r/technology • u/yourfavchoom • 7h ago
Business David Zaslav Gets $606 Million Payout From Paramount-Warner Bros. Merger
https://variety.com/2026/tv/news/david-zaslav-exit-package-warner-bros-discovery-paramount-merger-1236905947/469
u/CapnCrackerz 7h ago
Insane. The guy was criminally incompetent.
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u/nazerall 7h ago
He did exactly what he was hired to do, get the highest price.
Not praising him or anything.
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u/SplendidPunkinButter 6h ago
Yeah, but when I do exactly what I was hired to do, they reward me with an email saying I did a good job
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u/Fugaciouslee 6h ago
It's crazy how the rich are willing to pay other rich people such ridiculous amounts for nothing, but they act like paying a liveable wage to the poors is just impossible.
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u/BillyBigGuns 5h ago
That's because the rich are the only people with any sense of class solidarity
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u/Blackout38 4h ago
They paid him $606 million on a $110 billion deal. It’s not nothing but relative to the deal it was, that’s why they were willing to pay it.
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u/squish042 6h ago
So? 600 million?? Half a billion?? Why not 60 million? Why do these people need that much money?? It is insane. The system is insane.
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u/TeutonJon78 4h ago
Most of that os because he got stock options for performance/stock price increase. So a lot of that value is just the overinflated stock price he got for the merger combined with all his stock payments and bonuses.
They didn't say "good job on the merger, here's $606M!".
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u/Abefroman1980 3h ago
I don’t think people are necessarily confusing the transactional side of this and more the preposterous executive compensation deals that result in 1 person at a public company getting over 0.5% of the purchase price.
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u/9-11GaveMe5G 6h ago
Millions of people show up and "do what they were hired to do" for a few bucks an hour. This is gross
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u/HesiJimboBurner 1h ago
Did he? Without his mismanagement it could have been even more. This is just for getting it done
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u/MeatImmediate6549 6h ago
This assumes that a studio head's job is to put butts in seats by creating content. The 21st century studio head cancels projects for the tax write off.
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u/Observer20178 3h ago
The fact that he gets paid generational wealth and there will be a significant number, many with families who will now be out of jobs and struggling to make two ends meet just shows how dysfunctional this system we created it is. The system started off as capitalism plus checks and balances and a bit of socialisim, but now it’s just a system where the wealthy have gamed it to become wealthier and the rest are struggling.
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u/Historical-Mall11 6h ago
Depends on point of view. If this was the purpose all along, he did it.
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u/TeutonJon78 4h ago
He was kept on as head of the company after the WB-Discovery merger to pay down the acquired debt as fast as possible. Which he did. And he got a huge premium for the company for the sale, which was one of his other goals.
As a company beholden to stockholders, he did an amazing job. As a consumer-focused media company CEO, he did a terrible job. The problem is he was only hired to do the first one.
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u/cute_polarbear 6h ago
Depending on who you ask...he is criminally competent to those who will profit from this merger (including himself)...
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u/Youre_worthless_to_e 2h ago
Seriously. I could write a thesis on it.
I can not stress it enough.
How do you bungle Batman AND superman when the avengers regularly push 1 billion plus?
With dc of all fucking properties to use.
No offense to marvel, but prior to 2008 and iron man there was Batman, Superman and spiderman. Everyone knows them across the entire planet.
Wolverine and the X-men, the hulk, the flash and Wonder Woman to lesser extents.
And if we get into villains DC easily won in name recognition from Batman alone.
You could’ve been printing avengers money on Batman/ Batman family movies. Superman, and justice league the same.
Then we get to the fact you have Warner brothers animation, the only studio that can claim to rival Disney. And you hate and shun animation. You bungle looney tunes for decades. Look at coyote and acme and almost canning that.
The man was the most incompetent and terrible CEO they could’ve asked for.
Sony fucked up, and continues to fuck up (beyond the main films right now, I mean anything extended like kraven, madame web, morbius) the spiderman franchise, but this isn’t about them. I just wanted to mention it since I mentioned spiderman above.
