I’ve seen some argue Zaslav was a good CEO simply because he oversaw a huge return on investment for shareholders, which is the main metric CEOs are judged by, at least for public companies.

But here’s the thing: Zaslav didn’t sell WBD for such a high price because of brilliant maneuvering. He sold it because the failson of one of the world’s few centibillionaires was willing to overpay for it and was then bid up by Netflix. Swap out Zaslav for virtually any other CEO and you get almost the exact same outcome. You don’t get points for pure luck.

Meanwhile, during Zaslav’s tenure WBD failed to meet virtually all of his revenue targets and actually declined in revenue. I’ve been a longtime subscriber to HBO Max and am still constantly amazed by how often I have to reboot the app because it just breaks. It can’t even figure out what episode I’m on half the time. I don’t have those problems when I open the Netflix or YouTube apps. The guy clearly never gave a crap about user experience, and the core thesis behind the Discovery-Warner Media merger — that the combination of low-brow reality content with premium programming would make an irresistible bundle — never came true. And as a cherry on top, he was on the verge of firing studio heads Michael De Luca and Pamela Abdy right before they went on one of the biggest box office runs in Hollywood history. 

At the end of it all, Zaslav’s greatest achievement may be amassing an enormous personal fortune atop a career marked mostly by mediocrity.