Forbes Publishes List of 5 Boldest Media and Tech Companies of 2019

Forbes just published its list of the 5 boldest media and tech companies of 2019. The list praised companies that took the biggest bets in the past year.

The top five according to Forbes are:

1. Netflix, for raising its content buying from $13 billion to $15 billion
2. Disney, for launching Disney+, forgoing licensing deals to keep its powerhouse brands in-house, and launching at an aggressive price of $6.99, with a $12.99 bundle option to add Hulu and ESPN+, matching Netflix's price with a powerful offering
3. TikTok for, well, being TikTok. The social media/video sharing service has been growing rapidly, especially among teens, and announced plans to take on Spotify directly in 2020 by launching its own streaming service.
4. Magic Leap, an augmented reality firm, for raising gobs of money. It raised hundreds of millions of dollars in 2019 to increase its total investment to $2.6 billion. In very competitive space with looming competition, this is certainly bold.
5. Synthesia, a media AI startup, for making progress on automatic synthetic video creation. I won't touch on the ethical and political challenges that this poses - but it is amazing technology. To see an example, you can watch this David Beckham philanthropic video, which features more convincing foreign-language dubbing using the technology.

The big takeways from the Forbes article:

• 2019 saw enormous investment into streaming services as competition heats up
• Media tech companies are still raising billions of dollars to change media is generated, delivered, and consumed