The Strange $55 Million Saga of a Netflix Series You’ll Never See - The New York Times:
Netflix burned more than $55 million on Mr. Rinsch’s show and gave him near-total budgetary and creative latitude but never received a single finished episode.
Soon after he signed the contract, Mr. Rinsch’s behavior grew erratic, according to members of the show’s cast and crew, texts and emails reviewed by The New York Times, and court filings in a divorce case brought by his wife. He claimed to have discovered Covid-19’s secret transmission mechanism and to be able to predict lightning strikes. He gambled a large chunk of the money from Netflix on the stock market and cryptocurrencies. He spent millions of dollars on a fleet of Rolls-Royces, furniture and designer clothing.
There was a time not that long ago—actually, it was right around the time it turns out this story was in the midst of unfolding—that every company was wanting to “the Netflix of X.” I worked at a large edtech company back then, and there were plenty of otherwise smart people walking around talking about how we should be the Netflix of education.
As it turns out, Netflix was run by clowns who were throwing cash at anything that moved.
It is easy to look like a business genius when investors are providing you with overflowing barrels of money. And we are all supposed to be believe that the market can do no wrong, that the smart money flows to those who deserve it. I guess if you were Netflix back then, you felt like you were getting all this cash because everyone thought you were brilliant, so why not give millions of dollars to this random kook with no track record of being able to actually produce anything of any actual value?
I hope they get nothing from this guy and he laughs all the way to the bank.