From Video Store to Netflix Co-CEO, Ted Sarandos

Summary

Aspire with Emma Grede

Episode: From Video Store to Netflix Co-CEO, Ted Sarandos
Date: September 16, 2025
Guest: Ted Sarandos, Co-CEO of Netflix
Host: Emma Grede

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Main Theme & Episode Overview

In this episode of "Aspire," Emma Grede sits down with Ted Sarandos, Netflix’s Co-CEO, to explore his incredible journey from a small video rental shop in Arizona to the helm of one of the world’s most influential entertainment companies. Through candid storytelling, Sarandos discusses his working-class roots, the evolution of Netflix, the art of decision-making, the power of intuition and risk, and his unique approach to leadership and creativity in the digital age. Listeners are treated not only to practical business philosophy but to the personal values and life experiences that shaped Sarandos’ visionary leadership.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Unconventional Beginnings & Family Background

Timestamps: [02:45]–[07:49]

• Sarandos describes his upbringing in a chaotic, working-class household: "My parents were very young, so they had four kids in their 20s... It was chaotic in my house all the time. So we didn't have bedtime. We didn't have structured things." [05:31]
• Early inspiration came from his grandmother, “Nanny,” who was obsessed with Hollywood and late-night TV, providing young Ted an escape and his first attachment to the world of entertainment.
  • Notable quote: "She would always talk about celebrities on a first name basis… I would sit up with her and watch the Tonight Show, Johnny Carson.” [06:37]

2. From Video Stores to Hollywood

Timestamps: [07:49]–[14:09]

• Sarandos recounts working in one of Arizona’s first video rental stores and the lessons learned from direct customer interaction.
• Dale Mason, the store’s owner, gave Sarandos his first chance at management, effectively turning the stores into a “business MBA and film school all wrapped up in one.”
  • Notable quote: “I just got a real grounding… in how movies talk to one another. If you like this, you'll like this… it was preparing me for what I'm going to do next, but I didn’t know it at the moment.” [10:20]

3. Customer-Centric Thinking & Learning from the Trenches

Timestamps: [11:36]–[13:39]

• Emphasized the impact of daily engagement with customers: “I was in direct contact with the end user… and that's what I think really prepared me for everything I do now.” [11:45]
• Explores the importance of understanding customer psychology and decision-making, and how formative video shop experiences informed his later data-driven strategies at Netflix.

4. Joining Netflix – The Early Tech Transition

Timestamps: [14:09]–[18:04]

• Sarandos shares the story of discovering Netflix through a DVD player insert and meeting Reed Hastings, who had a wild vision for streaming long before it was technologically viable.
  • Notable quote: "All entertainment is gonna come into the home on the Internet. If you think you're still gonna be getting your entertainment on cable, you shouldn't... not only don't take this job, don't buy my stock when I go public." [18:40]
• Early Netflix was run from bedrooms, with Sarandos bridging the gap between Hollywood and Silicon Valley.

5. Bridging Culture Clashes: Tech vs. Hollywood

Timestamps: [18:04]–[31:10]

• Sarandos describes learning tech culture as an outsider, the value of transparency, and the importance of trust and relationships in entertainment.
  • Notable quote: “If there was anything that was gonna surprise anybody, give them a heads up. If you're the new character... you've got to give people a lot of context.” [21:03]
• Early team-building examples: hosting Netflix engineers for a night at The Improv in LA to experience Hollywood firsthand.
• Developed the principle: “If you're an engineer at Netflix, you work at the greatest tech company on the planet. And if you’re an entertainment executive, you work at the greatest entertainment company.” [31:02]

6. Original Content as a Risk & Breakthrough

Timestamps: [32:35]–[40:42]

• The leap to original programming (e.g., House of Cards) was Sarandos’ initiative, often against the prevailing company logic at the time.
  • Notable quote: “If this does not work, we will have overspent dramatically on one show... If it does work, it will fundamentally change the course of the business.” [34:07]
• Sarandos describes the pivotal deal: two seasons, no creative interference to attract top talent like David Fincher.
• International content success—how a Norwegian series, “Lillehammer,” unexpectedly launched Netflix’s global expansion and binge-release model.

7. Balancing Analytics & Intuition

Timestamps: [41:07]–[46:33]

• Sarandos insists “data-informed intuition” is the winning formula, stressing the importance of seeking dissent to avoid confirmation bias.
  • Quote: “As animals, we have this confirmation bias... One of our core culture things at Netflix is farming for dissent—go out and look for people to disagree with you.” [45:57]
• Belief in challenging one’s own assumptions: “If your intuition and the data don’t match, you might be asking the wrong question.” [46:32]

8. Leadership, Scaling, and Company Culture

Timestamps: [49:30]–[53:14]

• On maintaining risk-taking and agility as Netflix grows: “Celebrate wins and demystify losses… you can’t have this mythological fear of losing.” [50:32]
• Details the Qwikster incident: an example of misjudging public reaction, but a learning moment on consumer focus.

9. On Netflix's Impact: Savior or Disruptor?

Timestamps: [53:21]–[54:52]

• Sarandos argues Netflix has “saved” rather than ruined Hollywood, meeting audiences where they are, and preserving the art form in evolving formats.

10. The Future: Streaming, AI, and Competition

Timestamps: [55:11]–[59:13]

• On AI: Sees it as empowering storytellers, not as a distribution disruptor.
• On YouTube: Sees user-generated content as both competitive and complementary, a vital part of the creative ecosystem.

11. Consumer Relevance and Brand Power

Timestamps: [60:13]–[61:43]

• Sarandos points to Netflix’s “cultural relevance,” citing the instant commercial impact of Meghan Markle’s and Prince Harry’s documentary.
• Emphasizes that great content must always come before consumer products in building a brand.

12. Succession & Leadership Model at Netflix

Timestamps: [67:24]–[70:46]

• Details Reed Hastings’ vision for sustaining Netflix beyond any single leader, and the uniqueness of the co-CEO (with Greg Peters) model.
  • Quote: “Our focus is on our deep expertise and our deep passion and we defer to each other in those things... You have to have people who are mostly concerned with the success of the business, over their own title or position.” [70:01]

13. Mentorship, Legacy, and Family

Timestamps: [70:59]–[80:31]

• Sarandos shares stories of personal influence from mentors like Norman Lear, Dick Van Dyke, and Clarence Avant (his late father-in-law).
• Talks about how he supports his children's creative careers, emphasizing dependability above all: “Probably the most important thing in any job, in any role, is that you can be depended on.” [81:09]

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On trusting yourself:
  “Risk-reward has kind of been my guiding light... If the prize is big enough, you should take pretty unreasonable risk. If it isn’t, don’t.” [32:49]

• On original programming and creative trust:
  “If you give people, the right people, the tools they need to do the best work of their life... they will want to please the audience. They want to do the best work of their life.” [42:32]

• On art and commerce:
  “There’s always this idea that art and commerce are somehow in conflict. I don’t think they are—they enable each other.” [44:16]

• On leadership and growth:
  “Celebrate wins and you have to demystify losses… Talk about when things wipe out, really openly and candidly.” [50:32]

• On data and instincts:
  “Data-informed intuition is a winning formula.” [45:28]

• On the future and scale:
  “We focus on that all the time: how do we be better than Netflix from last year... We suck today compared to what we're going to be tomorrow.” [65:17]

• On parenthood and next generation:
  “Being dependable is so important. It's probably a lost art in some ways... You owe it to the world to show up.” [82:11]

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Rapid Fire and Personal Reflections

