Netflix Is Trying to Buy Warner Bros… and This Changes EVERYTHING.

Netflix has been in business for less than 30 years. Warner Bros has been around for over 100. And little brother just offered to buy out big brother for $83 billion.

In this solo episode of the Un-Traditional Entrepreneur Podcast, host Juming Delmas breaks down the Netflix-Warner Bros acquisition news — not just as a media story, but as a masterclass in entrepreneurial strategy that every business owner needs to study.

This is about what it looks like when a company owns its product AND its pipeline. When innovation beats legacy. When a 28-year-old company outmaneuvers a century-old giant. And what every entrepreneur can learn from watching it happen in real time.

Topics covered:
- The $83 billion Netflix-Warner Bros deal: what it means and why it matters
- How Netflix's strategy mirrors the moves every smart entrepreneur should be making
- Why owning your product AND your distribution pipeline is the ultimate power move
- What Blockbuster's refusal to adapt has to do with every stubborn business owner
- Why acquiring your competition beats competing with them — if you build the right way
- What the deal means for content creators, podcasters, and streaming audiences
- Why Netflix adding podcasters was step one of a much bigger play
- Legacy vs. innovation: why century-old companies get swallowed by 28-year-old ones
- The layoff reality: what consolidation always means for workers
- Why you can't grow a business as a one-man army — Netflix proves it

30 years of strategy. One $83 billion move. Here's what it means for you.

The Un-Traditional Entrepreneur Podcast with Juming Delmas. Real talk. No filter.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

All right, all right, all right. Welcome to the Untraditional Entrepreneur Podcast where we reveal the lessons and losses that shape true innovative hustlers. I'm your host, Jameen Delmus, and welcome to the other side of motivation. Listen, listen, listen. Today's a big topic, man. There's, you know, there's some news that just broke out. And to be fair, I just found out yesterday about the talk about Netflix trying to buy out Warner Brothers. I mean, this is so that people, you know, they're right now they're acquiring. And so it hasn't been fully bought out yet, but this is a conversation that's already in the midst, and it's already been talked about about what that transaction is going to look like. And that's a big ass transaction, bigger than you know, my pockets for sure. Like uh Warner Brothers is getting ready to sell the business to Netflix for$83 billion. Holy fucking shit.$83 billion. But what's crazy is Warner Brothers is worth$72 billion. Right? So Warner Brothers is like, bet, we'll sell you, but we're not going to just sell you what we're worth. We're going to sell you$11 billion more than what we're worth. So we can get our money. So I mean, you know, like Netflix got to recoup that money and shit like that. But you know, I think that's, you know, that's really insane. Um, that you know, what we what we see in right here, this is a lot of people are slightly worried about it um because of the amount of power that uh Netflix could have after buying out Warner Brothers. I mean, Warner Brothers, I mean, we're talking Harry Potter's, we're talking HBO. I mean, there's a lot of shit that that's going into this, and you know, people are slightly worried about. Um, according to a Time article, um, they're saying that Netflix is moving to acquire Warner Brothers studios, streaming, all of it, in a deal valued at about$82.7 billion. If the deal goes through, Netflix would absorb a massive library, TV shows, films, major IPs like the content from Warner Brothers, HBO, HBO Max plus legacy franchises. Netflix currently serves over 300 million paid subscribers in 190 countries, making it the largest paid streaming service in the world. Netflix claims the deal would broaden its creative reach, combining its own hits with Warner Bros. storied history, aiming to divine the next century of storytelling. But the acquisition has sparked strong opposition. Critics, like we just said, uh including lawmakers and major guilds, warned the merger could create a streaming monopoly and reduce content diversity, raises prices, threaten workers, and concentrate too much power in one company. Bottom line, this isn't just a media deal. It's a bold power play that could reshape entertainment, media ownership, content distribution, and industry dynamics globally forever. Wow. That's what Times magazine has to say about that shift, right? Scary shit, man. That's some scary shit, but it's good for Netflix. You know, then you know, it's like, then a bigger question is like, what the fuck happens next? Like, what are they gonna have brewing once they acquire it? What is that gonna look like? One Netflix has only been around for about 27, 26 years. Warner Brothers over a hundred years, and little brother is buying out Big Brother for$83 billion. What the fuck? Unheard of, right? Why? I mean, Warner Brothers is Netflix's greatest competitor, and now you remove the middleman when you talk about distribution and shit. Fuck it. They like, we just gonna buy them up. We don't need to have, we don't need to have a middleman. We can do everything we want in-house, no more distribution, everything we want. Netflix plus Warner Brothers equal together with equal unmatched global content, plus legacy IP, plus a huge reach between both platforms, more power than any studio before it, right? Owning both platforms, streaming, and content removes