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   spoke soon after Mr. Schaffer and Mr. Plepler had dinner at Nobu in Palo   
   Alto, Calif., with Reed Hastings, the Netflix co-chief executive. During   
   the dinner Mr. Hastings had mused that Netflix and HBO made an ideal   
   streaming combination.   
      
   Afterward, Mr. Schaffer said, he asked Mr. Stankey what he thought of the   
   idea.   
      
   Mr. Stankey replied that Netflix was the “enemy” and Warner would “crush”   
   it.   
      
   As Mr. Schaffer recalled, “He shot the idea down in one second.”   
      
   (The AT&T spokesman denied that Mr. Stankey had said he wanted to “crush”   
   Netflix but confirmed that he had dismissed any notion of working with a   
   competitor. In other public contexts, Mr. Stankey elaborated that there   
   were likely to be only a few large streaming survivors, and that he wanted   
   HBO Max to be one of them.)   
      
   Mr. Stankey was also determined to promote Warner’s streaming content   
   exclusively through AT&T’s streaming service. HBO subscriptions would no   
   longer be sold through Amazon, Hulu and Apple.   
      
   Warner movies would be available only on HBO Max rather than other   
   distributors. Hit Warner-produced television shows like “Friends” and “The   
   Big Bang Theory” would be withdrawn from Netflix.   
      
   In other words, Mr. Stankey rejected virtually every component of Mr.   
   Bewkes’s advice to AT&T’s board. Warner would no longer be “Switzerland.”   
      
   Mr. Plepler warned Mr. Stankey that expanding production while limiting   
   streaming distribution to HBO Max would be enormously expensive — billions   
   of dollars in reduced revenue from sales to other outlets and an enormous   
   increase in expenses.   
      
   In accord with Mr. Stankey’s stated penchant for slide shows at moments of   
   “seminal importance,” Mr. Plepler created an eight-point presentation and   
   delivered it in September 2018, according to someone present at the   
   meeting. It called for merging HBO and Cinemax, HBO’s companion network   
   that focused on theatrically released films and documentaries; investing   
   more in high-quality programming; and expanding distribution.   
   Significantly, it did not propose making the HBO Max streaming service   
   available only through AT&T, which HBO estimated would put $7 billion in   
   revenue at risk.   
      
   Mr. Plepler wasn’t against a streaming-first strategy, but he wanted it to   
   be evolutionary.   
      
   At one point, Mr. Stankey asked Stephen Boulton-Wallace, head of research   
   and program strategy for HBO, to model the effect of removing “Friends”   
   from Netflix and making it available exclusively on HBO Max.  Mr. Boulton-   
   Wallace told him that he didn’t need to model anything. Given Netflix’s   
   lucrative payments for the show, the number of new subscribers needed was   
   so huge that common sense dictated that it couldn’t be done.   
      
   Mr. Stankey also asked him to model the increase in production budgets to   
   reach the scale necessary to compete with Netflix and Amazon. AT&T had   
   projections that HBO Max would reach 100 million customers and achieve 59   
   percent household penetration. That was a formidable task. At the time,   
   Netflix had access to about 40,000 hours of programming and Amazon 60,000.   
   HBO had far less. Moreover, with its sophisticated, premium content, HBO   
   had never reached more than a third of U.S. households, even with its most   
   popular hits.   
      
   To reach its goals, AT&T would have to not only drastically ramp up   
   production but also broaden its appeal far beyond the upscale demographic   
   of the existing HBO audience. HBO’s longstanding strategy was to deliver a   
   boutique product, not aim for the masses.   
      
   Mr. Boulton-Wallace estimated that HBO would need to more than double its   
   production budget, to more than $9 billion a year, far less than Netflix   
   was spending. His model projected that HBO would move in short order from   
   30 percent profit margins to a loss.   
      
   Mr. Boulton-Wallace warned Mr. Stankey that he’d never meet his ambitious   
   customer targets.   
      
