Quibi: How $1.75 Billion Disappeared in Six Months

Quibi had almost everything a startup could ask for.

$1.75 billion.

Hollywood royalty Jeffrey Katzenberg.

Former eBay and HP chief Meg Whitman.

Steven Spielberg. Jennifer Lopez. LeBron James. Reese Witherspoon.

There was just one missing ingredient:

people who actually wanted Quibi.

The idea sounded reasonable.

People were spending more time on their phones, so Quibi would make premium Hollywood entertainment designed specifically for those little moments between everything else.

Waiting for coffee?

Watch seven minutes.

Taking the train?

Watch another episode.

Hence the name:

Quick Bites. Quibi.

But Quibi made a strange bet.

The internet had already proven people loved short video through YouTube, TikTok and Instagram.

Most of that content was free.

Quibi effectively asked:

What if we made short videos much more expensive to produce—and then charged people to watch them?

The company launched in April 2020 with plans costing roughly $5 with ads or $8 without them.

Then its timing became almost comically unfortunate.

Quibi was designed around people watching during commutes and other in-between moments.

It launched during COVID lockdowns.

Suddenly millions of people weren't commuting anywhere.

But the pandemic wasn't the entire problem. Netflix and other streaming services were booming. TikTok was exploding.

People wanted video.

They just didn't particularly want Quibi.

The product initially made sharing its content difficult and was built heavily around phone viewing at a time when people were sitting at home in front of televisions.

Six months after launch, Quibi announced it was shutting down.

It had raised $1.75 billion.

The lesson wasn't that short-form video couldn't work.

TikTok proved precisely the opposite.

Quibi's problem was believing Hollywood could manufacture the internet's next habit simply by spending Hollywood money.

Sometimes having enough money to build anything makes it easier to build something nobody asked for.

Published: September 26, 2026
Sources: LA Times Report, Washington Post Report