Timestamps: [82:36]–[87:08]

• First and last thing he does each day: feeds and tends the dogs, watches movies/TV.
• Aspires to keep the day-one excitement alive at Netflix after 26 years.
• Advises his kids on the value of living in New York in your 20s—and of showing up.
• Book that changed his life: “The History of Comedy” by Joe Franklin.
• Values now more than ever: time. Used to value sleep more (“I really valued sleep, but more than I do now. It seems backwards.” [86:44])

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Episode Takeaways

• Start with the end user: Every successful innovation, from video rental to world-dominating streaming, must begin with a deep understanding of audience needs and behavior.
• Cross-industry bridges fuel innovation: Sarandos’s rise was due in part to a willingness to learn from Hollywood and Silicon Valley, and to facilitate communication between two very different cultures.
• Calculated risks are essential: Game-changing decisions—like Netflix Originals—are founded on a clear-sighted assessment of risk and reward, backed by intuition and data.
• Build, protect, and empower talent: Creative minds produce the best work when trusted, resourced, and shielded from unnecessary interference.
• Leadership means humility and partnership: The co-CEO model at Netflix proves that shared leadership without ego can propel companies through transformative eras.
• Legacy is about impact, not ego: The true measure of success is creating a business that can thrive after you’re gone.

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For listeners:
Whether you’re dreaming of a career leap, running a growing business, or navigating the crossroads of art and technology, Sarandos’ story offers practical wisdom and a refreshingly humble perspective on modern leadership.

Transcript

[Emma Greed]

What if the kid behind the counter at the video store became the man who rewrote Hollywood? Ted Sarandos, Netflix Co CEO, is getting real about what it takes to climb from nowhere to the top of the entertainment industry. How do you know when to double down and when to walk away? How do you trust your gut when the data says otherwise? And how do you keep innovating when you're already on top? Maybe your partner's suit game has been, let's say, a little behind the times. He's had the same go to suit for years, and while it's technically fine, it's definitely not wedding season Ready. Luckily, Macy's men's semi annual suit and event is here and it couldn't have come at a better time. Right now you can take 50 to 75% off men's suits, blazers and more from top brands like Calvin Klein, Michael Kors, Kenneth Cole Reaction and Nordica. This means he can finally upgrade his suit without breaking the bank. And you don't have to do too much convincing, which, let's be honest, is a win for both of you. If you have several weddings and events coming up this season, it makes perfect sense to stock up on a few versatile pieces. Whether he wants something classic and sharp or a blazer that can work for multiple occasions, Macy's has options that make it easy to look polished and feel confident. The men's semiannual suit and event runs from September 4th through September 23rd, so don't wait to take advantage of these amazing savings. Shop in store or online now@macy's.com and make sure you're dressed to impress for every upcoming event. I used to think I needed a full drawer of makeup and at least 20 minutes to look presentable in the morning. But then I tried Merit and now I'm done in five minutes. Merit is a minimalist beauty brand that's made to simplify your routine. It's for people who want to feel put together without spending a ton of time or energy. Their products are clean, vegan and so easy to use you genuinely can't mess them up even half asleep. Lately I've been reaching for Flush Balm every morning. It gives me the most natural looking flush and it blends like a dream. The minimalist is another go to. It's part foundation, part concealer and it evens out my skin in seconds without feeling heavy and great skin serum. My skin just looks better and more hydrated every time I use it. Merit has made my mornings feel less rushed and more effortless, which I didn't really think was possible. It's time to simplify your morning. Head to meritbeauty.com and get their signature makeup bag free with your first order. Ted Sarandos, thank you so much for being here today on the Aspire podcast.

[Ted Sarandos]

Thank you for having me.

[Emma Greed]

I'm really, really happy to have you. I mean, I have to say, when I read everything about you, I mean, I'm already unbelievably impressed by you. But I think the reason why listeners of this show will die when they hear your story is because, first of all, you don't have a typical story, you don't have a typical resume. And in my most English girl way, I'm going to say it like this and hope it's not offensive, but you started your career in a video rental situation type of career, and now you run one of the most important companies in entertainment. And it's just so unbelievably mesmerizing to me how you've made that journey and I think so inspiring to people that perhaps come from. You know, it's like you're a college dropout, your father was an electrician. You're nothing that, you know, I expected.

[Ted Sarandos]

It's not the normal part.

[Emma Greed]

And I was like, this is so inspiring. This is so incredible. But I think it is really inspiring to people because again, a lot of us aspire to a career in entertainment, and you have one of the most impressive ones. So I guess my question really to you is I want you to take me back to. But you being a kid, what do you think ultimately in your childhood would tell me that you were gonna have the type of career that you have today?

[Ted Sarandos]

I don't know if there's like an actual flashpoint that would say, oh, that's what I'm gonna do. Because growing up, I always wanted to be a journalist. Like, the first thing I remember wanting to be is a reporter. I always thought they were heroic people. They thought it was, what a great job this must be. So I was like editor of the high school newspaper and for a couple years of my community college newspaper and I.

[Emma Greed]

You went to community college?

[Ted Sarandos]

Yeah, two years of community college. Did not get that degree either.

[Emma Greed]

It's all right.

[Ted Sarandos]

Well, I spent the whole time working on the newspaper. Yeah, I loved it.

[Emma Greed]

Yeah, there you go.

[Ted Sarandos]

But then I was kind of getting to this point where I was gonna try to go to university. I applied for a. I was applying for a scholarship. Cause I had to pay for my own school. I was putting together all my Clippings. And I realized I wasn't a very good writer and no one ever told me. So I.

[Emma Greed]

That part. Yeah.

[Ted Sarandos]

So I'm reading it, I'm like, wow, if I didn't write this, I probably wouldn't keep reading this.

[Emma Greed]

Fair.

[Ted Sarandos]

So I just like. And that was my part time job while I was doing all this was working in the video store. So that for me the epiphany was it wasn't that I was gonna be in entertainment, just that I was not going to be a journalist.

[Emma Greed]

Sometimes that process of elimination is a good thing too though, right? You're like, okay, definitely not that.

[Ted Sarandos]

I just wish I'd have learned it sooner.

[Emma Greed]

How old are you at this point?

[Ted Sarandos]

19, 20 years old.

[Emma Greed]

And what's your family background? Tell us a bit about.

[Ted Sarandos]

If I could tell you back to the other, like, why entertainment?

[Emma Greed]

Yeah.

[Ted Sarandos]

So for me, you know, you're. You're a product of your parents, for better or worse. Right? And my parents were very young, so they had four kids in their 20s.

[Emma Greed]

Oh, wow.

[Ted Sarandos]

My dad, you mentioned was an electrician, hardworking guy. My mom stayed home to raise the kids and because his real young parents, they were like, it was chaotic in my house all the time. So we didn't have bedtime. We didn't have structured things that parents.

[Emma Greed]

Where are you in the four?

[Ted Sarandos]

I have three older sisters. I have a younger brother, Joey, who passed away a few years ago.

[Emma Greed]

I'm so sorry.

[Ted Sarandos]

Thank you, thank you. But in the house, like I said, my parents and I used to be very angry about it, you know, to be honest with you, that why weren't my parents more traditional? Why didn't they make sure I did my homework? Why did.

[Emma Greed]

Parents can't win. Whatever they do, if you've got the traditional ones, you don't want them. If you don't, you're like, I want to go to, I want a bedtime.

[Ted Sarandos]

But I just came to realize that they were just kids, they didn't know any better and they.

[Emma Greed]

No doubt.