completely the middle man, um, eliminate um uh vertical integrations, right? Viewer get access to like massive content, library and shit. Um, but the competition shrinks, right? They get rid of the motherfuckers, fewer studios, less diversity, more power, and fewer hands. Um, regulatory things, content creators and workers are already pushing back, they fearing this shit of because this is a monopoly. People are afraid of like price hikes, fewer voices. Uh, this could be the end of many fucking smaller studios, many platforms. It marks as a shift from variety of centralization for entrepreneurs. Like, you know, what can we get from something like this when we're learning from shit like this? Is you know, if you own the product and the pipeline, you hold the power, right? You own your product, you own your pipeline, you hold the power. You have the systems. You um emulate this strategy, you build assets plus control distribution. That's all that Netflix is doing. This is a power move, right? Everybody's about power move. We want to be able to have the freedom to do what the fuck we want to do. Um, Warner Brother built legacies over decades, right? But legacy without adaptation can be swallowed um by nibble distributors. You know what I mean? As an entrepreneur or a business owner, don't rely on third parties. Own your own product, your own systems, your own distribution. You own it all, like you have the full control and power of your content, how that shit works out for you. Bigger companies equals consolidated controls, which equals creative risk, um, fewer jobs, more pressure, smaller voices get drowned, right? Um But this is a blueprint for consolidation. Same dynamics can show up in any industry when power concentrate when power is concentrated. And of course, like anything else, when a business buys out another company, you're gonna be probably looking at some massive layoffs. You know what I mean? Uh they're gonna be coming in, cleaning out a house, seeing what's necessary, what's needed, what's really not needed, what do we already have that that want, you know, what do we already have in place? Um, are we gonna need both departments? You know, so people are worried about this shit. I don't blame them. You know, I would be too. But in this in this live today, we're not gonna be on here long, you know what I mean? Today we're gonna have a much shorter live, but I want to at least kind of talk to you guys about what this is looking like for business owners, for Warner Brothers, for Netflix. And you, I'm a podcaster, so all of this will affect all of us and you know, period, altogether. And we already talked about how Netflix is um now incorporating podcasters into um their mix. Now they're buying Warner Brothers. Netflix got some motherfucking plans. Netflix is not only attacking Warner Brothers, like they, you know, because that's what they're they're they're trying to buy out Warner Brothers, but they also fucking with YouTube too. That's why they incorporated podcasters in Netflix. They want to take away some of that viewership from YouTube and and bring it to Netflix because YouTube gets over one billion viewers of podcast of just podcast alone. Netflix was like, fuck that. Damn, they get over one billion views. Shit, let's get some of them podcasters over here so we can increase those. Netflix is not playing, they've only been in business for like 20-something years. Let's go through the timeline of what that looks like. Okay, so here we know um we we're looking at Netflix as the it is the future of what's about to happen. I'm afraid, right? I'm afraid, but I'm also excited. I'm only afraid because I don't want my prices going up. But fuck it. If it does, I mean, if it goes up, it should go up for the right reasons. It has to make sense, you know. So, like, what are we getting with this? Because streaming is taking over, right? Um, so let me go here. My bad, I had to pull this out. Um, so let's let's let's dive into this. So let's start off with the history of Netflix, right? It was first started in 1998 as a DVD mail service. They nailed you DVD movies and shit. And then they was officially, you know, I mean, they were founded in 1997. Uh Netflix was signed up, but then in 1998 they they they moved on to uh selling DVD services. In 2000, Netflix founders pitched blockbusters about, you know, their ideal of streaming and shit like that. And it was said that Blockbuster was like, fuck that. That shit's funny as hell. That should have never happened. You know, that you know, we ain't gonna buy that shit. You know, we we we gonna we we turning that shit down. Now, to be fair, um we, you know, these are allegations. There's no evidence that shows that this actually happened, but there is rumors about Blockbuster denying Netflix owners, and the owners are like, you know what, fuck that. We're gonna go open up our own. We're pitching this idea, Blockbuster think is weak. Anyways, Blockbuster got laughed out themselves. You know, they they shut down due to not being willing to really learn with don't go with the flow. Okay, then uh in 2002, Netflix um star established IPO. Um in 2007, their streaming launches, uh 2014, first Netflix originals. Um, here's the deal though. Like when I'm thinking about what we know about Netflix, right? So in 2013, Netflix next that's when Netflix started its first original, right? Um I know they went public not long after they were founded and established. I want to say I want to say it was between I think it was in 2000 is when they went public or somewhere around 2000, 2000, between 2000 and 