Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos defined in a current interview how he received his begin within the leisure enterprise and revealed a key lesson from legendary crooner Tony Bennett.
In a wide-ranging chat on Bloomberg TV’s “The David Rubenstein Show” this previous week, Sarandos supplied some particulars on his transition from an aspiring journalist to video retailer clerk and ultimately to the streaming-video large.
Rising up in Arizona, he mentioned he wished to be a journalist whilst he cherished films and TV, which additionally portrayed information hounds as heroes. He was editor of the campus newspaper in highschool and in neighborhood school.
“But I also had an epiphany during that time that I wasn’t a very good writer, so likely I was not going to be a professional journalist,” Sarandos quipped.
In the meantime, he additionally had a job working at a video retailer, the place he started as a buyer devouring all its titles. Throughout his shifts as a clerk, he had the chance to look at much more films. Finally, he turned so educated about movies that clients waited in line to get his suggestions.
After some time, the shop’s proprietor wished to spend extra time along with his household and requested Sarandos to take over administration of the enterprise, which had grown into a sequence.
“It was an MBA course and film school all wrapped up into one for me,” he mentioned.
From there, he received right into a home-video distribution enterprise that offered DVDs and VHS tapes to video shops. That’s when he crafted what was a novel deal on the time involving income sharing of DVDs.
A 1999 information article in regards to the deal in commerce journal Selection caught the eye of Netflix cofounder Reed Hastings, and a mutual buddy launched them.
After all, Netflix has since grown into an leisure juggernaut in addition to a textbook instance of a Silicon Valley disruptor that has remodeled the business and compelled studios to launch their very own streaming providers to compete.
Its huge improvement funds sends ripples via Hollywood, and the corporate is predicted the spend $17 billion this 12 months on content material, with the overwhelming majority on authentic materials.
In 2020, Sarandos was promoted from chief content material officer to co-CEO. In 2023, Hastings stepped down as the opposite co-CEO to function government chairman, with Greg Peters elevated from COO to co-CEO.
Later within the interview, Sarandos was requested what he would love his legacy within the leisure business to be. “The guy who put the audience first,” he replied.
Noting that the late Tony Bennett was a very good buddy and hero of his, Sarandos recalled an vital lesson from the singing icon:
“The audience is the most important member of the band,” he mentioned. “And I feel like one approach that we put into Netflix and into the programming and into our films and TV and our games is that we put the audience first and think about how are they going to love it—first. We’ll build a business model around it.”