[Ted Sarandos]

So when they're in their 40s, they were kind of recaptured their 20s, because if you have to get that stuff out of your system at some point. So anyway, so that for me I had this. I would go visit my mom's mom, my grandmother. I called her nanny at her house. And she loved entertainment. She had the National Enquirer and all People magazine, all those things out all the time. When I would stay up late anyway, I would sit up with her and watch the Tonight Show, Johnny Carson.

[Emma Greed]

Amazing.

[Ted Sarandos]

And she would Always talk about celebrities on a first name basis. It wasn't Carson, it was Johnny. Joan, can you believe Johnny last night? And there was. I remember one point, I don't remember who did what to who, but it was, oh, did you hear what Mac did to Glenn? I go, who are these people? Mac Davis and Glen Campbell.

[Emma Greed]

You're friends. I've got it.

[Ted Sarandos]

So. Yeah, exactly. And so. And what I did find was that it was a very. Like when I would go to my grandma's to visit, it was an escape from the chaos at our house. So for me, I always had these really positive connections to television and to entertainment and to celebrity.

[Emma Greed]

That's so interesting. So somewhere in the calm of going to your nannies, you found a love of entertainment. But it was also like a. A space where you were away from the chaoticness of what you knew to be happy.

[Ted Sarandos]

Yeah. So I think when you're raised, you're gonna either grow up to be just like you were raised or the polar opposite. And I went polar opposite. I didn't want to have a chaotic life. And for me, like even that bit about not having dinner time and bedtime and all this thing, you wanted the stability. Yeah. And TV had a structure.

[Emma Greed]

Yes.

[Ted Sarandos]

Happy Days was on at 7 o' clock and Channel 3 every Tuesday night. So you didn't have to. It was very structured. Television was very structured.

[Emma Greed]

Back in the Happy Days, I used to love that show. That was huge. Huge in England as well. Just so crazy. So you go on the journey of trying to become. Well, not really trying to become a journalist, but you're fancying journalism. You realize you're not a fantastic writer. At what point does it become clear that entertainment is a career? And talk to me about that kind of initial stint in the video rental space.

[Ted Sarandos]

So working in these stores, it was a part time gig. It was early in the whole life cycle of video stores. Before Blockbusters, there was just these mom and pop independent stores. It was the second store in the state of Arizona that opened up. It was called Arizona Videocassettes West.

[Emma Greed]

Now that's a good catchy name.

[Ted Sarandos]

It's got everything in the title. It's all in the title.

[Emma Greed]

You know exactly where you are and what you got in there for even.

[Ted Sarandos]

Though the region, it's on the west side.

[Emma Greed]

Exactly. And also important, not marketing genius.

[Ted Sarandos]

Well, I thought what was great about the guy who owned the place, Dale Mason, what I liked about it, it was aspirational. Right away he called it west cause he knew there'd be a North And a south and an east.

[Emma Greed]

There you go. There you go. He had dreams.

[Ted Sarandos]

He had dreams.

[Emma Greed]

Good old Dale. Do you still know him now?

[Ted Sarandos]

Yeah, I haven't talked to him in quite a while, but I do stay in touch.

[Emma Greed]

And what was your role? What were you doing like?

[Ted Sarandos]

Well, he. So I. This was like a serendipitous thing. My. My young crazy parents. My mom. I always thought. And I always thought we were poor. And it turns out my mom was just really bad with money because my dad.

[Emma Greed]

There's a difference.

[Ted Sarandos]

Yeah. My dad made money and she just blew it and. Wow. And we always had like. We may not have the electricity and the gas on at the same time. We might get evicted from the house. But we had a VCR before anyone else did, like that kind of thing.

[Emma Greed]

What was she doing with the money?

[Ted Sarandos]

Just like that. There's extravagances that we couldn't afford, so we had a vcr. And then this video store opens around the corner from our house so I could walk there and I used to go in and I met this guy Dale, who owned the store. And we would talk about movies. I love movies. And we just talked about movies all the time. And being a journalism student in Arizona, you were aware of Spike Lee and John Sayles and these things, but there was no place to see those movies in Arizona at the time before the video stores. So for me, it's like, I thought this was almost like one of those aha moments in life. And so Dale said, do you need a job? I needed a job. So I got a job. And then I went to him after I had this epiphany about not being a journalist and said, I don't think I'm gonna be a journalist. I'm not gonna go to university and I need some time to figure out my next act. And he said, oh, good, we need someone. Yeah. Cause he had opened a bunch of in the meantime over that couple of years, and he wanted somebody to kind of take him over for him so he could spend some time with his kids and his wife. And he just gave me the keys to this multi store chain with no real experience or, you know, basically he's learning. I looked at it like an MBA course and film school all wrapped up in one.

[Emma Greed]

Even at that time you did?

[Ted Sarandos]

Yeah. Because at that time, you know, the video stores were empty all day and then for two hours they'd be jammed. And then you load, they close and clean up. And all day when those things were empty, we'd watch movies. I'd watch every movie in the store. So, like, I just got a real grounding in the things you had learned at film school and how movies talk to one another. And if you like this, you're gonna like this. All those things. I didn't know at the moment that it was preparing me for what I'm gonna do right. You know, next. But it really was, for sure. So I had this kid with no business experience negotiating leases and doing the programming and the marketing, hiring and firing the employees, paying the taxes, and oh.

[Emma Greed]

My goodness, it really was. It was like a business mba.

[Ted Sarandos]

And Dale took a big chance on a young kid who just. He trusted.

[Emma Greed]

So did you. Did you have a vision for your career at that point? No, nothing. You were like, just in the here and now.

[Ted Sarandos]

I'm not gonna be a journalist. How can I do the thing that I love? And I really did love. I didn't realize even that there was a business to get these movies. So my next step was to go from running the stores to working for the distributor who sold the movies to the stores.

[Emma Greed]

And how important do you think it is for people to really understand a career, like, from the trenches? Because it seems like, I mean, you literally started right at the bottom.

[Ted Sarandos]

I mean, it's the version of the working in the mailroom, whatever that is. Yeah, yeah. But you want to be. To me, it's like the best part of that was I was in direct contact with the end user. So the people would come in excited to watch the movie, and then they would return it and tell me if they liked it or not. I mean, I really was a full circle contact with the end user. And that's what I think really prepared me for everything I do now.

[Emma Greed]

It's interesting because I feel like so much of your career has been about the end user, the customer, the data, really understanding that. But you had an early purview on all of that stuff, and so you knew it was important before we spoke about it.

[Ted Sarandos]

For sure. I used to marvel at how long it would take for people to decide what movie to rent. Right. You'd walk around, you'd read all the.

[Emma Greed]

Books, you'd be in there for hours.

[Ted Sarandos]

Longer than you'd watch. And then I finally started asking people, and they would tell me all these different stories about how important the choice was. Like, either I don't have a lot of money, so this is a big deal for me. I don't have a lot of time, so I don't wanna watch a bad movie. I'm trying to avoid wasting My time or the one that always surprised me was I'm picking it out for my family or my friends. And it really. It says a lot about me.

[Emma Greed]

Yes.

[Ted Sarandos]

So I want people to respect my choice.

[Emma Greed]

Yeah. I mean, it's so interesting. I spent so much time in the video shop as a kid and it was like such a treat. My mum would say, like she. Cause there's four of us. And she'd pick which one of us was going with that. And it was like, that was a really big deal. You'd get to go. Cause you were deciding on the weekend, like, how was our weekend going to start? Right. And it's like this big decision. And I was obsessed with, you know, because back then it was videos and I had all the Disney movies and they had these like, holograms on them. And for me, it's like I just wanted all the holograms stacked up next to each other. And so it's interesting how formative those memories are and what that time does for you. But you. You really took it as a. An education in entertainment at that time and an education in customer behavior.

