Author: azeeadmin

Apple CEO Tim Cook issued a letter today, revising guidance for the company’s Q1 fiscal results. Per the letter, revenue has been shifted from an initial projection of between $89 billion and $93 billion to $84 billion. The note highlights a number of reasons for dropping the number, including, perhaps most notably, lower than expected results in emerging markets.

“While we anticipated some challenges in key emerging markets, we did not foresee the magnitude of the economic deceleration, particularly in Greater China,” Cook says in the letter. “In fact, most of our revenue shortfall to our guidance, and over 100 percent of our year-over-year worldwide revenue decline, occurred in Greater China across iPhone, Mac and iPad.”

Apple has invested a lot of future growth in markets like China, and a series of factors have made for disappointing results. Among them a slowed economy and tensions with the U.S. spurred on by tariffs that many believe will spur on a full-fledged trade war. India has also been a tough nut for the company to crack.

But that’s only one piece of the puzzle here. As Cook notes in the letter, there have been fewer iPhone upgrades than expected. The executive notes, however, that non-phone categories (including the Mac, Apple Watch and iPad) did manage to grow 19 percent, but the smartphone has long been a driving force in the company’s economic fortunes, so a blow to those sales can have a substantial impact on the company’s bottom line.

2018 marked the first down year for smartphone numbers since analyst began tracking them, and not even the might iPhone is immune from the larger trends. Pricees are going up, phone quality has improved and new features haven’t been enough to keep consumers to a shortened upgrade cycle. The industry at large is going through a reckoning as it grapples to determine the next major consumer electronics trend. Apple has continued to be a rare bright spot in a stagnant world of wearables, but the Watch alone isn’t enough to right that ship.

“While China may have played a big role in the revenue miss the reality is nearly all smartphone markets are seeing a lengthening in replacement cycles and we should expect this to be the new normal,” Ben Bajarin of Creative Strategies, tells TechCrunch. “While price is what is being mentioned, I believe there would have still been softer iPhone sales even if prices were not raised due to consumers being content with their current phones and not as interested in the premium features coming out in the latest models.”

The letter features an unusually dour tone from the chief executive, also placing some of the blame on supply chain constraints, shifting product release cycles and the strength of the U.S. dollar.

But Cook rightly notes that Apple has been through plenty of tough times before. “As we exit a challenging quarter, we are as confident as ever in the fundamental strength of our business. We manage Apple for the long term, and Apple has always used periods of adversity to re-examine our approach, to take advantage of our culture of flexibility, adaptability and creativity, and to emerge better as a result.”

 

2019 promises to be a great year in games. Innovation and competition will elevate the industry’s offerings and drive more inclusivity among a broader range of audiences.

Cloud gaming emerges as the new frontier and brings about unlikely partnerships.

Collectively, gamers will serve as the canary in the coal mine as large tech companies look to introduce new technologies to mainstream consumer audiences. Companies like Amazon, Tencent, Google and Microsoft already own and operate massive data centers that virtually-run enterprise applications. In 2019, we will see continued investment in infrastructure and content acquisition as these billion dollar companies seek to claim the consumer market.

Cloud gaming is a massive market opportunity that extends beyond just interactive entertainment. Microsoft already generates significant revenues from cloud-based services and doubling down on gaming will open the door to broader adoption by consumers and a bigger piece of the market.

It also comes with significant competition, each player with their own motivations. Tencent, for one, got hit hard with a slowdown in mobile game approvals by the Chinese government, causing its share price to drop. Since then, things have started to improve somewhat, but it has incentivized Tencent to reduce its exposure in gaming and look for other non-content business segments that generate steady revenue and require less government regulation. For the first three quarters of 2018, Tencent’s cloud operations generated $864MM (RMB 6bn) in revenues and more than doubled year-over-year.

Google has also been trying to wiggle its way into the cloud gaming business. Its cloud operations make about $10bn annually and recently appointed a new CEO likely to expand Google Cloud’s vertical product capabilities in non-tech categories.

And there is, of course, Amazon. With currently over 50% market share in cloud computing and a strong user acquisition and engagement channel with Twitch, Amazon is uniquely positioned. But its previous efforts around interactive entertainment have so far not produced any real tangible results despite it ramping up expenditure. This makes it more likely that Amazon will become a third-party infrastructure provider for companies like Sony and Nintendo instead.

