Profile of Roku and its founder Anthony Wood, looking at the company's early days, how Roku plans to compete with its rivals, and more
Roku founder and CEO Anthony Wood doesn't fit the image of your typical tech mogul. In person, he comes across as quiet and introverted. Tweets: @bgurley , @adamnash , @jank0 , and @jank0 Tweets: Bill Gurley / @bgurley : If you think being an entrepreneur is a thankless grind, you need to read this great profile of Anthony Wood (@rokuone). He has spent 15 years (more really -including Replay days) titling against this market. Much deserved success, as no one tried harder. http://variety.com/... Adam Nash / @adamnash : Market share for TV platforms surprised me. Roku at 37%. Apple 24%. Google 18%. Amazon 16%. Roku is basically Google & Amazon combined. http://variety.com/... Janko Roettgers / @jank0 : Did you know that Roku CEO Anthiny Wood singlehandedly wrote Brightscript, the company's in-house programming language? http://variety.com/... Janko Roettgers / @jank0 : My latest magazine feature for Variety: How Roku Morphed From a Quirky Hardware Startup to a TV Streaming Powerhouse http://variety.com/... via @variety
Context & Ripple Effects
Variety's profile of Anthony Wood lands at a moment when Roku's odd-couple strategy has already paid off: an earlier interview laid out the bet of licensing Roku's OS to TV makers instead of selling only its own boxes, and the share numbers circulating alongside the piece — Roku 37%, Apple 24%, Google 18%, Amazon 16% — show that distribution-first approach beating far richer rivals.
The profile also frames what comes next in the coverage arc: Wood's team had begun acquiring shows at fire-sale prices rather than committing billions to originals, a pivot toward platform revenue that later coverage ties directly to how Roku beat larger companies by owning distribution.
First-order effects
- Roku enters 2018 holding the largest TV-platform share at 37%, meaning Apple, Google, and Amazon are all competing for second place against a company whose advantage is reach, not content budgets.
- Wood's dual role — he wrote Brightscript himself and ran Roku while working at Netflix early on — gives the profile its throughline: a founder-led hardware company now positioned as the default interface on third-party TVs.
Second-order effects
- With distribution secured, Roku's economics tilt toward the platform layer: ads and services sold against its installed base become the growth engine, which is exactly the diversification Wood describes in later interviews about the Roku Channel and services business.
- Rivals face a squeeze — matching Roku's share means subsidizing hardware or licensing their own OS more aggressively, while outspending it on originals buys attention Roku acquires cheaply through placement.
Third-order effects
- If the pattern holds, smart-TV operating systems consolidate around a few licensed platforms, and the money moves from device margins to advertising and content aggregation — the structure later coverage shows Roku pursuing with its planned $1B content spend.
- The profile is an early record of the underdog-platform playbook: control the screen's front door, monetize attention, and let scale in distribution substitute for scale in capital.
The trend: Streaming TV is shifting from a hardware business to a platform-and-advertising business, where whoever controls distribution on the TV screen captures the value regardless of content budgets.