Do Not Go Quietly

What the Netflix-Paramount battle for Warner Bros. teaches founders about persistence, conviction, and finishing what you started.

“We will not go quietly into the night! We will not vanish without a fight!” — President Whitmore, Independence Day (1996)

On December 5th, Netflix announced it had won Warner Bros. Discovery. Eighty-three billion dollars. The auction was over. Ted Sarandos was taking a victory lap, ready to sit on Hollywood’s throne.

Three days later, David Ellison blew it up.

I woke up Monday morning, poured my coffee, and watched Ellison sit down with David Faber on CNBC. Within minutes, it was clear this wasn’t a deal announcement. It was a declaration of war. A $108.4 billion hostile tender offer, taken directly to shareholders. All cash. No stock risk. Thirty dollars a share versus Netflix’s $27.75.

What made the interview remarkable wasn’t the numbers. It was the frustration underneath them.

Ellison laid out the timeline with the precision of someone who’d been rehearsing it for days. December 1st, he made an offer to Warner’s board. David Zaslav came back with issues. December 4th, Ellison submitted a revised bid addressing every single one. Thirty dollars a share, all cash, fully backstopped by the Ellison family and RedBird.

Then nothing.

“We never heard back,” Ellison said. “Not one time.”

He texted Zaslav directly. Made it “incredibly clear” that the offer was not best and final. That there was room to negotiate. Silence. The next thing he learned, Netflix had signed for less.

“Cash is still king,” Ellison said, with the edge of someone quoting words back to the people who said them. “They told us repeatedly they wanted all cash. We delivered all cash.”

I’ve seen this before. You do everything right and still lose. You address every objection. Deliver exactly what they asked for. Leave the door open. And they walk through a different door anyway.

The question is what you do next.

Most people would have accepted it. The auction was run. The board made their choice. Move on. Preserve the relationship. Catch the next one. Ellison didn’t do that. He went hostile. Took it directly to shareholders. Forced a conversation that Warner’s board thought was already over.

When Faber pushed him on why he thought he’d been disadvantaged, Ellison was blunt: “We’ve been asking ourselves that same question, which is why we’re taking this directly to shareholders.”

That’s not bitterness. That’s strategy. If the room is stacked against you, leave the room.

Ellison submitted six proposals over twelve weeks. Six. Rejected repeatedly, sometimes without a response. He kept refining, kept looking for an opening, and when Netflix’s deal created a crack, he drove a truck through it.

There’s a question founders ask themselves in moments like this, usually at 2am, usually alone: What’s the difference between persistence and delusion?

I don’t have a clean answer. But I’ve noticed a pattern. The founders who get it right don’t persist blindly. They persist adaptively. Each rejection teaches them something. Each closed door reveals where the open ones might be. Ellison didn’t submit the same proposal six times. He submitted six different ones, each shaped by what he learned from the last. That’s not stubbornness. That’s iteration with conviction.

The other thing worth noting: Ellison never got a no. He got silence. Silence means they’re not taking you seriously. Silence means they think you’ll go away. Silence is an invitation to change the terms, if you’re willing to take it.

The outcome is uncertain. Netflix can raise. Antitrust could block both deals. Warner’s board might find a way to keep Ellison out.

None of that matters to the lesson.

Here’s what matters. Six proposals. Twelve weeks. Silence. A signed deal with someone else. And instead of accepting it, Ellison launched a hostile tender offer and went on national television to make his case directly to shareholders.

Most people optimize for not looking foolish. They’d rather lose quietly than risk losing loudly.

Ellison put $41 billion on the line. His family’s name. His company’s future. His credibility with every board he’ll ever face.

I don’t know if he’s right. That’s the terrifying thing about conviction. It looks exactly like delusion until the outcome reveals which one it was.

Maybe Netflix raises and wins. Maybe regulators block it all. Maybe this becomes a footnote. Maybe it becomes a case study.

But here’s what I know.

Six proposals. Twelve weeks. Silence. A done deal with someone else. And instead of walking away, he went to war.

He didn’t go quietly.

Neither should you.