As these titans double down on cloud gaming initiatives, we can expect to see some surprising partnerships. For instance, Tencent and Google are currently working together in China. This gives the latter an entry point into a market that has long been out of reach. Meanwhile, incumbents like Sony, Nintendo and legacy game publishers will have to decide on going at it alone, as is the case of Electronic Arts, or buddying up and surrendering a piece of revenue.

Gamers win as the PC games market breaks into pieces.

It’s not a bad thing. But after more than a decade of a virtual monopoly held by Valve, new contenders have emerged. We already saw how Valve tried to get in front of Epic’s announcement that it was lowering its platform fees. And not long after, Discord popped up with an even better rate.

Breaking with the standard 30% cut, which is what most platforms (Apple, Facebook) claim in exchange for their services, Valve announced a few major changes. Two key sentences from the announcement. First, Valve’s new revenue distribution: “when a game makes over $10 million on Steam, the revenue share for that application will adjust to 75%/25% on earnings beyond $10M. At $50 million, the revenue share will adjust to 80%/20% on earnings beyond $50M.” Succinctly, make more and keep more.

Part of what is driving this is consolidation at the top. In the PC market the top-line firms have been growing at an incredible rate. Between 2013 and 2017, Activision grew its PC operations at +10% compound annual growth rate. EA’s was +30%, and Bethesda’s +36%. Meanwhile the share of the top four public companies, based on PC gaming revenue, grew from 44% to 60% in that same period. It’s getting less crowded at the top and digital stores will have to compete.

The big publishers like Activision, Ubisoft, and EA already have their digital storefronts and distribution platforms. Different from the brick-and-mortar space, publishers managed to build their own rather than rely on third-parties. For years, the big guys have had no interest in putting their content side-by-side with a growing number of small and medium-sized game companies.

Epic’s wild success with Fortnite has afforded it a much broader range of strategic options. So far it has lowered its store fees and retroactively paid developers on its platform. And now it is budding into the digital PC market by using its vast financial resources to compete head-on with Valve. Finally, Discord’s entry should be noted, too. Adding a content offering to an existing community, rather than the other way around, Discord is the new hot thing. Certainly, it has yet to lay claim to a hit title of its own. But it has both the expertise and critical mass to become an important next store front. It raised an additional $150 million right before the holidays.

All this takes place against the backdrop of a declining physical games market. It’s been a tough few months in meat space. In its recent earnings, GameStop came in at $2.08bn and +4.8% in global sales, but Wall Street was not impressed. GameStop blamed Call of Duty and “sports titles.” With the recent sell-off of Spring Mobile to lower its debt, the specialty retailer continues on the hunt for new leadership, either in the form of a new CEO (unlikely) or new owner (likely). Whoever is going to scoop up GameStop is probably waiting for 19Q1 when sales dip and its valuation will be lower.

The breaking up of Valve’s dominance is good for players and companies that make games. Consumers will get better prices and more choice, and the various digital stores will compete over functionality and improved user experience.  This is a win-win for all.

Walled gardens will be broken down enabling cross-platform play with anyone, anywhere.

Despite digitization, the bulk of interactive entertainment has remained within one of the various walled gardens. That is going to change. Like telecom networks that allow people to speak to each other irrespective of their phone provider, so, too, will online gaming break down silos. In 2019, cross-platform play will become ubiquitous. The end of 2018 has already shown the potential of this as Fortnite’s success resulted in each of the platforms agreeing to play nicely with one another.

Legacy publishers like Activision Blizzard have also tasted what cross-platform play can do for their franchises: Hearthstone has continued to dominate the collective card game category, because it works seamlessly across PC and mobile, and offers a smooth integration with live-streaming platforms like Twitch.

Cross-platform play should be at the top of every studio’s design agenda in 2019.

Subscriptions and bundled content will drive sales in 2019.

After seeing the initial success with subscriptions enjoyed by Twitch and Microsoft’s GamePass, more companies will adopt this monetization model. Large platform holders like Sony and Apple are looking to grow their revenues by offering content subscriptions. Both of these companies have indicated they have plans to increase services revenue as a direct response to reaching the limit of how much hardware they can sell.

Game publishers have been experimenting with micro-transactions to great success. Tentpole franchises like FIFA, Hearthstone, and GTA V Online have made a mint from what they call ‘recurrent revenues.’ Beyond up-selling their audiences on a regular schedule with content updates, they will explore subscription models that will provide massive discounts and unique content to players in exchange for a more predictable revenue flows.

