Crafting a narrative is a medium that transcends the entertainment industry. While the shift from media executive to entrepreneur and investor is one with many parallels across roles, few have succeeded in leveraging both lenses as aptly as Jeffrey Katzenberg.
Katzenberg spent a decade as chairman of Walt Disney Studios before co-founding and leading DreamWorks. Today, he invests in technology and digital media companies through his venture firm, WndrCo.
At a time when the overlap between entertainment and technology is top of mind for investors, the Jefferies team caught up with Katzenberg at TechTrek, the firm’s annual conference in Tel Aviv. The three-day event brought together leading global institutional and private capital investors to discuss the latest trends in technology and capital markets.
In conversation, Katzenberg shared his perspective on what he looks for in entrepreneurs in 2025, the role of storytelling, the revolution in AI, and more.
The following remarks have been edited lightly for clarity.
The Makings of a Strong Founder
As both an entrepreneur and a backer of entrepreneurs, Katzenberg has built a sharp sense of what makes a great founder — and what it takes to turn big ideas into real businesses.
“Every entrepreneur is a dreamer,” he shared. “What sets successful founders apart is perseverance. It’s a bumpy road, and you need determination and resilience to go along with ambition.”
From there, entrepreneurs must channel those traits into a story the market understands. Whether it’s attracting talent, raising capital, or winning customers, a clear and compelling narrative is what brings people together around an idea.
“In order to get people to believe in your dream, you have to be able to tell it,” he emphasized. “Whether you’re B2B or direct-to-consumer, storytelling is essential. Communication has to sit at the center of everything.”
With this, Katzenberg notes one of the tech industry’s unique strengths is its tolerance for failure. There’s an understanding that it may take two or three tries to make an idea work. This openness gives entrepreneurs the freedom to chase big ideas without fearing their career is over if one attempt falls short.
Balancing Optimism and Skepticism in Investing
In his storied career, Katzenberg has sat on both sides of the table, as an entrepreneur and as an investor. He said successful investing requires sharing some of a founder’s dreamer qualities but balancing them with a healthy dose of skepticism.
“As an investor, you need to be a dreamer yourself — while knowing not all dreams come true,” he said. “You have to balance those contradictory instincts: optimism and skepticism. Where you see opportunity, you also have to see risk.”
As co-founder of WndrCo, Katzenberg invests across three stages of a company’s life cycle: seed, venture, and growth. The firm’s portfolio has included Figma, Databricks, Robinhood, and other household names.
AI Holds Center Stage for Investors
One of the most dominant themes at this year’s Tech Trek — just as in recent years — was artificial intelligence. Katzenberg discussed what makes this moment in investing unique, and how the market is working to separate hype from impact.
“When we think about the agricultural revolution, the industrial revolution, or early computing, it took decades for those technologies to spread,” Katzenberg shared. “AI has changed everything in just two or three years. That has everyone excited, but investors are understandably nervous about a bubble. They don’t want to get ahead of themselves.”
Global private investment in AI — especially from corporations — has surged in recent years. In Q2 2025, funding for AI companies reached $47.3 billion[1] worldwide, even as research shows that enterprise investments have yet to deliver meaningful returns in most cases.[2] Still, the flow of capital shows no sign of slowing, particularly from U.S. investors, who put in nearly 12 times more than China, the next-largest backer.[3]
“The opportunities in AI touch every part of our lives, both professional and personal. Its impact is ubiquitous,” Katzenberg said. “Ultimately, I’m very optimistic.”
For more from Tech Trek — including interviews with top founders, executives, and investors like Jeffrey Katzenberg — visit Jefferies Insights.
[1] https://www.freewritings.law/2025/09/ai-investment-reaches-all-time-highs-the-state-of-ai-fundraising/
[2] https://www.axios.com/2025/08/21/ai-wall-street-big-tech
[3] https://hai.stanford.edu/ai-index/2025-ai-index-report/economy
