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David Ellison has a message for Paramount staffers: tech is a key to winning

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Paramount Skydance CEO David Ellison gave employees a shoutout after the media company roughly met Wall Street’s estimates in the fourth quarter.

“The progress we’ve made over the past 6+ months — from advancing our strategy to strengthening our portfolio and reorganizing our businesses to operate more efficiently and effectively — is a direct reflection of your hard work and commitment,” Ellison wrote in an email to staffers, which was viewed by Business Insider.

Ellison, who wants to turn his 114-year-old Hollywood studio into a tech-forward company, said in his memo that Paramount is focused on supercharging its tech and data capabilities.

“We recognize that in today’s highly competitive marketplace, sustainable growth depends not only on what people watch, but on the quality of the overall user experience,” Ellison wrote. “That’s why we are prioritizing investments in advanced technology and data capabilities to strengthen and differentiate our DTC offering. We are making meaningful investments across the company in innovation and technology, and we look forward to sharing more details in the coming months.”

That message comes weeks after Ellison made data a bigger part of Paramount by expanding the role of the company’s streaming data and insights team.

Paramount is planning to add short-form video to Paramount+ and is exploring ways to bring interactive features and user-generated content to its streamers, Business Insider previously reported.

In the memo, Ellison also emphasized storytelling, saying that he wants Paramount to be “the home for the industry’s leading creative talent.” While Ellison lured former Netflix original content executive Cindy Holland to run its streaming business, Paramount is losing star TV creator Taylor Sheridan to rival NBCUniversal when his contract expires.

Paramount’s biggest initiative is its quest to buy Warner Bros. Discovery, which seems increasingly open to Ellison’s advances, even though it has a signed deal with Netflix.

Paramount’s results were roughly in line with analyst expectations in its latest quarter, the first full quarter since Ellison took the helm in early August. As expected, Paramount’s full-year revenue shrank for a second straight year to $28.89 billion, just under the estimate of $28.95 billion.

Paramount+ now has 78.9 million paid subscribers, up from 77.9 million last quarter and 4% higher than a year ago. Paramount’s product chief told employees that its flagship streamer added about 1 million customers on the first day it carried UFC rights in the US, Business Insider previously reported.

Read Ellison’s memo to Paramount employees here:

Team,
Today we held our 4th quarter and fiscal year-end earnings call, where we reviewed our performance and reinforced our commitment to executing against our strategy and roadmap. Anchored by our North Star priorities, we continue to drive measurable progress across all areas of the business and remain confident that we are on the right path to deliver sustained, long-term value for our shareholders.
First and foremost, I want to take this opportunity to thank all of you. The progress we’ve made over the past 6+ months — from advancing our strategy to strengthening our portfolio and reorganizing our businesses to operate more efficiently and effectively — is a direct reflection of your hard work and commitment.
This shared commitment powers our primary focus here at Paramount: delivering exceptional storytelling. We want to be the home for the industry’s leading creative talent, ensuring they have the resources, platform and reach to bring their best stories to the broadest possible audience across film, television and streaming. Every decision we make — from capital allocation to operational priorities — is in service of this objective. And our increased investment in content creation reflects this commitment, with 11 films and 11 series greenlit since August and more to come.
We recognize that in today’s highly competitive marketplace, sustainable growth depends not only on what people watch, but on the quality of the overall user experience. That’s why we are prioritizing investments in advanced technology and data capabilities to strengthen and differentiate our DTC offering. We are making meaningful investments across the company in innovation and technology, and we look forward to sharing more details in the coming months.
One of our greatest strengths as a company is our ability to mobilize the entire ecosystem behind key priorities and events through our “Paramount One” initiative. We saw this clearly demonstrated with the launch of the UFC on Paramount+ in January. Every part of the organization — from CBS Sports to Pluto, marketing to ad sales — contributed to the promotion of this landmark partnership. This all-hands on deck mentality is a true force multiplier for the Company — and I know you’ve put the same firepower behind Survivor 50, premiering tonight on CBS!
I encourage you to review our shareholder letter for more details on our quarter and full fiscal year 2025 performance. A replay of the earnings call will be available shortly on our Investor Relations site.
I couldn’t be prouder of this team. Keep up the great work.
Let’s go!
Best,
David




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Read Sam Altman’s internal Slack message to employees saying ICE ‘is going too far’

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Being patriotic means you also need to call out “overreach” when you see it, Sam Altman privately told OpenAI employees in a message that said Immigration and Customs Enforcement had gone “too far.”