Video games will face more and new regulation with a focus on kids.

Now that gaming has emerged as a mainstream form of entertainment, the industry can expect more scrutiny. In addition, there will be sharper focus on kids and technology in 2019. Data companies will be increasingly under the microscope. Similar to the loot box scandal that resulted in various governments speaking out, we will see an effort focused on protecting children. This means that game companies will be held to a higher standard with regards to how they handle data on minors. Against the background of a festering trade war between eastern and western economies, data ownership, in particular around children, will emerge as a political topic and strategic business challenge.

It also means that titles like Fortnite will be fingered as culprits in narratives around an erosion of culture and well-being (although this is largely driven by misinformed industry critics). The title’s appeal to younger audiences will make it a likely scapegoat as the usual choir sings its disdain for video games. This year’s congressional hearing in the U.S. more than satisfied our need for examples of how disconnected government representatives are from technology used by literally everyone else. Different from previous generations, however, I expect the companies currently at the top of the food chain to know exactly how to respond. They will push titles that offer a safe, pleasant space for kids to play, uninterrupted by broader challenges found everywhere else.

Next year will, however, not be a continuation of exuberance as we’ve seen previously. Trends in related industries suggest that gaming, too, will move toward a more concentrated competitive landscape and closer government monitoring.

Further consolidation is imminent for the games industry.

In response to the slowdown in consumer spending, some game companies will go out of business and others will gobble up the failing ones to strengthen their market positions. Nothing new here but it does leave room for speculation as to who will buy whom. I previously speculated that Amazon would buy GameStop and still think they might. Only it will happen when GameStop reaches its wits end, probably at the end of Q1 2019.

Across Europe there have been a series of smaller acquisitions throughout the year, some of which are now turning sour. Starbreeze had its offices raided (which I’m told sounded worse than it was). Even so, this year the ambitious portfolio approach of buying up smaller studios and leveraging their IP against efficient distribution networks became, perhaps, too popular.

Finally, I expect companies like Tencent to continue satisfying their appetites for foreign assets. If nothing else, this year has cemented Tencent’s need to diversify as they look to mitigate some of its recent stresses by lowering its exposure to games revenue and further investing in western companies and platforms. Over the past two years its success with this strategy has greatly lowered competition across PC and mobile, the two most innovative categories.

This does not mean that innovation itself is at risk. It just means that the stakes will be higher for any firm that does not make a billion or more in revenues.

The coming Winter brings a slowdown in growth, and possibly in revenue and innovation.

I’ve been writing about this for a while now. But don’t misunderstand: I want to be wrong about this. While I would like to predict that 2019 will bring even more growth and more money for everyone, the supporting evidence simply isn’t there.

For one, mobile gaming is showing saturation across different markets, including in China. It has evolved from insignificance to become the biggest games market worldwide and is now starting to slow. We are also at the end of the current console cycle. This simply means that the platforms are going to discount their hardware and the bulk of consumers looking to spend are disproportionately price conscious.

Overall economic indicators suggest that consumer spending, especially in the US, is headed to a slowdown. Following the tax breaks earlier in the year, overall spending surprised even the retailers. But that party is going to end soon. Finally, as gaming has become mainstream its underlying economics have shifted. In broad terms this means that where previously the games industry may have seemed “counter-cyclical” it is going to follow suit with whatever happens to consumer spending at large. In addition, investors have become savvier and are starting to trade aggressively against game stocks. This means game companies are less inclined to take risks on content innovation (as in the case of EA).

The long-term silver lining here is that this imminent stagnation is the precursor of the industry’s overall transition. But before Spring comes Winter.

Live-streamers and influencers embark on a drama binge.

Yes, newfound fame will get the better of them and stupid things will be said. This is still the very first generation that suddenly finds itself thrust into the mainstream spotlight — they don’t have the benefit of the intense vetting that other industries have subjected their rising stars to before sending them on the mainstage. With many still amateurs and competing against one another to win the favor of audiences and aggregators alike, the stakes are substantially higher.

In their hunger for attention, aspiring streamers will sacrifice their authenticity and some will undoubtedly ruin their careers before it even starts. Mounting pressures from growing competition will drive this new generation of tastemakers to ‘keep it real’ and remain authentic. Twitch and YouTube will do what they can, I’m sure. But for many, this authenticity will be too much.

