The story of Quibi is both short and epic. In January 2020, the company’s founder, Jeffrey Katzenberg, and CEO, Meg Whitman, stood on stage at CES to give an hour-long presentation about how they were on the cusp of revolutionizing the entertainment business. They had developed new technology, hired half of Hollywood’s stars, and raised more than $1 billion to do it. By October, it was all over. Quibi was shutting down.
In this episode of The VergecastWe're trying out some of our favorite new show formats again. First up is the rerun show, which we'll call Version HistoryWe talk about the entire history of Quibi, from its beginnings as NewTV to its extremely ill-timed launch to its ultimate demise. Is there a world in which Quibi could have worked? Could a company called Quibi have succeeded? We have a lot to talk about.
Next, we tried our as-yet-untitled debate show, in which The edgeKevin Nguyen and Alex Cranz tackle a surprisingly controversial topic: is the future of books print or digital? Each lays out their argument, before it is mercilessly torn apart before their eyes.
(By the way, we'd love to hear what you think about these new formats! We're trying a lot of new things and always looking to expand and even launch new shows, so we want to hear anything you think we should be doing more of, less of, or differently. You can email us at [email protected], call the hotline at 866-VERGE11, or just leave us a comment here.)
We finally answer a question from the Vergecast Hotline on a very unusual MP3 player purchasing situation. Turns out there are good reasons to still want a dedicated music player.
If you want to learn more about everything we discussed in this episode, here are some links to get you started, first on Quibi:
And about the future of books:
