David Zaslav Defends Unpopular Decisions at Warner Bros. Discovery

“You now have all this debt that you have to service. And here you are, and I think that there’s a, almost a battle happening between those two ideas, the creative side of this and the money side of this right now. And I want to know what that’s like in your head because you’ve had to make decisions that have been very unpopular? You said it. There was a headline that called you the most hated man in Hollywood. And here you are, as I said, at the top of the mountain, and you’re reading these articles. And I just wonder what you think about that?” “It’s not personal. This is, this is a generational disruption. You know, the way people consume content on what platform, what do they want to watch — Longform, shortform? Are they still going to be going to the movies? It’s a very scary time — it’s a scary time to be running a company, but it’s also an exciting time because everything is possible. But I’m in, I’m in the seat. I got a great leadership team and we got a chance to do something. When we took over the company, we said no sacred cows. Let’s start today. What does this business look like if we were going to start today? You know who your friends are, and you’re also friendly with a lot of people, but you can’t mix the two. And sometimes when you make a business decision or sometimes when the business decision is made by your team, your friends can take it personally. They can feel that you should have interceded. And sometimes, you know, it’s unfortunate.”