EA takes a hit in 2019.

Among the Big Three, Electronic Arts will have the toughest year. Despite its aggressive expansion effort illustrated by the acquisition of GameFly’s streaming division, EA is going to face the music with investors. This is somewhat undeserved because financial investors insist on continual growth and generally can’t see past the next quarter. And, to be fair, EA has a few weaknesses: its revenue and its margin area highly dependent on the continuing success of FIFA Ultimate Team. In addition, it has relatively little new IP in the pipe which makes it even more difficult for investors to care about the longer-term future. Simply put, EA can’t free itself from Wall Street’s needs as several analysts have already started to lower their expectations for the year ahead.

GameStop sells but it’s not a party.

I already predicted this last year and was almost right: GameStop has been trying to get acquired for the past six months. Its C-suite has seen better days, most recently resulting in a letter from one of its largest shareholders, Tiger Management, to get its sh!t together (aka perform a strategic review). The company has been unable to find a buyer and now finds itself forced to essentially abandon the diversification strategy it initiated in 2014 by acquiring retail chain in parallel market segments. Just recently GameStop sold off Spring Mobile and is likely to use the money to pay off its debts and improve the likelihood of some private equity firm or a company like Amazon to buy it. No one expected it to be a great year for games retail, but it’s getting sadder.

Atlas Venture, the Cambridge, Mass.-based early-stage, biotech-focused venture firm, has for the first time raised an opportunity fund designed to help it support its most promising, maturing portfolio companies.

The $250 million fund, announced by the firm this morning, is pretty well-timed, as these things go. Though the public markets have bounced back a bit today after several stomach-churning drops in late December, there seems to be growing agreement that 2019 could be a much tougher time for companies to raise funding than was the case last year.

As famed VC Fred Wilson wrote in a post yesterday about his predictions for this year, venture investors are likely to be far more cautious if the country continues to see a “difficult macro business and political environment.” It would “not surprise me to see total venture capital investments in 2019 decline from 2018,” Wilson wrote. “And I think we will see financings take longer, diligence on new investments actually occur, and valuations to come under pressure for even the most attractive opportunities.”

Many venture firms raised their biggest funds ever in 2018, partly because they could, and partly with the understanding that market corrections are inevitable. Indeed, some kind of downturn has been widely anticipated for at least the last year, given that the last global economic downturn began in 2008.

Interestingly, while Atlas managed to line up capital commitments as the year came to a close, another well-known firm that apparently didn’t get as far along as it wanted, August Capital, has put a pin in its fundraising process, according to Axios, which suggests that infighting played a role.

We wouldn’t be surprised to see other firms struggle to either close their funds, or be forced to scale down their ambitions, in 2019.

Atlas Venture has five investing partners: Kevin Bitterman, Bruce Booth, Jean-François Formela, David Grayzel and Jason Rhodes. Some of the firm’s bets include the cancer drug developer Bicycle Therapeutics, and Spero Therapeutics, which is working on antibiotics to treat drug-resistant bacterial infections.

Atlas has been investing in biotech since 1993, but the firm invested in both life sciences and IT until 2014, when it separated those businesses, with the Atlas Venture brand remaining associated with its biotech bets. The IT side became the seed-stage firm Accomplice.

Atlas’s previous fund was a $350 million earlier-stage pool of capital that it announced in 2017.

Twitch superstar Tyler “Ninja” Blevins has finally settled the debate over just how much he earned in 2018. CNN reports that the gaming phenom pulled in close to $10 million last year, a little tidbit that he revealed to CNN during his press campaign on New Year’s Eve in New York City. (He also tried to get the good people of Times Square to “floss.” They weren’t having it.)

Ninja has more than 20 million subscribers on YouTube, and 12.5 million followers on Twitch, 40,000 of whom are paid subscribers. Ninja told CNN that he thinks of himself as an entrepreneur, comparing his stream to a coffee shop. “They’re gonna find another coffee shop if you’re not there … you have to be there all the time,” he said to CNN.

And when he says “all the time,” he means it. The streamer said he goes live for roughly 12 hours a day, which adds up to about 4,000 hours of gaming over the year.

Part of the money earned from each ad viewed on his YouTube channel, plus part of the profits from bits, donations and monthly subscriptions (ranging from $5, $10 or $25) on Twitch, all head into Ninja’s bank account. And that doesn’t include earnings made from tournament wins and endorsement deals with brands like Uber Eats, Samsung and Red Bull.

