Technovation 1000: Jeffrey Katzenberg on DreamWorks, Disney, WndrCo & Creative Risk

August 7, 2025

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About the Guest

Jeffrey Katzenberg

Founding Partner of WndrCo. | Co-founder & fmr. CEO of DreamWorks

Jeffrey Katzenberg is an entrepreneur and entertainment executive who has consistently leveraged emerging technologies to reshape the media landscape. He is the co-founder of WndrCo, where he supports go-to-market acceleration and firm strategy, and serves on the boards of Aura, Pango, WndrHLTH, UnifyAI, and Creatify. His investment leadership includes companies like Deel, Airtable, PlacerAI, and Meter. Previously, he co-founded DreamWorks SKG and served as CEO of DreamWorks Animation, building it into the world’s largest animation studio with franchises including Shrek, Kung Fu Panda, Madagascar, and How to Train Your Dragon. The company was sold to Comcast for $3.8B in 2016. Katzenberg also served as Chairman of Walt Disney Studios, overseeing a remarkable turnaround with live-action hits like Pretty Woman and Dead Poets Society, and spearheading Disney’s animation renaissance with The Lion King, Aladdin, The Little Mermaid, and Toy Story. Earlier, as President of Production at Paramount Pictures, he helped shape iconic films like Raiders of the Lost Ark, Saturday Night Fever, Star Trek, and Oscar winners Ordinary People and Terms of Endearment. He is a recipient of the Palme d’Or, the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award, and the TIME100 Impact Award, and supports numerous civic causes and cultural institutions.

Episode Overview

From Hollywood mogul to venture capital visionary, Jeffrey Katzenberg’s story is one of bold bets, iconic storytelling, and relentless reinvention. In this milestone 1000th episode of Technovation, host Peter High welcomes Katzenberg to reflect on a remarkable career spanning five decades across film, animation, and now AI-driven venture investing.

As the founding partner of WndrCo, Katzenberg backs transformative companies like Netomi (conversational AI), Writer (enterprise GenAI), Alembic (causal AI), and Aura (consumer digital safety). But long before that, he shaped global pop culture as President of Paramount Pictures, Chairman of Walt Disney Studios, and Co-Founder of DreamWorks SKG and DreamWorks Animation.

In this wide-ranging and candid conversation, Katzenberg shares:

Why the best ideas are risky and why failure is essential to success
How DreamWorks was launched just 8 days after being fired from Disney
Leadership lessons from icons like Barry Diller and David Geffen
The real story behind building Hollywood’s most beloved franchises
Why AI is both “prose” and “poetry” and what that means for creativity
How WndrCo is scaling category-defining businesses across tech

This episode explores 50 years of transformation, from The Lion King to Shrek, from studio boardrooms to Silicon Valley pitch rooms. A must-listen for anyone interested in creativity, leadership, and what it takes to build at scale.

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“I was fired at Disney—unapologetically, unceremoniously... And 8 days later, I started DreamWorks."

- Jeffrey Katzenberg

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Technovation 1000: Jeffrey Katzenberg on DreamWorks, Disney, WndrCo & Creative Risk

About the Guest

Jeffrey Katzenberg

Episode Overview

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