Business
Netflix’s Ted Sarandos grilled in Senate hearing
Netflix Inc. Co-Chief Executive Ted Sarandos pledged to maintain a 45-day theatrical window for Warner Bros. films during a Senate subcommittee hearing Tuesday.
Sarandos also tried to dampen concerns about potential job losses and U.S. production declines related to the companies’ proposed multibillion-dollar deal.
During a two-hour hearing before the Senate Subcommittee on Antitrust, Competition Policy and Consumer Rights, Sarandos told lawmakers the proposed merger would not run afoul of antitrust concerns and would, instead, “strengthen the American entertainment industry.”
About 80% of HBO Max subscribers also have Netflix subscriptions, which he said showed the two services were “complementary.” Netflix also plans to increase its film and television production spending to $26 billion this year, with a majority of that happening in the U.S., he said.
“We are doubling down, even as much of the industry has pulled back,” Sarandos said, according to a written transcript of his opening remarks. “With this deal, we’re going to increase, not reduce, production investments going forward, supported by a stronger combined business and balance sheet.”
Sarandos was joined at the hearing by Warner Bros. Discovery Chief Revenue and Strategy Officer Bruce Campbell.
When asked by Sen. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) whether senators should expect a “round of layoffs” or consumer price increases as a result of the deal, Campbell said no. He pointed to Netflix’s lack of comparable film and TV studios, or the distribution infrastructure that Warner Bros. has.
“We believe, based on our discussions with them in the negotiation process, that they’re not only going to keep those operations intact, in fact, they’re going to invest in those operations and invest in continued production, including on our lots in Burbank and elsewhere,” Campbell said.
Paramount Chief Executive David Ellison was also invited to appear as a witness, but declined because he did not believe it would be useful or helpful since the company’s bid for Warner had been rejected, Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.) said during the hearing. Ellison did, however, meet with him and other senators privately to answer questions, Booker said.
Sarandos also tried to assuage concerns about the deal’s potential effect on theatrical distribution.
“I know I’ve earned some skepticism over there over the years on this because I was talking a lot about Netflix’s business model, which was different from that,” he said. “We didn’t own a theatrical distributor before. We do now, and a great one.”
When asked if the 45-day window would be “self-enforced,” Sarandos agreed, saying that was an industry standard. He did, however, note the general caveat that “routinely, movies that underperform, the window moves a little bit” but is still referred to as a 45-day window.
And in a sign of the growing role politics has played in the perception of the deal, Sarandos tried to sidestep questions from Republican senators about perceived “woke” content on the streaming platform, as well as inquiries from Booker about President Trump’s involvement in the merger. Trump previously said he “would be involved” in his administration’s decision to approve any deal.
The hearing comes just two months after Netflix prevailed in a hotly contested bidding war for Warner Bros. The $72-billion deal would dramatically reshape the Hollywood landscape and give the streamer control over Warner Bros.’ storied Burbank film and TV studios, its lot, HBO and HBO Max.
Netflix also agreed to take on more than $10 billion in Warner Bros. debt, pushing the enterprise value of the transaction to $82.7 billion.
But Paramount has continued to pursue the company, fighting to acquire all of Warner Bros. Discovery, including its cable networks.
The company, led by Ellison, has made a direct appeal to Warner shareholders to tender their shares in support of a Paramount deal. A deadline for that offer was recently extended to Feb. 20.
Paramount has also filed proxy materials to ask Warner shareholders to reject the Netflix deal at an upcoming shareholders meeting.
The layoffs bludgeoning the tech industry continued this week as artificial intelligence reshapes the industry.
Mountain View-based Intuit, the maker of TurboTax, on Wednesday said it was laying off 17% of its workforce, or about 3,000 employees, as part of its restructuring to cut costs and invest in artificial intelligence.
The company said it had slowed down due to “too many organizational layers” and the cuts will simplify the organization to become a “faster, leaner, more focused company.” Intuit said it will close its offices in Reno and Woodland Hills and incur an estimated $300 million to $340 million in restructuring charges.
“We believe we can serve more customers and deliver breakthrough products that fuel our customers’ success by reducing complexity and simplifying our structure,” Sasan Goodarzi, chief executive of Intuit, said in a memo shared with employees.
Intuit announced the layoffs on the same day it reported its third-quarter results, in which revenue jumped 10% from a year earlier, to $8.56 billion.
Intuit adds to the count of more than 114,000 tech-sector employees laid off this year, according to Layoffs.fyi.
Meta laid off 8,000 workers on Wednesday, as the company cuts costs to ramp up investment in AI agents and infrastructure. The ever-expanding list of tech companies that have cut jobs includes Coinbase, Amazon, LinkedIn and more. Some have cited productivity gains enabling fewer workers to accomplish more with AI, while others pointed out restructuring and cost-cutting to prepare for the AI disruption.
In an earnings call, Intuit‘s chief financial officer, Sandeep Aujla, said the cuts were intended to make the organization leaner, and weren’t tied directly to Intuit’s AI use.
“AI is an important part of how we’re evolving as a company, but these decisions were not driven by AI replacing employees,” an Intuit spokesperson reiterated in an email .