It shows just what is possible as esports and Twitch streaming continue to grow. And one of the most influential factors in that growth over 2018 was Fortnite, where streamers and pros not only put on a show for their viewers, but also set a different, far less toxic tone than other gaming communities.

Ninja, for example, decided to stop swearing and using other toxic language as his stream grew in popularity among young people. Other Fortnite streamers, such as NickMercs and Courage, have also fostered more inclusive, supportive communities around their streams.

Epic Games is also doing its part to give streamers like Ninja the format and opportunity to create even more engaging content on their streams through high-stakes tournament and competitive play events, including the Summer and Fall Skirmishes, the Winter Royale and the less-incentivized pop-up cups.

Though $10 million is less than the earnings of top traditional athletes (LeBron James at $36 million and Aaron Rodgers with $67 million, not including endorsements), it’s clear that Ninja and other Fortnite streamers are still very much on the rise.

As long as Epic Games keeps the attention of the gaming community at large, 2019 should see even more financial growth for Ninja and other Fortnite streamers.

It’s on like Donkey Kong! We’ll be seeing you next week, on January 9, 2019 at 6:00 PM, where we’ll mingle and run a full TC pitch-off with a bunch of great hardware companies. I’ve added 40 extra tickets, so hurry!

The event will be held at Work In Progress, 317 South 6th Street. Special thanks to those amazing folks who opened their doors to us during one of the busiest weeks in LV.

I’ve contacted the companies that will be pitching. If anyone drops out, I’ll choose some more, so there is still a chance to pitch.

Very special thanks go out to Shenzhen Valley Ventures, a hardware-focused venture capital firm for engineers, by engineers. They will be on hand to talk about their firm and would love to hear your pitches… and they are paying for the beer and pizza!

See you soon!

Netflix has issued a warning to its customers thanks to a meme challenge that has gone viral in which people are choosing to put blindfolds on and navigate the world around them just like the characters in the horror movie “Bird Box.”

Let the hilarity and the hospital visits begin.

For those who spent the holidays visiting friends and not watching Netflix, here’s a quick summary. Netflix released a horror concept movie called Bird Box starring Sandra Bullock. In Bird Box, Bullock and her children, Boy and Girl, are forced to wear blindfolds and navigate a river and spooky forest to protect themselves against the evil monster that, if seen, causes people to kill themselves.

The movie not only broke viewership records, it inspired a bevy of #BirdBoxChallenge memes, including ones in which folks video themselves blindfolded and attempting to do complete tasks, many of which are depicted in the movie.

Of course, these videos aren’t staying tucked away. They’re being shared with the world on social media. One viral meme shows a blindfolded family paddling away in their bathtub. Another shows a family running through their living room and one managing to hit the wall instead. There are numerous videos of random people walking blindfolded in cities like New York because sure, why not. One person put a hat over his head while driving.

Here’s a sampling.

The morning talk shows got into the mix as well.

Last month, the streaming service announced in a tweet that more than 45 million Netflix accounts had streamed Bird Box, which set a new record for the best-ever first week for a Netflix film.

The New Horizons probe has just sent back its first real shots of Ultima Thule, a 21-mile-long rock or planetesimal deep in the reaches of the solar system — and now the most distant object ever visited up close by mankind. The principal investigator of the mission, Alan Stern, called the accomplishment “a technical success beyond anything ever attempted before in spaceflight.”

Ultima Thule is, as early occultation studies suggested with remarkable success, what’s called a contact binary object, composed of two individual objects fused together likely through impact billions of years ago — and it’s the first ever photographed up close. This is like candy for planet scientists: learning about the creation and characteristics of this interesting type of object is a chance decades — nay, centuries — in expectation.

“We think what we’re looking at is perhaps the most primitive object that has yet been seen by any spacecraft, and may represent a class of objects that are the oldest and most primitive objects that can be seen anywhere in the solar system,” said NASA Ames’s Jeff Moore, geology and geophysics lead on New Horizons.

It’s formed of two lobes, the larger and smaller of which are named Ultima and Thule respectively, which likely accreted individually in the earliest days of the solar system, then entered each other’s influence and eventually encountered one another, fusing.