2007, they went public, right? And then in of course in uh 2020, uh Netflix streaming dominance during the pandemic. Why? Everybody was sitting at fucking home. People was chilling at the crib during COVID, and what was people doing? Fucking and watching Netflix. That's what they were doing, being real, because nobody didn't have to go to work and shit. That's just the truth, right? In 2023 to 2025, Ad Tiers Global Expansion, they got into gaming sport rights and shit like that. And in 2025, Netflix attempts to acquire Warner Brothers. You know, this is this is a big deal. Netflix has been making net Netflix has got some shit ready for motherfuckers that people ain't gonna be ready for, right? So just the blockbuster story. I know we talked about this just briefly, but you know, the truth versus the legend. Blockbuster laughed at Netflix, and then Netflix basically drowned this their competition out. Blockbuster would withered away. Again, I'm not sure how accurate. Um there is no evidence of the story of Netflix buying out or pitching the idea to Blockbuster and they laughing at him, but there has been sayings for quite some time that Blockbuster denied Netflix's claim, which would make sense because we're both in the same type of industry. Hey, they might have been pitching something to be collaborators to discuss how they can grow the industry. And you know, when some people are stuck in their ways, I'm telling you, man, that's the worst way to be motherfuckers who's stuck in their ways, you know. Like, even as a business owner in your personal life, like it's hard to find people. Um, when people are stuck in their ways, let them be stuck. They can't see past their own ways because they're caught up in their own stubborn habits. And that's what happened to Blockbuster. And now most people, some people don't know what the fuck Blockbuster is. Most of us who grew up in you know the early 2000s, 90s, um, we know what the fuck Blockbuster is. All right, so what Warner Brother acquisition means. So it means consolidation of content, power, distribution, studio under one company, larger libraries, larger libraries in Disney. And Disney got a large ads library. Let me see how large Disney's library is, because this is gonna be big. Fuck around, man. I feel like Netflix will fuck around and try to buy Disney eventually. I feel like Netflix will fuck around and try to buy YouTube for real. It wouldn't surprise me if it tries definitely buy YouTube. How big is oh shoot, I ain't even type. So how big is this all right? So it says it has nearly seven hundred movies and eleven thousand seven hundred episodes of television shows. Fucking insane. Insane. Um, so with acquiring Warner Brothers plus Netflix, they have a bigger library than than uh than than Disney. Um so concerns of layoffs, lack of competition, you know, you know, etc. Uh so I mean, what would you do as a business, right? It would make again, we just talked about this. If if I got a fucking business and I'm buying another business, and let's just say, for an example, we got two, like we have our own financing at Netflix. I know that they have their own financing. Are we gonna we can keep both? I mean, are the question is are we gonna keep both departments? Do we need both departments? Obviously, we don't need two financing departments, we need one consolidated financing department. And obviously, what makes the most sense when we buy this out? Does it make sense to be like what depart what what positions make sense to keep? We're not gonna keep everybody, so that's not gonna happen. Because when you're buying a business, you're talking about buying a business and you're also talking about duplicating departments. So you have to now mitigate that because you don't need double departments, you need one marketing, you need one uh operations, you need one finance, you need one tech, you need one HR. You know, this is now a conversation that we have to have as a business. Because why do we need this conversation? Because we need to cut back on cost. One, we have to now recoup up$11 billion that we well, really we got to recoup$83 billion. You know, the business was worth$72 billion, so even if we go to sell it, we're not gonna get back what we bought for it. So, I mean, maybe you could, but right now that's not what it's valued at. And how long would that take that take? The beg the easiest thing is to cut back costs, right? Cut back those costs so that you don't have to deal with that. These are some of the consumers' concerns, right? Uh, more cancellations, price increase, loss of HBO identity, uh, algorithmic, uh, I can't just pronounce this word, control of storytelling, licensing chaos, becoming the new cable company. Okay, my only question to that is like, you know, you know, when we think about price increase, um yes, Netflix is gonna be thinking about how can we coop that up. But see, the thing is, people can talk that shit all they want to about, well, you know, these these these things that happen as far as price increase. But at the end of the day, what the fuck else are you gonna do? You're gonna sit around and watch shit on YouTube all day? If this is your powerhouse, if this is the new quote unquote cable company, you know, because you know, cable companies were raping people too before streaming got out. Um, they was graping the hell out of us. And I feel like when streaming came out, it drowned out cable companies. I think Netflix is smart enough to know, you know, hey, you know, we don't want to, we don't want to drown and remove people. I think that we're they're bigger