Best known for its TurboTax platform, Intuit has branched into accounting with QuickBooks, credit scoring through Credit Karma and email automation via Mailchimp. Facing increased competition for AI-driven tax solutions, the company is integrating AI across its entire portfolio.
“Our AI agents are delivering value at scale, with our accounting AI agents powering recommendations across more than 50 million transactions each week, and business tax AI agents identifying millions of dollars in deductions,” Goodarzi said in the earnings call.
The restructuring will reduce overlapping roles in TurboTax and Credit Karma as the company integrates both into a single team.
A deep sense of anxiety has settled in the tech job market, propelled by consecutive layoffs and coding tasks being automated by AI.
Tech leaders have portrayed the role of human software engineers as a human in the loop, overseeing and verifying AI agents that do the work of coders.
By 2027, software developers are expected to see a 3% job contraction due to AI coding capabilities, according to Labor Automation Forecasting Hub by Metaculus, a popular website where forecasters predict how AI will reshape the workforce.
President Trump on Thursday announced that grocery stories and air conditioning companies will be allowed to keep using high-polluting refrigerants for longer than they would have under a law he signed during his first administration.
“This was a tremendous burden, a tremendous cost,” said Trump, surrounded in the Oval Office by executives from supermarket chains including Kroger, Fairway, Neimann Foods and Piggly Wiggly. “It was making the equipment unaffordable, and the actual benefit was nothing.”
The move loosens rules meant to restrict hydroflourocarbons, a class of climate-damaging chemicals used in cooling equipment. HFCs are known as “super pollutants” because their impact on climate change can be tens of thousands of times greater than carbon dioxide during their shorter lifespans.
In the move Thursday, the Environmental Protection Agency extends the deadline for companies to comply with a 2023 rule transitioning refrigerators and air conditioners off HFCs and onto new cooling technologies. Reducing these chemicals and moving to cleaner refrigerants has long been a bipartisan issue.
Trump is also proposing exemptions from a rule requiring leak repairs on large-scale refrigeration systems.
The administration framed the changes as part of its effort to bring down high grocery costs. EPA administrator Lee Zeldin said the actions will save $2.4 billion for Americans and safeguard 350,000 jobs.
“Americans who wanted to be able to fix their equipment were instead being required to buy far more costly new equipment and that just doesn’t make any sense,” said Zeldin.
David Doniger, senior attorney at the Natural Resources Defense Council, said the move will not only harm the climate, but U.S. competitiveness in global refrigerant markets as well.
“The EPA is catering to a small group of straggling companies by derailing the shift away from these climate super-pollutants,” he said. “The industry at large supports the HFC phasedown and has already invested in making new refrigerants and equipment, currently installed in thousands of stores.”
Danielle Wright, executive director of the North American Sustainable Refrigeration Council, an environmental nonprofit, said any perceived near-term savings from the rollbacks will be outweighed by the future costs.
“Business owners are far more worried about the escalating cost of keeping aging, high‑global-warming-potential equipment running than they are about the cost of installing new, compliant systems,” she said.
Trump dismissed the climate concerns, saying his changes “are not going to have any impact on the environment.”
He said he wants to get rid of the technology transition rule entirely in the future.
Airbnb unveiled a new set of services for guests on Wednesday, adding car rentals, airport pickup and grocery delivery to its online marketplace that connects travelers with local hosts.
Customers can now get groceries delivered to their Airbnb through a partnership with Instacart and have a driver meet them at the airport with Airbnb’s Welcome Pickups. The app is also offering luggage storage in partnership with Bounce and will add in-app car rentals later this summer.
At the same time, Airbnb is ramping up its use of AI by adding AI-powered review summaries and lodging comparisons, the company said.
The company has been expanding beyond lodging since last year, when it introduced Airbnb Experiences and Services, giving guests the option to book private tours and chef-cooked meals through the app.
In an earnings call earlier this month, the company’s chief executive, Brian Chesky, said the company is at “the very, very beginning of how AI is going to change how we all do our jobs.”
The changes are coming in time for the 2026 FIFA World Cup, which will take place in 16 cities across the U.S., Mexico and Canada. The company said its offering exclusive World Cup experiences, such as watch parties and access to stadiums.
“In terms of what we’ve seen in cumulative bookings heading into the event, the World Cup is slated to be the largest event in Airbnb’s history,” said the company’s chief financial officer, Ellie Mertz, on the earnings call.
Airbnb gained popularity for offering travelers unique and homey stays on other people’s property, but it added boutique hotel bookings to its platform late last year. The move had some customers questioning if the app was straying too far from its original purpose.
In its announcement this week, the company said it is partnering with more independent hotels in 20 top destinations, including New York, London and Singapore. On the earnings call, Chesky said hotels on Airbnb could become a multibillion-dollar revenue business.
The San Francisco-based company was founded in 2007 and gave homeowners the opportunity to earn money by renting out their space to travelers seeking something different from a hotel. Airbnb bookings can range from private bedrooms in a shared home to luxury mansions and yachts.
The company’s revenue grew 18% year over year to $2.7 billion in the first quarter, while net income increased slightly to $160 million. Airbnb’s new services and offerings could transform it from a home-sharing platform to a holistic travel marketplace, analysts said.
Shares of the company have increased by 14% over the past six months and fell by less than 1% on Thursday.
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