“I love the US and its values of democracy and freedom and will be supportive of the country however I can; OpenAI will too,” the OpenAI CEO wrote in an internal Slack message. “But part of loving the country is the American duty to push back against overreach. What’s happening with ICE is going too far.”

OpenAI employees responded positively to Altman’s message on Slack, including heart and thank-you emojis.

Altman’s message, which was first reported by The New York Times’ Dealbook newsletter, comes as CEO and tech leaders face internal and external pressures in the wake of the deadly Border Patrol shooting of Alex Pretti on Saturday. Pretti is the second person to be fatally shot by federal law enforcement amid a surge in immigration enforcement in and around Minneapolis.

Altman also praised Trump’s leadership in his message and expressed hope that the president could cool tensions — the latest example of a CEO attempting to balance being critical of actions tied to the Trump administration’s policies while also staying on the president’s good side.

“President Trump is a very strong leader, and I hope he will rise to this moment and unite the country,” Altman wrote. “I am encouraged by the last few hours of response and hope to see trust rebuilt with transparent investigations.”

As a general principle, Altman wrote that OpenAI tries to “stick to our convictions and not get blown around by changing fashions too much.”

On Monday, the White House appeared to be recalibrating its response in the wake of significant criticism, including from some congressional Republicans.

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt declined to associate Trump with Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and White House advisor Stephen Miller’s initial statements that Pretti was trying to commit domestic terrorism.

Read Sam Altman’s message to employees

I love the US and its values of democracy and freedom and will be supportive of the country however I can; OpenAI will too. But part of loving the country is the American duty to push back against overreach. What’s happening with ICE is going too far. There is a big difference between deporting violent criminals and what’s happening now, and we need to get the distinction right.
President Trump is a very strong leader, and I hope he will rise to this moment and unite the country. I am encouraged by the last few hours of response and hope to see trust rebuilt with transparent investigations.
As a company, we aim to stick to our convictions and not get blown around by changing fashions too much. We didn’t become super woke when that was popular, we didn’t start talking about masculine corporate energy when that was popular, and we are not going to make a lot of performative statements now about safety or politics or anything else. But we are going to continue to try to figure out how to actually do the right thing as best as we can, engage with leaders and push for our values, and speak up clearly about it as needed.

Correction: January 27, 2026 — Alex Pretti was fatally shot by Border Patrol, not ICE.

Do you work at OpenAI? Contact the reporter from a non-work email and device at bgriffiths@businessinsider.com




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Sam Altman included a subtle dig at Mark Zuckerberg in his message to employees

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Don’t expect to see Sam Altman lamenting the absence of “masculine energy” in corporate America to Joe Rogan anytime soon.

The OpenAI CEO sent employees a message on Slack criticizing Immigration and Customs Enforcement — and appears to have taken the opportunity to also take a subtle jab at his rival, Mark Zuckerberg.

The reference can be found where Altman wrote that OpenAI aims to “not get blown around by changing fashions.”

“We didn’t start talking about masculine corporate energy when that was popular,” Altman told employees.

Last year, Zuckerberg championed a return to masculinity at Meta on “The Joe Rogan Experience.”

“The masculine energy, I think, is good,” Zuckerberg said in the January podcast episode. “Society has plenty of that, but I think corporate culture was trying to get away from it.”

Zuckerberg described the merits of a corporate culture that “celebrates the aggression” of business.

The Meta CEO said that the intent of corporate culture’s shift away from masculinity was good. Women likely feel that companies are “too masculine,” he told Rogan, and that things are “biased” against them. But the shift had gone too far, the Facebook cofounder said.

“It’s one thing to say we want to be welcoming and make a good environment for everyone,” Zuckerberg said. “It’s another to basically say that masculinity is bad.”

Altman also wrote in his memo that OpenAI didn’t “become super woke when that was popular.”

Meta didn’t respond to Business Insider’s request for comment on Altman’s remark.

The latest in an AI rivalry

Altman and Zuckerberg are currently engaged in a talent war for top AI researchers and engineers.

