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Jeffrey Katzenberg's Quibi is on an aggressive hiring spree and is luring talent from Snap and Netflix
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Jeffrey Katzenberg's Quibi is on an aggressive hiring spree and is luring talent from Snap and Netflix

jeffrey katzenberg

  • As it gears up to take on the video streaming market with a 2020 launch, Quibi is going on an agressive hiring spree.
  • The Hollywood exec Jeffrey Katzenberg's planned mobile streaming-video service has posted 48 new job listings on LinkedIn in the past few weeks, with a source close to the company saying it was on "a hiring rampage."
  • With its top brass in place, the yet-to-be launched company's effort seems to be geared at expanding the roster across various teams and levels of experience with the roles that it's hiring for spanning advertising, content, engineering, legal, marketing, product and PR.
  • The company has specifically been seeking out talent from Netflix and Snap, two sources told Business Insider.
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As it gears up to take on the video streaming market with a 2020 launch, Quibi is going on an aggressive hiring spree.

The Hollywood exec Jeffrey Katzenberg's planned mobile streaming-video service has posted 48 new job listings on LinkedIn in the past few weeks, with a majority of them being posted this week. A source close to the company told Business Insider that Quibi was on "a hiring rampage."

With its top brass in place, the yet-to-be launched company's effort seems to be geared at expanding the roster across various teams and levels of experience, with the roles that it's hiring for spanning advertising, content, engineering, legal, marketing, product and PR. The company's headcount currently stands at 160, per LinkedIn.

Quibi declined to comment for this story.

"It's fair to say that Quibi is aggressively going after the best talent across tech and media," former BTIG analyst Rich Greenfield told Business Insider. "It's interesting when compared to how other companies are approaching streaming, like Disney, which is by promoting from within."

Quibi is led by Katzenberg on the content side, and former Hewlett Packard Enterprise CEO Meg Whitman on the business side, and has already installed a number of senior execs with backgrounds in digital, streaming and traditional media. It has recruited execs behind popular social media and shortform video platforms, as The Hollywood Reporter has previously noted.

On the content side, the company has roped in former DC Entertainment president Diane Nelson, former Viacom Music and Entertainment Group president Doug Herzog and news veteran Janice Min. It has named former Snap VP of product Tom Conrad as product chief, and Hulu's former VP of engineering Rob Post is its CTO.

Quibi has also bulked up on the advertising side, securing $100 million in ad deals ahead of its launch. Former Hulu exec Tim Connolly serves as the company's head of partnerships and advertising, and former Snap director of sales Marni Schapiro is its head of North America advertising sales, as Business Insider first reported.

Read More: Jeffrey Katzenberg's Quibi has poached a key Snap ad sales exec as it ramps up its pitch to big brands like P&G and Anheuser-Busch

The company has specifically been seeking out talent from Netflix and Snap, two other sources told Business Insider.

The company hired Netflix's former director of acquisition marketing Juan Bongiovanni as its head of growth marketing, and Netflix's head of product creative Megan Imbres as its head of brand and content marketing. 13 of Quibi's current employees have previously worked at Netflix, per Business Insider's count on LinkedIn.

Several former Snapchatters (17 per our count on LinkedIn), meanwhile, make up Quibi's engineering and product teams, said another source. This is no surprise, given that that Snap is one of the few tech companies headquartered out of Los Angeles, said the source.

"There aren't that many technical people in L.A. to begin with, so it totally makes sense for Quibi to poach heavily from such companies," said the source. "There is a ton of willing supply, since a lot of these people are probably more suited for an earlier-stage company like Quibi as Snap and Netflix mature and start operating at a larger scale."

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