In late September of last year, Roku founder and CEO Anthony Wood told the company’s board of directors that he wanted to discuss the tricky topic of succession.
At the company’s quarterly board meeting, Wood “articulated his plan to scale back his involvement in running Roku,” and recommended someone who could serve as co-CEO alongside him before he ultimately exits to a board role. He also told the board that they may want to consider a sale of the company. (The timeline of the deal was disclosed in an S-4 filing associated with the deal on Aug. 7.)
The board took in Wood’s suggestion, and ultimately decided that a “market check” that would gauge possible buyer interest in the company was necessary.
That check of the market would ultimately lead to Fox Corp.’s $22 billion megadeal to acquire the streaming platform, a deal that will change the streaming landscape in a dramatic way if it closes as expected in the first half of 2027. Roku boasts more than 100 million streaming households that it reaches, while Fox (in addition to its broadcast and cable networks) owns free, ad-supported streamer Tubi, which just hit the 110 million user milestone.
Wood, 60, founded Roku in 2002, and built the predecessor to today’s product in 2008, when the company was associated with Netflix, which had a large equity stake. His initial plan to appoint a co-CEO was perhaps inspired by Reed Hastings’ effort at Netflix, which saw him elevate Ted Sarandos and later Greg Peters before stepping aside entirely.
But Roku’s board appeared skeptical of his succession effort, writing in the filing that Wood stepping aside “posed potential risks to Roku’s business, including, for example, the loss of his expertise and strategic insights, which could affect the execution of Roku’s strategic plan, and which risks, the Roku Board believed, could be increased given the inherent uncertainty of a CEO succession process.”
And while…