As for David Zaslav, even the most ardent opposers fail to control their temper. Lloyd Blankfein, a former Goldman Sachs boss, finds it difficult to think of something difficult, or politically neutral, to say about his ex-boyfriend.
“I usually do not like people. He is like an exception. It’s hard for me to talk about her, “Blankfein says.” When you go to dinner, she wears underwear. ”
The Tiggerish power, which was cut short by passion, this week has helped Zaslav create media over the next decade: not just connections his smallest Discovery band is WarnerMedia, but there it is taking the law of a joint venture, the second largest entertainment company in the world with money.
Even after the tech crew went through the moving business, Zaslav’s rise has shown that alpha-male former security guards, who cut their teeth during satellite and VHS, can still sing in Hollywood. With one partnership, Zaslav has drawn closer to the strength of his business: his former boss Jack Welch, his assistants John Malone, Ted Turner of CNN, and brothers Harry and Jack Warner.
A well-known guide shows the combination Wear Day 90 and Man vs Bear When the merger is completed, he will lead one of Hollywood’s most coveted titles, starting with HBO, CNN and the Warner Bros. studio. “It’s some kind of East Coast, jersey, clothes on TV,” said an old friend. “And a lot of people in Hollywood are amazed that someone who looks like a gauche like him runs away with gems.”
But those gems do $ 55bn loan considered as part of the AT&T agreement. Zaslav needs to come up with a new way to change the business, which requires huge losses before making a profit and cannot meet the limits of popular TV. And he has to do this all over the world with the company WarnerMedia damaged by repair in recent years.
Zaslav was born in Brooklyn in 1960 and grew up in Rockland County, New York, about an hour north of the city. After graduating from law school, he became active in the television business with NBC in the 1980’s, when television was the norm and the cable was known to be lightweight. In 1987 she married her high school sweetheart, Pam, in the Hamptons, where she is now having a summer party.
When Zaslav joined Discovery in 2007, financial problems were imminent, and Netflix was on the verge of launching a campaign. He managed to earn three times as much money, making a 57% margin in the US and growing with the acquisition of Scripps and Eurosport.
However what Zaslav did the most was to withdraw $ 43bn this week with golf partner John Stankey, an AT&T senior who three years earlier paid $ 85bn for. The talks were so secretive that Zaslav did not mention this to make close friends like CN Z’s Jeff Zucker or Jeff Bewkes, a former Time Warner boss he met a few days before the announcement.
The acquisition was immediately changed from appearing to be a player who could take Netflix and Disney. Zaslav’s challenge: creating more Warner-Discovery brands, stations and platform hunting activities and subscribers in the 200m plus should be one of the few remaining groups in the Hollywood revolution.
Richard Plepler, a former HBO executive who left shortly after AT&T took 2018, is optimistic. “[Zaslav] with the power of electronics and the best mindset for business lovers running. He loves HBO, he loves CNN and Warner Bros., “he says.” That’s the secret soup. ”
Bewkes, who sold Time Warner to AT&T in 2016, believes Zaslav has brought “the need for trust” from employees at Warner. “He said:” Thank God. AT&T wasn’t listening. Getting listening, “he said.
For all bonhomie, Zaslav can be a hard worker, sending regular emails at night. A former colleague called him a “mercurial” and sometimes a “screamer” by co-workers. “But then he loves them, even the people he fired,” says the former boss.
“That’s the kind of person everyone is looking for,” says Blankfein. “I took root with my roots, and it’s good to be the person people need to trust.”
His drive goes hand in hand with his beautiful package: his $ 129m in 2018 made Zaslav the highest paid player in the US. On the eve of the WarnerMedia deal, they were offered options available for around $ 190m.
On Tuesday, an active driver applied to sell his downtown Greenwich Village, where he met with Stankey to settle a deal that could send him to Los Angeles on a regular basis. Last year he paid $ 16m for the Beverly Hills mansion that was previously built by The Godfather producer Bob Evans – a purchase that represented what he would do.
“I’m finding an office in the Warner Bros. lot,” Zaslav announced Monday. “When I live in New York. I live anywhere in the world where the manufacturers are. . . because that is what will make us successful. “
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