Zuckerberg has attempted to poach OpenAI employees with eye-popping compensation packages, which Altman in June said included $100 million signing bonuses.

While Altman at the time said that he was happy that “at least so far, none of our best people have decided to take them up on that,” Zuckerberg successfully hired away some prominent OpenAI talent.

The Meta CEO, who even hand-delivered soup to an OpenAI employee he was attempting to poach, hired away ChatGPT co-creator Shengjia Zhao and three researchers who helped build OpenAI’s Zurich office.




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Paramount’s head of streaming product and tech is leaving the company. Read his Slack message to colleagues.

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The head of Paramount Skydance’s streaming product and tech is leaving the company, Business Insider has learned.

Vibol Hou told colleagues in the company’s streaming tech Slack channel that he’s leaving Paramount at the end of January.

“After nearly 12 years of exhilarating work pushing our businesses to new heights, it feels like the right time to hand the torch to the next wave of leaders while I take a much-needed pause to rest, focus on my health (including some serious marathon training), and spend more time with my family before I jump into whatever comes next,” Hou wrote in the Slack message, which was viewed by Business Insider.

Hou’s exit has been anticipated within Paramount for months.

In Hou’s Slack message, he referenced a previous memo from Dane Glasgow, Paramount’s chief product officer, that hinted at the move.

“Vibol has expressed interest in exploring other opportunities, and while he will remain in his role with an anticipated transition early next year, we will continue to explore new projects together,” Glasgow wrote in a mid-October email viewed by Business Insider.

Hou was at Paramount or its subsidiaries for over a decade, including six years at its free streamer, Pluto TV. In that span, Paramount went through several corporate changes, from a ViacomCBS merger to the Paramount Skydance merger that closed in the summer of 2025.

“What we’ve built together across Pluto TV, CBS All Access/Paramount+, and Network Streaming was never easy,” Hou wrote in the Slack message. “But we built these products from the ground up, in tough environments that didn’t necessarily believe in our vision, with limited resources and non-existent technology where we often had to build our own, and under constant pressure to deliver.”

Hou’s Slack message was received warmly, with 118 “care” emojis, 67 classic “red heart” emojis, and 43 “thank you” emojis, among other signals of support as of early Thursday afternoon.

Since Paramount Skydance CEO David Ellison took over in early August, he’s made several noteworthy moves, like landing UFC rights in the US and hiring Bari Weiss to lead CBS News.

Ellison is now focused on buying Warner Bros. Discovery, which has rejected its takeover offer eight times.

Paramount did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Read Hou’s Slack message to colleagues announcing the move:

@channel Team,

As Dane shared in his note, I’ll be transitioning out of my role and leaving the company at the end of January. After nearly 12 years of exhilarating work pushing our businesses to new heights, it feels like the right time to hand the torch to the next wave of leaders while I take a much-needed pause to rest, focus on my health (including some serious marathon training), and spend more time with my family before I jump into whatever comes next.

What we’ve built together across Pluto TV, CBS All Access/Paramount+, and Network Streaming was never easy — but we built these products from the ground up, in tough environments that didn’t necessarily believe in our vision, with limited resources and non-existent technology where we often had to build our own, and under constant pressure to deliver. Yet again and again, this team showed grit, creativity, and passion. Whether you came from Pluto or another part of Streaming, the story is the same: we took on impossible problems and innovated our way through.

The culture we live — being curious about everything, feeling that hunger to solve problems, caring deeply for others, iterating constantly, and innovating in everything we do — belongs to all of you now. You should be proud of what you’ve achieved, and you should be confident that this is a team that can handle anything thrown its way.

As to the future, I have a lot of confidence in Dane and the vision and strategic pillars he’s laid out for the year ahead. They set a strong foundation for where this organization can go over the next several years, and I’m excited to see what you all do together under his leadership.

I plan to hold my last open office hours next Friday so anyone who wants to drop in, ask questions, or just say hello/goodbye has a space to do that together. In the meantime, if you’d like to stay in touch beyond my time here, please feel free to connect with me on LinkedIn.

Serving alongside you has been one of the great privileges of my life, and I’ll be proudly cheering you on as you write the next chapter together.

Boldly go, always. ❤️

Vibol




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