[Ted Sarandos]

I didn't know how deliberate it was. You know what I mean? Part of me, I think, was I was just curious. And the other part was I think I was trying to figure out. I didn't know how I was gonna go from Phoenix, Arizona to Hollywood at all, just geographically, let alone professionally.

[Emma Greed]

Did you have anxiety about your career at that point?

[Ted Sarandos]

Probably not, because I really was enjoying it so much. I didn't really think about where it was gonna go next. I just. At that time, I was just really enjoying it. And one of those things where I was almost shocked that this was a job.

[Emma Greed]

Yeah. You were like, I can't believe somebody's given me these keys. So fast forward to me. So you joined Netflix in 2000. And in 2000, it was still a DVD by mail service. So will you talk to me just about that time where you were at? How did you even make that association?

[Ted Sarandos]

So I went from the stores. Arizona Video Cassettes. West became Superstar Video. Same, just better name, better name.

[Emma Greed]

And then not quite Blockbuster, though.

[Ted Sarandos]

Was it free? Blockbuster still, but then went from there to a company called East Texas Distributing. There's a pattern here.

[Emma Greed]

There is, clearly.

[Ted Sarandos]

This is the company that sold the movies to all the stores.

[Emma Greed]

Right.

[Ted Sarandos]

And then I did a very brief stint back at a regional chain called West Coast Video. And that's when I came to find out about Netflix. I found out about it first from. I opened a DVD player and There was a card in there for a company called Netflix, where you could get 10 free rentals with this card. It was a sample thing, and I read it. I remember distinctly seeing it, thinking, oh, that's cool, and just putting it aside. And then I get a call from a friend of Reed Hastings, who was the founder of Netflix, who said he would like to meet me.

[Emma Greed]

Did you know who Reid was?

[Ted Sarandos]

I did not know who he was at that point, but I knew what Netflix was as a company. But I didn't understand why he wanted to meet me yet. I had done a deal. I was at West Coast Video to do video rev sharing with Warner Brothers and Sony. It was the first kind of deal of its kind. It got into a trade magazine, and Reid read about it and he said, I need that deal. Because at that time, Netflix was growing very fast and we couldn't find great next space.

[Emma Greed]

Right.

[Ted Sarandos]

We couldn't afford the imagery.

[Emma Greed]

Yes. Yeah.

[Ted Sarandos]

So how do I. You know, it's basically just to help fund the growth of the company. Revenue sharing would be a good thing. And he didn't really know anybody in distribution or in Hollywood, so he called and asked if I'd go out and meet him. My very first E Commerce transaction was buying that plane ticket.

[Emma Greed]

No, it was not. No, it was not. So you weren't quite like a digital whiz at that point. You weren't thinking about that guy was a movie guy.

[Ted Sarandos]

Yeah. Even then. I remember walking into the lobby at the office at Netflix and there was mountains and mountains of boxes. I'm like, what is all this? And the receptionist says, oh, these are all the people who work here just ordering their stuff online, like drugstore.com and razorblade.com and people just living their life online already, which was a complete. That was my introduction to this idea.

[Emma Greed]

Wow. You were like, I did not know about this. This is not how I'm living my life.

[Ted Sarandos]

Not at all. Not at all.

[Emma Greed]

And it's crazy to think that that was only 25 years ago. Right. Like, it's just a whole different world now completely. So this year you've been at Netflix. It's a lifetime in a company. But I really want to understand what did those early days look like? And how did you even begin to think about transitioning yourself from being like a video store guy into being a tech guy, an entertainment guy, and being having this position at Netflix?

[Ted Sarandos]

I think some part of the curiosity that even I could have just went to work behind the counter of the store, checked out the movies, and went Home. And I thought about it again, but I think all of that has kind of helped for me in how to better understand people and what jobs they have and what do they do that contributes to this success of the company and how passionate are they about doing this? And are these the best people for doing this job? Are people in the right roles? You know, it's all about casting in so many ways. We couldn't afford to have an LA office back then at the early days of Netflix. So I worked in my bedroom a couple days a week, and I would go up to Silicon Valley a couple days a week, and I was sitting in the cubes in between all the engineers, and they would hear me yelling on the phone because I was used to being alone, making a lot of noise and disrupting. And they would like to work very quietly, but they would hear the kind of workings of the business a little bit, and I would be very curious about what they were doing. They were very curious what I was doing. We kept each other kind of curious about the business and informed each other about both how the tech and the entertainment part of the business kind of intersected.

[Emma Greed]

And you were brought in to do exactly what.

[Ted Sarandos]

I was the vice president of product, and so that was basically how to get the inventory. Basically. We were buying movies, by the way, on DVD from Walmart when I first joined the company. So we were just. People go to Best Buy and buy inventory. That's why my goal when I came in, it was to get direct with the studios that sell the movies, and then eventually to develop business plans with them, like our Rev Share.

[Emma Greed]

Did you see the vision really clearly when you first sat down with Reid? Like, just thinking about what Netflix is today, Was that, like. And there was this huge, giant vision and you got that, or are you just like, I'm gonna take a chance on what this is right now?

[Ted Sarandos]

Honestly, it sounded nuts to me.

[Emma Greed]

It did.

[Ted Sarandos]

So, yeah, Reid, I never met anyone like him. He had such a clear vision for the future that was not rooted in any current reality. You know what I mean? Normally, you can see a little sample something totally. It's gonna be like that. And for Reid, it was, no, all entertainment is gonna come into the home on the Internet now at this time, no entertainment came into the home on the Internet. It was too slow and too expensive. And he said, and to go from that, I mean, he took it all the way to the end. He goes, no. In fact, if you think you're still gonna be getting your entertainment on cable, you shouldn't not Only don't take this job. Don't buy my stock when I go public.

[Emma Greed]

Wow.

[Ted Sarandos]

Wow.

[Emma Greed]

That is crazy.

[Ted Sarandos]

It was the ultimate contrarian thesis, right?

[Emma Greed]

Yeah.

[Ted Sarandos]

And those are the big wins. Whenever they were.

[Emma Greed]

Those are the really big wins.

[Ted Sarandos]

So he laid this out. I didn't. I wasn't even sure I believed him, to be honest with you. But I thought that this guy is. This is the kind of person who changes the world in some dimension.

[Emma Greed]

And you knew that.

[Ted Sarandos]

Yeah, for sure.

[Emma Greed]

So what did your early days look like? You're on the phone, you're doing these big deals with the studios.

[Ted Sarandos]

So the interesting thing is, I think the entertainment business is there's a lot of people who want to be in the business, as you mentioned earlier. But finding out the people who want to work in it is really important. I think that's the beauty of the kind of going to the mail room for the people who want to do it.

[Emma Greed]

Yes.

[Ted Sarandos]

Because you have to struggle, you know.

[Emma Greed]

You do have to struggle.

[Ted Sarandos]

Yeah. And that's the way you kind of separate the folks who want to be in it and the people want to work in it. And for me, it was. I've also come to understand that this is really a trust business. You know, people are very. They do not want to make a bad call on their watch. So the more you know them, the better.

[Emma Greed]

So it's like a relationship business.