But Ultima Thule was chosen as the next target just before New Horizons buzzed Pluto not because it’s particularly interesting in itself, but because every object out there is interesting — we’ve never been up close to one! Instead, this particular rock, called MU69 when it was first identified by the Hubble during a frantic two-week search, happened to be something that the probe could swing by with minimal fuel expenditure.

“As the principal investigator I’ll say I’m surprised that, more or less picking one Kuiper Belt object out of the hat, we were able to get such a winner as this, that’s going to revolutionize our knowledge of planetary science,” Stern said.

Once it was decided — though at the time, the team had no idea how compelling MU69 would turn out to be — New Horizons altered its course to come within a few thousand miles of the object, close enough to get detailed imagery.

Until today we’ve only had pictures taken from very far away with the probe’s Long Distance Reconnaissance Imager, or LORRI, which produced tiny monochrome shots a few pixels across:

Great for mission control, but not for the front page. But remember that the probe was perhaps half a million miles away when it took the above images (on December 31), plus it was traveling at a relative speed of about 32,000 miles per hour. And of course there’s no good Wi-Fi out in the Kuiper belt — the data has to be painstakingly relayed back through the Deep Space Network.

The image at above was taken while the probe was much closer — about 50,000 kilometers. LORRI still produces the best details, but at that range the team can bring Ralph into play, which added the color you see.

Ralph is a set of multispectral imagers covering a variety of wavelengths and resolutions. These more-detailed images necessarily require more data to be sent home, and often need to be interpreted or tweaked by the science team in order to create a reasonable representation of what a human might see if we happened to be rolling past Ultima Thule.

The object is “about as reflective as garden variety dirt,” and of a reddish tint the team thinks may be the result of exposed volatile substances. There’s tons of variation and terrain on the surface, which we’ll get much better imagery of in time. These are just the initial shots, and New Horizons will be sending its data back for more than a year.

It was enough, however, to make some rather potato-like rough models of the object:

These shots are “just the tip of the iceberg,” Stern said. “We have far less than one percent of the data.”

“The current best picture that we have I believe has 20,000 or 28,000 pixels on the target, which way beats the six pixels we showed you last time,” he continued. “But ultimately if everything worked just right… the highest resolution image set that we took, it’ll have 35 meter resolution — it’ll ultimately be a megapixel image. It’s just going to get better and better.”

The team will continue to receive and collate data and will surely hold more press conferences as they learn more, and even more detailed imagery arrives.

The New Horizons probe itself — still hurtling outwards at 32,000 MPH — could continue to operate for another 15 or 20 years, and has fuel to change its course to perhaps find another target, but that’s all a matter of speculation for now. Stay tuned over the next year, the team suggested, but for now they’re focused on the data from Ultima Thule.

In what is clearly a missed opportunity to name her venture capital fund Money Meeker, famed venture capitalist and author of the annual Internet Trends Report Mary Meeker has informed limited partners that her firm will be called Bond, according to a report from Axios’ Dan Primack.

Meeker intends to raise $1.25 billion for Bond’s debut growth fund on a $1.5 billion hard cap. Meeker will have no trouble pooling capital, given her success at Kleiner Perkins, where she was a partner for eight years, backing companies such as Airbnb, Houzz, Slack and Peloton. In September, Kleiner Perkins confirmed it was spinning out its growth team to become an independent firm, with Meeker at the helm. Kleiner Perkins general partners Mood Rowghani and Noah Knauf joined Meeker in the new effort, as well as Juliet de Baubigny, a partner focused on team building.

“The environment for venture has evolved — with larger checks being written for seed and A rounds and more support from partners required to build companies — demanding a high degree of specialization and extreme focus to excel,” a spokesperson for Kleiner Perkins said in a statement provided to TechCrunch in September. “The changes in both areas have led to less overlap between venture and growth and creating two separate firms with different people and operations now makes sense.”

We’ve reached out to Meeker for comment.

Meeker joined Kleiner Perkins in 2010 after two decades as a managing director at Morgan Stanley. A well-established Wall Street tech analyst, she quickly rose in the Silicon Valley ranks and became one of few women to earn a GP title at Kleiner Perkins in an industry where women have traditionally been shut out from the highest roles.

With Bond, Meeker is set to be the first woman to raise a $1 billion-plus VC fund.

Netflix has officially confirmed the hiring of its new Chief Financial Officer Spencer Neumann, formerly CFO at Activision Blizzard. The announcement directly follows reports from Reuters and The Wall Street Journal, which said Netflix had poached Neumann from Activision and would start him in his new position this year.