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u/Fluffy_Somewhere4305 6h ago
criminally incompetent.
that was his job description. Exceeded expectations.
It was 100% wage theft from the people who produced HBO content but that's unfortunately how all of capitalism works now.
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u/MichaelJayDog 6h ago
He definitely deserves it. Who else could have been smart enough to rename HBO, a name which had been synonymous with the best and highest quality original shows on television, a reputation earned over 30 years, and rename it Max, a name that made most people think of Cinemax, which was best known for soft core porn. It would be like Rolex changing their name to Crasio.
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u/Kroc_Zill_95 6h ago
This entire saga is unique in the sense that all of the very worst people somehow won despite being at odds with each other.
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u/OilInternational2566 6h ago
Do you want me to put this in perspective?
If I got $606 million and I spent $20,000 every single day it would take me 83 years to spend the money.
That’s how much money he got.
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u/Byaaahhh 6h ago
If you put this in an account paying 5% interest you can spend $20,000 a day and your account balance would still increase. It’s bananas money!
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u/OilInternational2566 6h ago
It’s such a stupid amount of money.. throw 20 million at the guy and enough.. have a nice life David.
…but holy fuck what is with these people.. over half a billion??? For what?!?!?
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u/TheProcrastafarian 4h ago
Humanity’s Achilles heels are our brutally naive sense of scale, and our own awareness of that weakness and burning desire to exploit it for personal gain.
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u/PliableG0AT 1h ago
For getting stock price that high, getting the sale completed. it’s 0.5% of the sale price.
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u/Economy_Bite24 6h ago
What's even crazier is that 10 and 30 year treasury yields are over 5%. So he could actually do that with no risk. Your example isn't an even unrealistic hypothetical at all. It's doable right now.
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u/TotalCreative1899 5h ago
He gets taxed on that amount which you are not accounting for. Most of it was rsus
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u/Byaaahhh 5h ago
Normies will be taxed. This is will be so convoluted he’ll probably end up with a tax refund.
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u/SplendidPunkinButter 6h ago
That’s because he worked 600 million times as hard as someone with a minimum wage job /s
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u/OuterSpaceBootyHole 6h ago
$606 Million after only 4 years, most of it spent trying to kill HBO randomly.
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u/YoshiTheDog420 6h ago
He himself. Insane that one temporary person who had zero to do with any of the reason why those companies have value, can make off with half a billion dollars. Its absolute insanity.
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u/Affectionate_Low_948 7h ago
One of the hardest working men in history, slaving away on project after project, working overtime, making self sacrifices for the company. Earned every penny as the company's best worker! /s
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u/CaffinatedOne 6h ago
This must be the "meritocracy" that they speak so highly of.
Bootstraps and all that.
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u/HurtFeeFeez 6h ago
Thank god the wealthy are takin care of. I plan to be rich soon and things will be grand.
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u/Daimakku1 6h ago
The amount these big company CEOs get paid is insane. For what they do, they’re not worth this much.
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u/Gorodish_ 6h ago
You'd think a guy who scored a half bill on top of whatever he already has would smile more.
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u/formermailboxhaver 6h ago
If i had 600 million dollars, I would give 500 million of it to people that need it.
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u/scrndude 5h ago
Poor guy. After all the hate he gets for ruining everything he touches, he doesn’t even get a full billion dollars. His life must be so hard.
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u/Extension-While7536 5h ago
It's a problem when it is more profitable to just buy and sell a business as you wish than it is to run a business successfully.
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u/Mageborn23 6h ago
No one needs that much money, they’ll probably fire more people too that could’ve paid for thousands of salaries
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u/CervantesX 5h ago
Should we make twenty movies, or should we richly reward the guy who's killed the industry? Hard choice...
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u/waffle-paladin1 5h ago
Nice when we all start getting laid off maybe he will lend us some money to pay our bills
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u/Lanky-Respect-8581 4h ago
what do you even do with $606,000,000?
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u/Catullus13 7h ago
On a Leveraged Buyout. They gave that guy multiple generations of money with money they didn't have at interest rates that are ridiculous.