packages. And Apple just hasn't kept pace with that. So sometimes they're being outbid by 4x, 5x, these salaries they are offering their own internal workers.

13:36So one name to keep an eye on is Johnny Seroja, who is Apple's chip chief. And apparently they are laying out the red carpet. They are trying everything in their power to retain him because if Seroja leaves, that is a devastating signal to Wall Street. It is one of their most important technical leaders remaining at the company. So if they lose Seroja, a lot of warning bells are sounding at Apple. All right, we're going to take a quick break and come back with our winners of the weekend.

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15:56Availability, speed, and coverage varies. See mintmobile.com. Welcome to our winners of the weekend, the segment where Neil and I picked two things that had a better weekend than Ohio State haters. I won the pre-show game of Madden 07, so I'm up first. And my winner is Tiny K-Cars because they might be coming to America. K-Cars are a Japanese vehicle class created back in the 40s in order to encourage mass car ownership. They are very small, often less than half the weight of a standard US car, but have become ubiquitous in Japan for being cheap, maneuverable, and just plain cute. For those reasons, they seem to have captured the imagination of none other than President Trump.

16:36Returning from a recent trip to Japan, he posted, I have just approved tiny cars to be built in America. His infatuation seems to be tied to affordability. A new K car in Japan costs around$10 ,000, while used one can go for as little as five. Compare that to the average new car price in America, which just surpassed$50 ,000 for the first time, and you see the appeal. Now, before you start dreaming of a diminutive road trip, there remain some major hurdles before K cars can make it onto American roads, mostly tied to safety regulations. But Neil, the fact that we're talking about these tiny cars at all feels like a win.

17:13Everyone seems to be infatuated with these tiny Japanese cars, whether from President Trump all the way on down. They are so cute. They are so delightful. That said, when you're talking about what Americans actually want to buy in terms of cars, it is not these. They don't even want sedans. Pretty much every carmaker has stopped making sedans for the North American market. Ford only sells one actual car today. That's the Mustang. Chevy only makes one actual car sedan today. That's the Corvette. So there is very little demand. People, yes, they are fun and cute to look at. But when you're actually thinking about, hey, what do I want to drive on the road?

17:51What do I want to drive on a highway? And you go out in your car currently and you see SUVs and all these other heavy trucks on the road. You're saying, actually, the tiny car is the last thing that I want if I want to keep my family safe. It would take a rewriting of NHTSA rules. Basically, they're just way too small. They don't have basic features like a airbag sometimes or roll bars or things that just you have to have to drive on American roads today to go along with the fact that cars are becoming bigger and heavier. So even if you do fudge the safety regulations, would families want to endanger their family?

18:24Because when you're going up against a, you know, form Ford F-250 and you're in a K car, suddenly it doesn't seem as cute anymore. So yes, both from a consumer perspective, There's some headwinds, but also from a regulation perspective. If you do want one, though, you can get one into the United States. There is a measure that allows you that is meant to accommodate classic car collectors that allows you to import certain cars. So there were an estimated 7500 K cars imported into the United States last year under this car collecting measure. So it is possible to get one. you probably won't be able to take it on the highway, certainly not, and barely any roads unless there's this whole rewriting of the federal vehicle safety landscape, which Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy was asked about this after Trump said, we should get Japanese K-cars on the roads.

19:16He said, we're looking into it, we're looking into it, but don't expect anything to happen soon. That's the classic boss underling, like, oh, sure, yeah, I'm definitely looking into this one, but it probably won't happen. All right, my winner is Beeple, who's once again found himself at the center of the art world this weekend for making anthropomorphized billionaire dog robots that poop out nfts okay there's a lot there so let's break this down one by one beeple whose real name is mike winkelman is the artist you may remember from selling an nft for 69 million dollars back in the crypto speculation heyday of 2021 that sale made him the third most expensive living artist in the world and for many signaled the top of the nft bubble well the nft bubble did pop spectacularly, Beeple has kept on grinding, and his latest piece is the talk of the town at Miami's Art Basel, the largest art fair in the United States.