than they're they're bigger than me. So they're eighty, you know, they're a billion-dollar company. So what people are concerned about, I wouldn't be too concerned about it because they're still a billion-dollar company. They obviously thought this process through on what it would look like. How do you still how do we still keep viewers? How do we still keep consumers still at the end of the day and keeping people happy? Because at the end of the day, you know, you don't want to obviously run away your customers. Will they increase prices? Maybe, but to be fair, I don't think it'll ever get to the price of what we pay for cable. Right now, I spend like$20 a month in Netflix fees, whatever the case is. Um, if they up it to like$50, bet I ain't tripping about that. Because back then, cable was like$170,$250 a month. You know what I'm saying? So even if it is slightly bumped, I'm not tripping about it because you know it just has to make sense. Why are we bumping? We're merging the two. That means Netflix is now acquiring different types of content. And we're, you know, not you it's expanding the the availability that's happening. What the other thing I want to cover is the loss of HBO identity. I don't think they're gonna get rid of HBO. If Netflix get rid of HBO, that'll be the dumbest shit that they can do, right? Um, HBO is HBO itself is an extremely huge brand. I do think, you know, I do think that again, they're about eliminating competition, um, but not to a point where it's gonna hurt their brand in the long run. How do we now integrate HBO into Netflix? How do we now get this shit you know acquired and make this happen? You know, so what this means for us as entrepreneurs, again, don't underestimate small competitors. You know, Netflix has been around since 1997. So we're looking at less than 30 years, it's been around. So we're like 20, is that 28 years or 20? Yeah, it's about 20, 27, 28 years, and they're buying out their big competitions. So people be sleeping on these smaller companies until they buy you out. I mean, uh, but that's the that's the purpose of business ownership. You eventually want to sell. You can settle down and relax for, you know, if I if I was one of the brothers and somebody was and somebody was like, yeah, I buy your business for 83 billion dollars, fuck it. Ain't got shit else to do with me. I got 83 billion dollars. Give a fuck. Like, what does that mean to me? I'm not gonna sit around and watch TV all day anyway. I'm gonna go out traveling, I'm gonna go do all kinds of shit. So who cares? Like, you know what I mean? So don't underestimate these small businesses. The objective when you start a business is to eventually sell it. I'm assuming that's what you want to do. Um, innovation beats size. So again, we're talking Netflix is being innovative. We're talking about they're buying one of the largest uh production companies on the planet, which has one of the largest libraries and distributions on the planet, but they're being innovative about it. That's why I say I'm not too worried about how they're gonna handle HBO because again, we don't know what's to happen, what this is gonna look like. And again, this is another lesson. Pivoting builds survival, right? So there is no way you could fucking run a fucking business without fucking pivoting. We are constantly pivoting in our business, we are constantly doing shit different. If you do the same shit over and over and over and over again, it becomes stale. Like, I ain't sleeping on Apple. Apple, I think Apple doing this shit on purpose as far as like sending out the same type of phones that look basically the same, just with some minor tweets and shit. I think that Apple got some shit brewing in their sleeves, and I wouldn't be surprised come year 2030 or something like that, you're gonna see a phone like never seen before. The secret is not to expose your innovations until it is ready, until you have enough to distribute, you know. So I think that if Netflix is buying Warner Brothers, this wasn't just off of a, oh, I'm about to do this right now. It wasn't off of a last-minute thing. They bought Warner Brothers, they've probably been planning this shit for years and how they were gonna execute this. Understanding how to pivot, what it's gonna look like. Acquiring your uh competitors is a powerful strategy. Buy your competitors out. Why compete when you can buy them out? Why compete when you can buy out the middleman? If you have the funds, if you can do it. But see, the thing is, you can't buy people out if you are not in a position to buy people out. And oftentimes as a business owner, your ass ain't gonna be in a fucking position. Like, like we talked about broke business owners, you know, in our podcast all the fucking time because people are broke. Acquiring your competition, you like they're not doing this shit on their own. They have a team, and we talk about this. They have departments. You in order to truly grow, you need people, you need strategists, you need individuals who will guide you and walk you through this process. Trying to run a business on your own, establishing this shit, you are going to fail. It's not gonna happen. You need a team, you're gonna hit a ceiling. And acquiring competition, how the fuck can you compete with somebody who has a team? You can't. They have a team, they're gonna get the shit done twice as fast as your ass. So, in business, you need a team. If you're your only one-man army in business and you're trying to compete against the same type of industry that you're in, there's no fucking competition. I am not worried