[Ted Sarandos]

Very much is a relationship business. And I knew all the people who were running home entertainment at that time because of my days in the video store. They used to come in and sell me movies. So the guy who would become the head of Disney at that time, Bob Chapek, used to sell VHS movies to me out of a book.

[Emma Greed]

That is wild.

[Ted Sarandos]

So you kind of. So you got to know these people in a way that was very helpful that you say, hey, if I'm gonna do something that's a risk, I'll take a risk with someone I know and trust.

[Emma Greed]

But I imagine. Because obviously what you were doing before was very traditional. And you essentially were bringing something very new to all of these. You know, to all of these guys. So I wonder, what rules did you have to rewrite and what kind of behaviors did you have to throw out entirely? Because it was a whole new world, what you were doing.

[Ted Sarandos]

One thing for sure was you had to be very transparent.

[Emma Greed]

Right.

[Ted Sarandos]

So if there was anything that was gonna surprise anybody, give them a heads up. Cause if you're the new character, if you're doing things that are different than everybody else, you've got to give a lot of people to understand that people are very nervous about making that bad call with the new guy who's unproven and all those things. So really being unbelievably accessible and transparent.

[Emma Greed]

Above, is that who you are anyway, do you think?

[Ted Sarandos]

I think ultimately it is. That's why it came naturally to me when I saw that coming. I could relate to the fact that someone who's investing into a career doesn't want to shoot themselves in the foot.

[Emma Greed]

Yes, totally.

[Ted Sarandos]

And you can avoid that by just saying, hey, here's something that's going to happen. You're going to read about it, whatever it is, and just here's what's going on. So if you get asked and it just developed that habit very early and.

[Emma Greed]

You developed that over and over.

[Ted Sarandos]

Bets on us.

[Emma Greed]

Yes, of course. I mean, they had to, because you were doing things that nobody had done before and so they had to take.

[Ted Sarandos]

Bets it'd be unintuitive. I mean, it's hard for people to imagine now how big Blockbuster was at that time. So if anyone had an idea that they were going to take on Blockbuster, that seemed insane, they were the biggest entertainment brand in the world.

[Emma Greed]

That's crazy to think about. Yeah, I mean, we can't even fathom that now because they're completely gone now. Or am I?

[Ted Sarandos]

There's one novelty store, I think it's like an Airbnb where you can go sleep in the video store. But I tell my kids all the time, having worked in a video store, it's like being a blacksmith. That's like a job that just does not exist anymore.

[Emma Greed]

It's just totally, totally gone. But you must have been doing something tremendously right to rise through the ranks of this company at that time. And I wonder if you can speak to that a little bit for anybody that's listening that is part of, you know, a very high growth company or a company that's really going places. What did you do not just to survive, but to really scale yourself as it was all happening.

[Ted Sarandos]

Back in that middle where I worked in the distribution company at etd, there was a guy. So my life, by the way, was kind of peppered with these inspiring non traditional mentors.

[Emma Greed]

Lucky you.

[Ted Sarandos]

And I don't even know that they knew that they were mentoring, but they would say these very poignant things that were very useful always. If you listen, you have to listen.

[Emma Greed]

You have to listen.

[Ted Sarandos]

So Ron Eisenberg was the CEO of East Texas Distributing. What was interesting about entertainment distribution is you have basically all of your customers you sell to, and you need to have all the studios to be able to sell them. So he would always say to me, he goes, well, you've got customers on one hand and suppliers on the other. Just kiss every ass presented. That was his comment. That's amazing because you have to make sure that you're taking care of two constituencies all the time that have very different agendas.

[Emma Greed]

Right.

[Ted Sarandos]

So the idea that you can't just go to work and do one thing every day is you're trying. You have to keep these people satisfied and these people pleased all the time. Which I think embedded that kind of customer first mode to me. And the difference between video distributors wasn't much. You know what I mean? They bought from the company and the person that they trusted and liked and that was that. That was that.

[Emma Greed]

That was that.

[Ted Sarandos]

Yeah.

[Emma Greed]

So it was just about just trust.

[Ted Sarandos]

Yeah.

[Emma Greed]

That's so interesting. I mean, it's so interesting to me. This episode of Aspire is brought to you by three Olives Vodka. Because you shouldn't have to compromise what you want. Made in the USA. Three olives vodka is zero sugar, 100 calories or less, and gluten free, so you can enjoy a cocktail without overthinking it. And let's be honest, whether you're building a business, leading your team, or taking care of everyone else, you deserve something that feels easy and tasty. Amazing. Whether it's my favorite, a classic vodka soda or an espresso martini with friends. Reach for three Olives Vodka. Next time you're picking up something for your bar cart, look for three Olives Vodka. And let it be your reminder to celebrate your wins, big or small. To learn more and find 3 Olives vodka near you, head to 3olives.com cheers. Copyright 2025 Proximico 3olives.com Please drink responsibly. You've heard me talk a lot about personal wealth and side hustles, and I'll be honest. One of my favorite things about entrepreneurship is finding ways to make my money work for me even while I'm not working. Here's an example. Imagine you're traveling, maybe taking that dream vacation you've been saving for, or even just away for work for a few weeks. Did you know that you could actively be building that vacation fund while you're gone by hosting your home on Airbnb. If the thought of hosting sounds overwhelming, here's the good news. You don't have to do it all yourself. With the co host network, you can hire a high Quality, local co host to take care of everything for you. We're talking about creating your listing, managing reservations, messaging guests, offering on site support, even helping with design and styling so your place looks its best. So whether you're a snowbird heading south for the winter, away on tour, or just working remotely for a stretch, your home doesn't have to sit empty. It can act actually be earning for you. Find a co [e-mail] host. So when did you start to transition in that company to like a closer model of how we see Netflix today? Like, what happened?

[Ted Sarandos]

So, again, the reason I think we made it is because it was always in the plan. It's called Netflix, not mail flicks or DVD flicks even. And it was always in the vision that this would be a digital distribution company.

[Emma Greed]

Right.

[Ted Sarandos]

Reid described Netflix to me in 1999 almost exactly like it is right now.

[Emma Greed]

I mean, it's unfathomable to think about because at that point, as you said, you weren't even using the Internet as we do today. You weren't ordering things like we do. The idea that you would just like sit in your even just getting living room and scroll like that wasn't a thing.

[Ted Sarandos]

TV is something we completely take for granted.

[Emma Greed]

That.

[Ted Sarandos]

And so this whole notion of it, we talked about downloading instead of streaming back then, because there was no concept.

[Emma Greed]

Even of streaming back then, of course.

[Ted Sarandos]

So when we think about that, that's the only thing that ever really connected about the plan was how are you gonna manage all these files and all that kind of stuff, and then streaming goes, ah, streaming. Streaming's gonna solve that. So we don't need to manage anything.

[Emma Greed]

I'm interested, Ted. Because you were like such an entertainment guy, the digital piece was like a learning curve for you. You didn't understand that, like, how much did you get yourself involved? Understanding that was the. You could see this blueprint that Reid had kind of, you know, said, this is where we're going. Did you immediately, like, try to start understanding what the engineers sitting next to you were doing?

[Ted Sarandos]

Yeah, gradually. Right. I felt like I just learned as much as I needed to get my deals done, first of all, and to get these, you know, to deliver on the things that we were promising.

[Emma Greed]

Because I can imagine you will be sitting there thinking, oh, my goodness, there's this whole part of this company that I don't really understand or I need to learn, otherwise I'll be left out of it. I just wonder, was there any part.

[Ted Sarandos]

Of that almost immediately? But. But the bigger part, for Me was actually understanding the tech culture.