20:04Titled Regular Animals, Beeple's project is a pen of quadruped robot dogs that are fitted with very realistic heads of famous painters like Picasso, Warhol, and Beeple himself, as well as billionaires like Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos. The robot dogs are equipped with cameras that take pictures of what they're looking at. And from time to time, they will stop walking around, enter poop mode and go number two, which in this case means they expel an image based on what the camera captured. Since this is Beeple we're talking about, hundreds of those prints come with a QR code that offers onlookers a chance to own the image as an NFT.

20:39It's all very bizarre, but Toby, I've seen this all over my social media and it's clear Beeple has a knack for going viral. Is there anything more than just a surface level stunt here? I think there is a deeper level, which is why I'm kind of on board with this project. So if we go down the art history rabbit hole, Picasso and Warhol reframed how people saw the world. They were a big cultural driver of that. Now people are saying that who shapes the global worldview at this point? It's tech billionaires like Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg. He said that they can do a one simple algorithmic trick or tweak, and it will change how you are visually interacting with the world.

21:14If Instagram starts showing more of one post than the other, that changes your environment. So he's basically, by putting them all in a pen together, he's saying, here are the people changing our worldviews now. It's not necessarily the artists of old, even though they're in the pen too. It's now Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg, and it's also really freaking creepy. So of course people are gonna pay attention to it. People are gonna pay attention to it, and they are going to pay for it as well. Each of these robot dogs, there were two per figure. They were being sold for$100 ,000 a pop, and they sold within the first hour they were there.

21:48What was interesting to me is the ones that had Beeple's face sold before anyone else. So people really were infatuated with this. I would say the art critics were not at all. Art News talked to one dealer who described the work as decadent in the way that signifies moral and cultural decline, called it a spectacle that panders to the crowd, dodges complexity, disguises thin ideas behind technological bombast. Sure, it's nice that people care about it, But this whole project tramples on the art of history of digital and video art and makes it a bit. Beeple has dealt with this kind of criticism for years, too, because he was creating NFTs and sold one for$69 million, which people were like, what is going on?

22:28We don't even know what an NFT is. And now he's one of the most expensive living artists in the world. So there does seem to be a divide between high culture and low culture. The art critics hate it, but the regular people seem to get enough of it. My mom actually went and she said it's as creepy as they think. You can see them turn and take a picture of you. Apparently, an AI algorithm chooses which pictures do get pooped out, though. And she says, no one pooped my picture out. So maybe next time you got to go to the weird performance robot dogs to get, you know, a selfie taken. It's Monday. So here are the events you need to know about in the week ahead.

23:02Who's ready for a ray cut? With the labor market stumbling, the Federal Reserve is a lock to slash interest rates at its meeting on Wednesday, bringing borrowing costs to their lowest level since the fall of 2022. Then Chair Jerome Powell will hold a closely watched press conference to share his view on where the economy is headed. Also expect a lot of chatter about Powell's replacement when his term ends in May. Trump has said he'll announce the next Fed chair in the next few weeks. Despite the fact that it does look like a rate cut is all but assured at this meeting, the Fed has been dealing with some problematic data gaps of late.

23:34Remember, the Bureau of Labor Statistics canceled the October inflation and jobs report and said only some of that data will make it into the November report. So they're basing it mostly on vibes, not great hard data, very divided. It's at the Fed or the college football playoff committee right there. Yeah, we'll get to that. Australian kids are getting their last TikTok scrolls in because come Wednesday, the country is set to be the first in the world to ban teens from using social media. The law requires that users must be at least 16 to have accounts for Instagram, Reddit, Snapchat, TikTok, X, Twitch, and more, while allowing apps like Discord, Pinterest, Roblox, and WhatsApp after regulators said those were used more for messaging or gaming.