Paramount and the Coming War for Tech Talent
Eyes roll over David Ellison's ambition to turn the studio into a tech company. But data and engineering jobs are about the only thing the industry is hiring for
Hello Series Business readers, some of whom may be returning from international vacations only to be faced with the grimmest of news cycles on the American political stage. There are far bigger things happening in the world than the ins and outs of the TV business, but the work (and your work) continues, and we’re here to focus on that today.
Hard to believe it was just one week ago when the Paramount-Skydance deal was announced, and incoming Paramount Daddy David Ellison laid out a vision for the merged company that was very focused on technology. “We need to transition New Paramount to a world-class media and technology enterprise,” he said, adding that it is “essential for Paramount to be able to expand its technology prowess, to be both a media and technology enterprise.”
What exactly he means by that isn’t quite clear yet, but already one veteran media and tech exec tells me that Ellison’s pitch is “a bunch of nonsense,” something he said simply to convince Shari Redstone to finally release the company from her family’s stewardship. (Although Ellison has spent a lifetime near technology, that’s different than, say, cofounding a $400 billion database and cloud computing company like his father.)
You can hardly blame Ellison. Netflix, for example, has a $283 billion market cap with $33.7 billion in 2023 revenue while Paramount made $29.7 billion in revenue last year and has an $8.1 billion market cap. (Paramount, of course, lost $451 million in 2023 while Netflix generated almost $7 billion in operating income.)
It’s not as if all of the legacy studios aren’t already investing in tech solutions and the people to execute them. To be an entertainment company in 2024 is to be a tech company. That has meant the influx of thousands and thousands of software developers, engineers, data analysts, UX designers and other technologists into legacy Hollywood over the last decade or so.
As I covered this spring, studying the job listings at places like Warner Bros. Discovery and Disney quickly reveals that technology roles are in demand — far more than creative jobs — as the majors regroup for the next stretch of the Streaming Wars.
So when Ellison says that he wants to improve Paramount+’s recommendation engine and ad tech, and lean on AI in the creative process (while trimming $2 billion in costs at the same time), he’ll be joining an already highly competitive field where studios are fighting against massive tech companies dabbling in media (Amazon, Apple) — as well as other tech businesses and really every other enterprise — for tech talent.
And the big question is whether Hollywood can attract the caliber of talent it needs to compete.
So what obstacles does not only Paramount but all of traditional Hollywood face as it revamps itself with tech in mind?
“The real challenge, in my mind, is that building a tech-enabled media company in the public eye is a very hard task,” says Mike Doonan, managing partner of executive search firm SPMB, which recruits senior leaders across some of the largest media and tech giants. “You can be a tech company that is in the media space — Netflix, Amazon — and that is different. But to be a traditional media company, with a Wall Street analyst community judging your profit and growth as a media company, and trying to change that story to ‘We are a tech company,’ that can be a very dangerous and challenging thing.” (Anyone remember Adam Neumann trying to sell the idea of co-working space as tech?)
Since Ellison put a spotlight on this issue, let’s take a look at the Talent Wars.
In this Series Business, you’ll learn:
Four things studios can use to woo talent that tech companies typically can’t
The compensation challenges legacy studios face — and how they can overcome them
What traditional entertainment companies have to do before they can compete for tech company talent
Salary comps for Silicon Valley jobs and comparable entertainment ones
How today’s hot market for tech talent helps and hurts entertainment companies
Hollywood’s rockstar problem that can make a tech job here less appealing than one in Silicon Valley or at a tech-first company like Amazon, Apple or Netflix