[Emma Greed]

Very different culture, very different.

[Ted Sarandos]

And at one point there was an early, early executive staff meeting and one of the guys who was our head of product at that time said to me, I forgot what he said even, but it sounded a little loaded. So afterwards I asked somebody on the way out and I said, hey, you know when he said that, what do you think he meant? And he goes, oh, no, no, no, no. He's incapable of saying anything. But exactly what he means.

[Emma Greed]

Exactly.

[Ted Sarandos]

He means exactly what he said.

[Emma Greed]

It's not coded, it's just a. It's just a TikTok 100%.

[Ted Sarandos]

And I did find every once in a while with that same guy, he would say to me when sometimes I'd be asking for something and I'm trying to get his buy in on something, and he would repeat back to me and nod a lot. And I would leave thinking, he's understood it, we got it.

[Emma Greed]

Yeah, no problem.

[Ted Sarandos]

He was just taking it all in and he was acknowledging that he heard me. And then he'd go home and think about it for 24 hours.

[Emma Greed]

Wow.

[Ted Sarandos]

And he'd come back and have the most remarkable insight and question that I thought we were all settled. And every once in a while he would unearth something that made what we just talked about impossible.

[Emma Greed]

That's just insane.

[Ted Sarandos]

Yeah. So it was a very. The company, the art of the company always from the beginning was kind of managing both.

[Emma Greed]

Yeah. And it's an art, right? Because I mean, seemingly these two industries between tech and entertainment are very, very differently. And I think so much of the success has been how those two things have been interwoven and the understanding between the two. But what did you do in the industry?

[Ted Sarandos]

I remember in those early days of tech with the entertainment business, very few companies, very few tech companies have successful entertainment plays or the other way around. And I think a lot of that is because as you try to jam the culture on each other. And I knew early on that we couldn't do that. And Reid recognized it right away too. So one of those days in the history of Netflix, I wanted everyone up there to know what happened in la. So I had everybody come down from, from Los Gatos to la, we toured the Warner Brothers studio and I rented the improv and I had Naomi Odenkirk, who's Bob's Odenkirk's wife, who was a talent booker in those days, booked 10 great comedians and they came and saw showbiz. Wow. And they had a real. And they went back home and they talked about it for a year, and it was part of the early formations of the company. And I remember I used to really love to hear the engineers talk about the experience of having met. Now, that night at the Improv, it was Zach Galifianakis, Sarah Silverman.

[Emma Greed]

Wow.

[Ted Sarandos]

It was Patton Oswald.

[Emma Greed]

It was unbelievable. Unbelievable.

[Ted Sarandos]

So they really had an experience that night.

[Emma Greed]

And was that something that worked both ways? Cause you're really talking about building influence and credibility between the two. Like, between the two teams. Did it work both ways that you had to show the entertainment folks how to have more understanding of the digital side of the business, too?

[Ted Sarandos]

Yeah, for sure. I mean, and we really had to do as this idea was, don't spend all your energy trying to figure out how to code. Figure out how to talk to the coders to get what you need, and vice versa. The biggest goal for me was if you're an engineer at Netflix, you work at the greatest tech company on the planet. And if you are an entertainment executive, Netflix, you work at the greatest entertainment.

[Emma Greed]

Company on the planet.

[Ted Sarandos]

And you're both right.

[Emma Greed]

You're both correct. And it turned out that you were right about that. They really did.

[Ted Sarandos]

And we really enjoyed.

[Emma Greed]

And they really do.

[Ted Sarandos]

Yeah. And we really did put a lot of energy behind it. And this was in the days, in the early days of the tech entertainment tension was that the tech companies would fly to LA for the day, and they'd hire a legal team and an agent, and they'd go in and talk to the studios with the lawyer and an agent, and then they write a very big check, and they'd leave. And they didn't know that the studios were laughing, you know, when they laughed. And I would tell Reid, I go, we're not doing that.

[Emma Greed]

That is not what we're doing.

[Ted Sarandos]

We're not doing. I'm not gonna move up here. I'm gonna stay here. My kids are gonna go to school with their kids, and we're gonna.

[Emma Greed]

And that's just that. Did you ever feel like an outsider because you don't come from the studio system or from film school? That was like, I'm an outsider in this business too, for sure.

[Ted Sarandos]

But I think it's probably my personality generally. When I was growing up, the neighborhood we lived in, my two oldest sisters, Kathy and Jean, got into a thing with a gang of girls at school. And when my parents went to the school to try to solve the problem, they said she should probably transfer schools. It was a violent neighborhood where we were living, and so we switched schools When I was in junior high school, so all my friends went to one high school and I went to a new high school, and I didn't know any my friends. If you look back now, all this kind of stereotype, high school cliques. I had friends from all the cliques. I didn't have one specific one. So I was never really an outsider. But I didn't feel like I was narrowly rooted in any one thing. So I thought Netflix suited me quite well in that way.

[Emma Greed]

Definitely. I feel like your story is so much about taking unconventional bets in some ways, and I wonder how. How you've learned to kind of double down and really trust your instincts in your life, in your career.

[Ted Sarandos]

I don't know where it came from, but this notion of risk reward has kind of been my guiding light. If the prize is big enough, you should take pretty unreasonable risk. If it isn't, don't. Don't put things in jeopardy. But in the case of original programming, it's probably the one thing that Reid didn't. He and I did not agree on or that he didn't see as part of the vision at the beginning. And for me, it was inevitability. You know, no network or no entertainment brand didn't have its own programming.

[Emma Greed]

Right.

[Ted Sarandos]

So at the time, I think Breed was trying to solve a different problem, which is. And he was smart. That's the problem that we needed to solve first. And then the original programming was kind of the icing on the cake.

[Emma Greed]

An original program was your thing. That was something that you were, like, taking that or you were at the helm of, I guess.

[Ted Sarandos]

Yeah, yeah. And for me, it did not feel like a monumental bet. I really told. When we.

[Emma Greed]

I mean, but it was a monumental bet. Right. When you look at what you've done and like, the.

[Ted Sarandos]

Couldn't afford it for sure. So it was risky in that way.

[Emma Greed]

Is that.

[Ted Sarandos]

Is that. But I did tell Reid afterwards, because we made the deal and I went and told him about it, and he said, why would you. You know, that's a big risk. Why would you do this? And I said, it's a risk reward. I said, if you've got. If this does not work, we will have overspent dramatically on one show. Yeah, we do it all the time. I go, if it does work, it will fundamentally change the course of the business. And he said, that totally makes sense. And we never talked about it again.

[Emma Greed]

I mean, I want to get into this original programming thing because it obviously has been so seismic and touched so many of our lives, but do you have any sort of beliefs or mental frameworks for when you're making those really big decisions that you go back to, like, time and time again?

[Ted Sarandos]

I mean, I think at the end of the day, when you hear. I don't hear as many of the pitches as I used to. Very few, actually, now. But what I think is interesting is it's the same fundamental question about every show you're gonna do. Like, is this a world that people want to spend time in? Are these people that I care about, what happens to them, and do I want to stick around to see how it ends? You know, kind of feels so simple at the end of the day. I think that's true. Across whatever it is, and then getting to the kind of essence of what the show is or what it's about or who's going to be in it. All those things, of course, matter because it's all about execution. But it all starts with a great idea. And if you can think about how many things. How many times was something a really bad idea but executed so well that it worked? Very rare.

[Emma Greed]

No.

[Ted Sarandos]

Yeah.

[Emma Greed]

Doesn't happen.