CNBC on Wednesday reported Neumann had been fired from Activision two days ago because he was pursuing another job. Activision declined to state the cause of his firing, saying only that it was “unrelated to the Company’s financial reporting or disclosure controls and procedures,” in a regulatory filing.

Activision said Dennis Durkin, who was CFO from 2012 through 2017, would return to his role to replace Neumann.

At Netflix, Neumann will replace David Wells, who served as CFO since 2010.

“Spencer is a stellar entertainment executive and we’re thrilled that he will help us provide amazing stories to people all over the world,” said Reed Hastings, Netflix chief executive officer, in a statement. “I also want to again say thank you to David Wells, on behalf of the company and our shareholders, for his invaluable contributions at Netflix over the past 14 years.”

Neumann became CFO at Activision Blizzard in May 2017. Prior to that, he held a number of roles within Disney and elsewhere. From 2012 up until his hiring at Activision, Neumann was CFO and executive vice president of Global Guest Experience of Walt Disney Parks and Resorts. He also worked in private equity at Providence Equity Partners and Summit Partners.

Also at Disney, which Neumann first joined in 1992, he had served as executive vice president of the ABC Television Network from 2001 to 2004 and CFO of the Walt Disney Internet Group from 1999 to 2001.

His hiring is notable, given Disney’s plans to introduce a Netflix competitor of its own this year, with the forthcoming launch of the Disney+ streaming service. Netflix is also facing increased competition from AT&T, which is creating several new streaming services following its Time Warner acquisition, as well from Hulu, which becomes majority-owned by Disney with its acquisition of  21st Century Fox.

To keep up, Netflix has been increasing its spending on content. It reportedly spent $8 billion in 2018, and that figure is set to grow this year as the streamer invests heavily in originals to help grow and retain its customer base.

“Netflix is a singular brand, and I’m excited and honored for the opportunity to work with the Netflix team and all of our stakeholders to build on the company’s exceptional track record of success and innovation,” said Neumann in a statement.

Image credits: Netflix (logo); LinkedIn (profile photo)

Netflix has officially confirmed the hiring of its new Chief Financial Officer Spencer Neumann, formerly CFO at Activision Blizzard. The announcement directly follows reports from Reuters and The Wall Street Journal, which said Netflix had poached Neumann from Activision and would start him in his new position this year.

CNBC on Wednesday reported Neumann had been fired from Activision two days ago because he was pursuing another job. Activision declined to state the cause of his firing, saying only that it was “unrelated to the Company’s financial reporting or disclosure controls and procedures,” in a regulatory filing.

Activision said Dennis Durkin, who was CFO from 2012 through 2017, would return to his role to replace Neumann.

At Netflix, Neumann will replace David Wells, who served as CFO since 2010.

“Spencer is a stellar entertainment executive and we’re thrilled that he will help us provide amazing stories to people all over the world,” said Reed Hastings, Netflix chief executive officer, in a statement. “I also want to again say thank you to David Wells, on behalf of the company and our shareholders, for his invaluable contributions at Netflix over the past 14 years.”

Neumann became CFO at Activision Blizzard in May 2017. Prior to that, he held a number of roles within Disney and elsewhere. From 2012 up until his hiring at Activision, Neumann was CFO and executive vice president of Global Guest Experience of Walt Disney Parks and Resorts. He also worked in private equity at Providence Equity Partners and Summit Partners.

Also at Disney, which Neumann first joined in 1992, he had served as executive vice president of the ABC Television Network from 2001 to 2004 and CFO of the Walt Disney Internet Group from 1999 to 2001.

His hiring is notable, given Disney’s plans to introduce a Netflix competitor of its own this year, with the forthcoming launch of the Disney+ streaming service. Netflix is also facing increased competition from AT&T, which is creating several new streaming services following its Time Warner acquisition, as well from Hulu, which becomes majority-owned by Disney with its acquisition of  21st Century Fox.

To keep up, Netflix has been increasing its spending on content. It reportedly spent $8 billion in 2018, and that figure is set to grow this year as the streamer invests heavily in originals to help grow and retain its customer base.

“Netflix is a singular brand, and I’m excited and honored for the opportunity to work with the Netflix team and all of our stakeholders to build on the company’s exceptional track record of success and innovation,” said Neumann in a statement.

Image credits: Netflix (logo); LinkedIn (profile photo)