   Mr. Stankey dismissed Mr. Boulton-Wallace’s concerns and data out of hand.   
   He said it was impossible to model a “paradigm shift.”   
      
   (The AT&T spokesman said AT&T had modeled “hundreds” of possibilities in   
   addition to Mr. Boulton-Wallace’s work.)   
      
   It was increasingly apparent to some Warner employees that AT&T executives   
   didn’t welcome dissent. The level of paranoia was so high at Warner Bros.,   
   according to people there at the time, that one Warner executive referred   
   to Dallas executives as “the Stasi,” a reference to the East German secret   
   police.   
      
   A ‘great cultural fit’   
   Mr. Plepler, by nature an optimist, kept hoping things would work out.   
   With “Game of Thrones” on its way to its eighth and final season, HBO had   
   never been more profitable. But toward the end of 2018, he realized it was   
   time to leave.   
      
   In fact, Mr. Stankey was already meeting with Robert Greenblatt, who had   
   just stepped down after a successful run as chairman of NBC Entertainment,   
   where he reported to Steve Burke, the Comcast executive who ran its   
   NBCUniversal subsidiary.   
      
   Early in 2019, Mr. Plepler called Mr. Stankey in Dallas. He told him that   
   Mr. Stankey was entitled to run HBO as he saw fit, and that he should have   
   someone at the helm who was as passionate about Mr. Stankey’s vision as   
   Mr. Plepler was about his.   
      
   Mr. Plepler said he could be gone in a week.   
      
   Mr. Stankey later offered him a dinner or going-away party, but Mr.   
   Plepler declined. His departure was formally announced in February.   
      
   A week after Mr. Plepler’s exit, Mr. Stankey named Mr. Greenblatt as   
   chairman of Warner Media entertainment, where he’d oversee HBO, some of   
   the Turner assets and, critically, the launch of HBO Max. Mr. Stankey said   
   he wanted to see the flagship streaming service up and running in just   
   nine months. Disney was rolling out Disney+ — seen as a looming threat —   
   in November.   
      
   In contrast to his dealings with Mr. Plepler, Mr. Stankey seemed to have   
   struck up a warm relationship with Mr. Tsujihara, the first Asian American   
   man to run a major studio and a popular fixture in Hollywood.   
      
   Mr. Tsujihara sat next to Mr. Stankey at the Academy Awards in February,   
   and when he reorganized the Turner brands, Mr. Stankey gave Mr. Tsujihara   
   added responsibility for the Cartoon Network and Turner Classic Movies.   
      
   Mr. Stankey was aware that Time Warner had twice investigated Mr.   
   Tsujihara after he embarked on a brief sexual relationship with a British   
   actress, Charlotte Kirk. Ms. Kirk had never lodged a complaint with Time   
   Warner, and issued a public statement saying she had no complaints about   
   his behavior. The company concluded that the relationship was consensual.   
      
   Two days after Warner Media announced Mr. Tsujihara’s new   
   responsibilities, The Hollywood Reporter published a series of graphic   
   text messages between Ms. Kirk and Mr. Tsujihara in which the actress   
   pleaded for his help landing auditions and roles and the executive offered   
   to look into opportunities for her.   
      
   Though none clearly established any wrongdoing, there was an uproar in the   
   wake of the Harvey Weinstein revelations, and Warner Media performed   
   another investigation focused on whether Mr. Tsujihara had used his   
   influence to get Ms. Kirk roles. (She had small parts in two Warner   
   films.) Still, Mr. Stankey kept Mr. Tsujihara in his post.   
      
   Mr. Stankey had failed to reckon with the depth of outrage fueled by the   
   #MeToo movement. Warner was in negotiations with J.J. Abrams, the   
   filmmaker responsible for such hits as “Star Trek,” several “Star Wars”   
   sequels and “Mission Impossible III,” along with his wife, Katie McGrath,   
      
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