[Ted Sarandos]

So I was thinking in the entertainment world, you think something like Avatar might be one of those things that wasn't a great idea. It was basically. The ferngully was the same idea.

[Emma Greed]

Yeah, you could. Yeah, you could argue that. So seismic, mesmerizing. Yes. That it turned out that way.

[Ted Sarandos]

As big as the budget for Titanic was, maybe that wasn't a great idea, but the execution.

[Emma Greed]

Pretty depressing story. But, yes, it really worked out.

[Ted Sarandos]

It's not a Titanic movie.

[Emma Greed]

Yeah, exactly.

[Ted Sarandos]

True. But I think they're rare. They're rare. So when you hear a good idea, man, you better focus on the execution of that idea, because they're so rare. And if you get them both, if you get the great idea and the great execution, you've got a monster.

[Emma Greed]

You got a monster. So talk to me about original programming at Netflix. How did it come around? What is your part in that and what does that look like today? Cause we all know the unbelievable success that you've had with original programming.

[Ted Sarandos]

So it was. We were buying, licensing, just streaming rights for. And there was movies. One thing we did not have was new movies back then. The paid TV deals would lock up movies for years. So basically, you couldn't license a movie that played in the theater for a service like Netflix for 10 years after it was in the theater. So we were always constantly. Anytime a movie was in the wild, which would happen every once in a while, we would take the meeting and try to do it. So we licensed the movie. Pan's Labyrinth just happened. The pay TV rights weren't tied up. La Vie En Rose was one. So this company who had the rights to Bruno, which is a Sacha Baron Cohen movie, came in to pitch it. Do we want to buy the rights? And then on the way out the door, they just mentioned, hey, we're making a series of the British House of Cards, but set in Washington D.C. do you guys want to hear the pitch? And. And I said, tell me more about that, because I loved the British House of Cars.

[Emma Greed]

I mean, it was so good.

[Ted Sarandos]

And he said, yeah, so it's. Kevin Spacey and Robin Wright are gonna star in it. David Fincher is gonna direct television for the first time. So I said. So we started talking about it after they left. And I said, wow, like, what is. And this is where a little bit of data you looked at and go in and said, you know, people seem to really. People love Kevin Spacey movies. Like, how do they perform on Netflix? How about David Fincher movies and all these things? How about movies about politics, about all this? So you're looking at all this swirl of things thinking, if it's well done, just get up a real audience.

[Emma Greed]

But there was no original programming at that time at Netflix. So how did you even have the remit to greenlight something like that? Because I imagine it was so expensive.

[Ted Sarandos]

Well, I think it was a hundred million dollar investment for sure. But it was one of these things for us. At the time, my remit was, let's get programming on Netflix so people will watch. And the more we can grow the streaming, the more we could prove out the model both for consumers and for the suppliers too. For me, it was like we had done some this deal with Starz programming. So we got the Starz programming the same time it was on tv. It was a hack of the system. It wasn't any genius move, but this one was, well, this is a show that will be the hottest package in television this year. HBO wants it, AMC wants it, FX wants. Everyone wanted it. And I said, so why would they sell it to us? We've never done this before. And I said, we have to figure out what is. There's a thousand reasons to say no. What's the one path to yes?

[Emma Greed]

What'd you come up with?

[Ted Sarandos]

It was give them a two season order with no notes, but promise them no creative interference. Oh, so at that time, that's big. He was big at that time, that's big.

[Emma Greed]

If you're David Fincher, you're like, I'll take that.

[Ted Sarandos]

At the time, it would be very rare to even go direct to serious, let alone, you know, a two season pickup. So they knew.

[Emma Greed]

So an even bigger bet then.

[Ted Sarandos]

It was a big. Yeah, it was very big. But I do think it was. No, that was the clearing price for us. Nobody would sell good things to us that way. We might got lucky.

[Emma Greed]

Fair enough.

[Ted Sarandos]

Yeah.

[Emma Greed]

Yeah.

[Ted Sarandos]

So we had to really change the algebra here. We had to figure out what is our path in when we have really nothing but promise.

[Emma Greed]

And obviously, we all know how that turned out. Incredibly, unbelievably successful. But was that the thing that then changed everything in terms of like, programming at Netflix that meant that you had the remit to go.

[Ted Sarandos]

I think what it did was unlock, again, possibility.

[Emma Greed]

Right.

[Ted Sarandos]

You say, well, that we need more of that. That work. We need those ones that work. And we had a great look at. I also think it's really lucky that we had such a great first set of releases.

[Emma Greed]

Yes.

[Ted Sarandos]

Arrested Development reboot, Crazy House of Cards, Orange is the New Black. We did Lillehammer, which was this kind of funky thing that turned out to be really important to the company's future growth, which was a show that was made in Norway.

[Emma Greed]

I didn't see that one.

[Ted Sarandos]

Oh, it was. So basically, it really was the first launch of an original show on Netflix. After we did that deal for House of Cards, people in town heard about it, and I got a call from an agent, said, stevie Van Zant, we'd like to talk to you. And I said, oh, my God, I love the East Street Band. This would be great. So I take the call from Stevie. He's so funny and so cool. And he said, I'm in Norway. I came over to produce an album and these people brought me a script. And it's this really crazy show called Lillehammer, about a mobster who's in Witness relocation in Lillehammer, Norway. And he basically mobs up this little town in Norway, and he's a lot like the character he played in the Sopranos. So I just. I go, well, can you send me a script or something? He goes, I'll send you the whole show. We already shot it. He goes, I just need to make some money so I can put some music in the show.

[Emma Greed]

So you got to see the whole show.

[Ted Sarandos]

So I got to see the whole show. It was a slam dunk. We bought it on site. So that was our first launch. And it was now one of those things that has become a bit of a superpower for us being able to produce local language content and find a global audience for it. And we got their first taste of it. And then it's also because we had the whole show done. We put it all up at once. So it started the kind of all at once. It started the mixed language international production for the U.S. all these different things that are so important to our business today.

[Emma Greed]

No. And so important to your business. And it seems to me like you have this wonderful ability to be both, like, a friend and a supporter to the creative, but also have this executive language, executive prowess. How have you been able to walk that line? Who taught you that? Like, how? I just. That that's a really big thing. And I think it's something that a lot of people really struggle with. Usually you're like, one or the other.

[Ted Sarandos]

I love the talent. I really. I totally respect what they do. I totally respect how difficult it is. Back to my Phoenix days, the drinking age in Arizona was 19. Oh, and which means that you could get away with it when you're about 17.

[Emma Greed]

I always forget that it's 21 in New York. I come from a place where it's 16, so I'm like 19.

[Ted Sarandos]

Like, so my friends would, you know, they all like to go into the bars and that kind of stuff. And I didn't. Like, I didn't dance. So I'd go to the comedy clubs. And in the 80s in Phoenix, there was like this comedy boom. And all this great, incredible talent would come through Phoenix. So that gave me kind of an early touch into kind of that culture. Got to know some of them, and I would hear them tell the stories about how they did a pilot, and they would get these notes on their pilot about, like, not whether or not the joke was funny or not, but whether I should be wearing a blue shirt or a red shirt. All these kind of arbitrary things. And I figured that early on that very creative people need protectors. They need someone to help them clear the deck of all that noise so that they can do the best work of their life.

[Emma Greed]

And you think Netflix has taken that on as a corporate disposition? Like, we will be the friend of the creator.

