English Entertainment
Startup reality series ‘Meet the Drapers’ premiering on Sony in the US
NEW DELHI: “Meet the Drapers”, a crowdfunding-based reality series produced and directed by Sarika Batra is premiering across the United States on 19 November 2017 on Sony Entertainment Television.
According to a Sony Pictures Networks announcement, this innovative show will be on air at 6pm ET.
The programme shows new up-and-coming startups pitch their ideas before three generations of venture capitalists from one of the most prominent families in Silicon Valley: Bill Draper, Tim Draper, and Jesse Draper.
Each episode will feature three exciting startups trying to convince the Drapers to invest in their company and simultaneously convince millions of viewers to fund them through their crowdfunding page on the Republic platform.
Episodes will also feature a guest judge, who is a legendary success in his/her respective field.
Bill Draper began his venture capital career in 1959 and is one of America’s first venture capitalists. Currently, he is Managing Director of Draper Richards LP and Draper International. He serves as the co-chairman of the Draper Richards Kaplan Foundation. Draper is also author of the book, The Startup Game: Inside the Partnership between Venture Capitalists and Entrepreneurs.
His son Tim Draper has been named one of Worth Magazine’s 100 Most Powerful People in finance and is the founding partner of Draper Associates and DFJ. His original suggestion to use viral marketing as a method for spreading a software application from customer to customer was instrumental to the success of Hotmail, Skype and others. Tim also received the World Entrepreneurship Forum’s “Entrepreneur for the World” in 2015.
Tim’s daughter Jesse Draper is helping female founded and led companies through her new venture capital fund Halogen Ventures. Through Halogen Ventures, Jesse spearheads early stage seed investing in female founded consumer technology startups; some of her portfolio companies include: Laurel & Wolf, Move Loot, Carbon38, BlockCypher, Beautycon & Sugarfina.
Tim Draper said: “It is finally possible for the individual investor to participate in the funding of exciting young ventures. ‘Meet the Drapers’ allows viewers to watch us interview entrepreneurs and then, invest in companies that have the potential to change the world. We are thrilled to have created a unique show, that invites viewers to become investors in exciting new startups. We’ve been blown away by the entrepreneurs we’ve met so far, and believe viewers will be too.”
The guest judges for “Meet the Drapers” include business executive, entrepreneur and the founder and former CEO of InfoSpace Naveen Jain; founder and former CEO of TIBCO, a multimillion-dollar real-time computing company Vivek Ranadive, and Jyoti Bansal who founded and was former CEO of AppDynamics, which he sold to Cisco for $3.7 billion.
“South Asians are a vibrant part of the Silicon Valley startup culture,” said Jaideep Janakiram, Head of the Americas at Sony Pictures Networks. “We created this show to showcase these trailblazing entrepreneurs, VCs and angels, and to allow SET viewers to participate in their ventures.
Pitching companies will be accepting investments via Republic – a leading equity crowdfunding platform that makes startup investing available to anyone. Republic is the easiest way to become an investor in breakout early-stage startups for as little as $10.
English Entertainment
Warner Bros. Discovery shareholders approve Paramount deal
Investors wave through a $111 billion megamerger but deliver a stinging, if toothless, rebuke over half-a-billion-dollar goodbye packages
NEW YORK: The shareholders said yes to the deal. They said no to the cheque. At a virtual special meeting on Thursday that lasted barely ten minutes, Warner Bros. Discovery investors voted overwhelmingly to approve Paramount Skydance’s $111 billion acquisition of the company — and then turned around and voted against the lavish exit pay packages lined up for chief executive David Zaslav and his fellow outgoing executives.
Not that it will make much difference. The compensation vote is purely advisory and non-binding. The Warner Bros. Discovery board can, and almost certainly will, pay out as planned.
But the symbolism stings. It is the second consecutive year that WBD shareholders have voted against the executive compensation packages, and this time they had good reason. Zaslav’s exit deal is, by any measure, extraordinary. Under the terms filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission, he is set to receive $34.2 million in cash severance, $517.2 million in equity in the combined company, and $44,195 in continued health coverage — a total of at least $550 million. On top of that, Warner Bros. Discovery has agreed to reimburse Zaslav up to $335 million for taxes assessed by the Internal Revenue Service on his accelerated stock vesting, though the company says that figure will decline depending on when the deal closes. As of March 11, Zaslav also held $115.85 million in vested WBD stock awards — and last month sold a further $114 million worth of WBD shares.
Shareholder advisory firm ISS recommended voting against the compensation measure, citing “problematic” tax reimbursements to Zaslav and the full vesting of his stock awards.
Zaslav will be bound by a two-year non-competition covenant and a two-year non-solicitation of customers and employees after the deal closes.
His lieutenants are not walking away empty-handed either. J.B. Perrette, chief executive and president of global streaming and games, is in line for $142 million, comprising $18.2 million in cash severance and $123.9 million in equity. Bruce Campbell, chief revenue and strategy officer, will receive an estimated $121.5 million, including $18.8 million in severance and $102.7 million in equity. Chief financial officer Gunnar Wiedenfels is set for $120 million, made up of $6.6 million in cash severance and $113.1 million in equity. Gerhard Zeiler, president of international, will get $82.6 million, including $11.9 million in severance and $70.7 million in equity.
The deal itself, clinched in February after Netflix declined to raise its bid for Warner Bros., still needs regulatory clearance from the Justice Department and European authorities. Several state attorneys general are also weighing legal action to block it.
Senator Elizabeth Warren, Democrat of Massachusetts, was unsparing. “The Paramount-Warner Bros. merger isn’t a done deal,” she said after the shareholder vote. “State attorneys general across the country are stepping up to stop this antitrust disaster. We need to keep up this fight.”
If it does go through, the combined entity would be a formidable beast, bringing together Paramount Skydance’s stable — CBS, CBS News, Paramount Pictures, Paramount+, BET, MTV and Nickelodeon — with WBD’s portfolio of HBO, Max, Warner Bros. film and TV studios, DC, CNN, TBS, TNT, HGTV and Discovery+. Paramount has said it expects $6 billion in cost savings from the merger, which is Wall Street shorthand for mass layoffs on a significant scale.
The ten-minute meeting was presided over by chairman Samuel Di Piazza Jr., with Zaslav, Campbell, Wiedenfels and chief communications officer Robert Gibbs in virtual attendance. Di Piazza was bullish. “We appreciate the support and confidence our stockholders have placed in us to unlock the full value of our world-class entertainment portfolio,” he said. “With Paramount, we look forward to creating an exceptional combined company that will expand consumer choice and benefit the global creative talent community.”
Zaslav echoed the sentiment. “Over the past four years, our teams have transformed Warner Bros. Discovery and returned the company to industry leadership,” he said. “Today’s stockholder approval is another key milestone toward completing this historic transaction that will deliver exceptional value to our stockholders.”
Paramount Skydance struck a similar note. “Shareholder approval marks another important milestone towards completing our acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery,” it said in a statement, adding that it looked forward to “closing the transaction in the coming months.”
The shareholders have spoken on the merger. On the pay, they were ignored before the vote was even counted.