about other business owners who are in the same line of work that I am in and they're their only fucking team. I'm not worried about them. Like, if it's just you, you're a joke. I'm not like, get the fuck on. Like, I'm not worried. We're a team of we're a team of individuals that you cannot keep up with supply and demand because you do everything by your fucking self. Get out of here. The next thing is legacy dies without leadership, right? We talked about in the podcast that'll be coming up soon about the difference between an entrepreneur, a leader, and a boss. Bosses try to tell you what the fuck to do. Leaders try to mentor you and they learn from you. Leaders hire leaders hire people who are smarter than them. Bosses hire people that they can control. And that therefore, when you're a boss in your fucking company, the company's not going to last anyways because you lack leadership and nobody don't have time to deal with you because you're an asshole. The truth. How do we get to the point where we can buy out our competition? How can we get to a point where we can buy out our middleman? How can we get to a point that we would own the rights and IPs of all of our competitions? You don't get to that point by doing it by yourself. You get to that point. You don't get to that point by doing it by yourself, and you don't get to that point by dominating. You get to that point by strategizing, hiring the right people, and being patient. Understanding how what do we need to be at to get to this? See, I can tell you right now, Netflix probably already knew the value of Warner Brothers. So, you know, we see that they value at about$72 million,$72 billion. Okay, they're probably gonna obviously ask for more than that. If they're smart, they're gonna say, you know, at least up that by$10 billion, which I think they did. So I think they anticipated it. Um, at least$10 to$15 billion. I'm pretty sure they anticipated it. So they're not gonna go in here blindly. Again, this is all strategy. As a business owner, you got to think like that ahead of the game, anyways. Anyways, Netflix owns our future, right? There, they may be, we may be looking at a different world um in the next five years when it comes to entertainment, television, and streaming. But this is also a good opportunity for creators. Like, how do we take advantage of the new transition? What is this gonna look like? Again, us as podcasters, this is a great thing, right? Um, especially podcasters who've already been sent notification by Netflix to, hey, we want your podcast on our show. This is a good thing for them. Why not incorporate, right? Why not understand what's happening, understand what's happening in the field of um the entertainment business, especially if you are a fucking podcaster. You just business altogether. This right here is a great example of what I be fucking talking about by understanding the difference between broke entrepreneurs and entrepreneurs who understand strategy, who understand systems, who understand pipelines. That's how you fucking grow your business. You know, I I remember, and I'll wrap with this, you know, I I'll say that, you know, I had people who who work, who who we work for, do things for, and I told a I told a friend of mine, I say, hey, look, you know, you're running this business, but you're too focused on one department, and you already hired somebody to do that apart department. Your job is to figure out how to now strategize and grow this business. You've got this department taken care of. You don't need to overlook, you don't need to beat this department in the head because why your business is actually suffering because of it, because you're focusing on one department or this department or that department instead of focusing on the strategy of growing your brand, growing your business. That's important. Netflix honed in on that since 1997. That's most that's that's they've been around since most people have been alive, right? Some people have been alive. So, how do you now get to a point as your business where they started in 1997? Now here we are going into 2026. These guys almost spent 30 years, 30 years on their business. Now they're buying multi-billion dollar companies. They didn't get there by focusing on one department, they got there by strategizing, hiring the key, the right people to do the fucking job to get the job done so that they can continue to grow in that 30-year span. And now look at them buying one of the biggest production companies in the fucking world. That's motivation for your ass. I mean, if nothing else, that should do wonders for you as a business owner or as a content creator or whatever the fuck the case is. Anyways, listen, I'm your host, Jamie Delmas. I hope that you guys got a lot out of this. You know, I'm curious to see what the future is going to look like for uh Netflix. I'm really excited for them, rooting for them. Um, you know, fuck it. If you got the money to buy out Warner Brothers, why the fuck not? I mean, that that's a flex in its own in itself. They're not sitting around here talking about some, I can't afford it. That's too much money. I can't buy Warner Brothers. No, they say fuck that. We need to figure out how the fuck we're gonna buy Warner Brothers. And guess what? They did. And guess what? They got the money to do it. They didn't get the money just by sitting their ass around. They sat around, strategized, worked their ass off, and made it happen. Again, I'm your host, Jameen Dumblings. Thank you guys for tuning in. And until then, we'll see you guys on the next live. Talk soon.