[Ted Sarandos]

Yeah. And not to the point that it's bad business, but I think there's ways to make sure that you're meeting the needs of everybody all the time. So we had this kind of advantage in this creative interference model, which was, I didn't have any people, so I had no one to interfere with you.

[Emma Greed]

There's that.

[Ted Sarandos]

But it gave us the ability to say if you give people, the right people, the tools they need to do the best work of their life. They want to please, they want to please the audience. They want to please you. They want to do the best work of their life.

[Emma Greed]

So how do you decipher who's the right people? Who do you bet on?

[Ted Sarandos]

Some of it's intuition. A lot of it's track record. You know, people mistake track record and data, like data is a bad thing and track record is a great thing, but track record and data are the exact same thing. So you've got somebody who, you know, it shouldn't be a big deal to take a risk about Martin Scorsese making a great mob movie. So we made the Irishman. It didn't feel like a big swing at all. No, I, it was expensive.

[Emma Greed]

It's sometimes like the most obvious things. I read something the other day where it was like Warren Buffett and Charlie Munger and it was like their ability to hire the best CEOs for their companies over and over again. And somebody asked them at one shareholders meeting, like, how do you do that? And they said, you know, we just look for somebody who has done the exact same job somewhere else similar and had an incredible result. And I was like, yeah, it's so obvious. But yeah, that'll do it. But that's essentially what you were doing. You were backing the best in class talent and you were getting out of their way.

[Ted Sarandos]

Getting out of their way. And that's the way. And that was the thing that won them over. That's the only thing that was standing in the way. Because at the time I couldn't deliver. I could deliver, I could compete with the money, but I couldn't deliver the audience yet. Which I think is ultimately the most important part is you have to be able to deliver the audience. How do you do that?

[Emma Greed]

But how did you do that in the early days and how did you know? Because again, we're talking about seismic shifts in the way people consume entertainment, the way we use technology. How have you been able to stay clear headed and focused in a time where so much was changing?

[Ted Sarandos]

Well, I think the discipline function is you have to spend proportionately to how people watch now, do it wisely. You could do it all day. You make too many bad bets and you take your game out of the business. So the goal here is to keep doing it all, to do it in a way that we can keep doing it all day. So to do that you have to make these very wise decisions and sometimes you have to say, have the Discipline to say no even if you love it, even if you love the person, because there just is not a business solution to it. So I think, I think there's always this idea that art and commerce are somehow in conflict with each other. And I actually don't think they are at all. I think they enable each other, they give each other a reason. So for me, it's like I can read a script and say, this is a beautiful piece of art. It is just not a piece of business. And I don't wanna see this movie. I just don't wanna fund it fair.

[Emma Greed]

You're like, that's just not for me. You've said that great storytelling isn't built by algorithms, but by passion and risk. And so I guess for somebody not just in this field, but for field. How do you learn to trust your instincts in a data driven world?

[Ted Sarandos]

Well, first I think data informed intuition is a real, is a winning formula.

[Emma Greed]

Data informed intuition.

[Ted Sarandos]

Yeah. So you have intuition but. And you can back it up or you can challenge it with data all day long.

[Emma Greed]

How do you make sure that the two like that one doesn't impede on the other? Do you, do you let yourself like feel what you think about something and then look at the data or are you letting the data inform how you feel?

[Ted Sarandos]

As animals, we have this confirmation bias. We have to be very careful of not looking for the data to confirm our intuition, but just saying actually the opposite. It's kind of one of our core culture things at Netflix is farming for dissent.

[Emma Greed]

What does that mean?

[Ted Sarandos]

Go out and look for people to disagree with you.

[Emma Greed]

Oh yeah, I love that.

[Ted Sarandos]

Yeah. So farm for dissent. And in this case.

[Emma Greed]

Well, that's an amazing way to say it. Farming for dissent.

[Ted Sarandos]

Yeah. And I think when you're looking for data, don't look for data to back up your intuition, look for data to challenge your intuition and then you feel much better about the decision when you're done. If you really have done that honestly.

[Emma Greed]

With yourself, that's so hard for people to do.

[Ted Sarandos]

And I thought I heard a great thing. I think it was Jeff Bezos said it one time. He said if your intuition and the data don't match, you might be asking the wrong question. So it's not that they. Yeah, don't question the intuition or the data.

[Emma Greed]

Question the question.

[Ted Sarandos]

The question. And it's so true. After I read that, that's really true.

[Emma Greed]

You're asking the wrong thing. Running a business or even just thinking about starting one can feel overwhelming, but the right tools can make all the difference Support for today's episode comes from Square, your all in one business partner, making your day to day easier. From point of sale systems and payments to inventory and customer tools, Square brings everything together in one simple platform. So you can stay organized, sell anywhere and keep things moving. Whether you're running a cafe, salon, boutique or something entirely your own, Square gives you flexibility to grow at your own pace and even set up an online store in just a few clicks. For me, one of my favorite spots of course is Good American. They use Square and I always notice how smooth everything is when I'm there. Paying is quick and easy and because Square takes care of the details, the staff has more time to focus on creating a great experience. For me as a customer, it makes a huge difference. Square keeps up so you don't have to slow down. Get everything you need to run and grow your business without any long term commitments. And why wait? Right now you can get up to $200 off square hardware at square.com goaspire that's S Q U-A-R-E.com go aspire run your business smarter with Square get started today as a busy working woman. Keeping your closet fresh for the office can be so exciting. That's why DailyLook makes refreshing anyone's wardrobe effortless. DailyLook is a premium personal styling service and DailyLook is the number one highest rated premium personal styling service for women. So here's how it works. You get your own dedicated stylist, an actual person, not just an algorithm, who curates a box of pieces based on your body shape preferences and your lifestyle. You'll get up to 12 premium pieces per box delivered right to your door so you can try them on in the comfort of your own home. You get the same stylist every time so they really get to know your style and it saves you so much time and effort when you need a work wardrobe refresh. Plus you can choose how often you want a box every 30, 60 or 90 days. You keep what you love, send back what you don't, and shipping is free both ways. Elevate your style by signing [e-mail] today. Take your style [e-mail] and get 50% off your first styling fee with the code ASPIRE. That's dailylook.com code ASPIRE. Do you have I just wonder like you as in Ted the businessman. Do you have non negotiables in the way that you think about like your business, your life, your rituals? Are there things that you Think this enables me to do what I do and be good at what I do.

[Ted Sarandos]

I don't know that in life today that you can have non negotiables. I mean, I think you have to figure out how to meet people, where they are and what chances are you willing to take and which ones are you not? I think it's important, but I also think it can narrow your choices a lot. And sometimes the biggest cost in business you have is, is lack of choice. So for me, it's like, before you have a non negotiable, you should have exhausted every other path to get there.

[Emma Greed]

You better have exhausted. And that's the beautiful thing, because the more successful you are, the more choices you have.

[Ted Sarandos]

Yeah, I mean, that's.

[Emma Greed]

You got a lot of choices now.

[Ted Sarandos]

TED and interestingly, I think when companies get big, people get scared and they really, they try to protect, you know, when you're in the best shape of your life, that's when you should be able to take, you know, to try the hard thing.

[Emma Greed]

So how do you typically, I think.

[Ted Sarandos]

That'S when people try to avoid.

[Emma Greed]

No, of course it is. But in a massive company, like, how do you keep the spirit of where you started and leading with, you know, intuition? Like, if you've got all of these people, how do you ingrain that in everyone around you?

[Ted Sarandos]

You have to celebrate wins and you have to demystify losses. Like, you can't have this, like mythological fear of losing. Talk about when things wipe out. Like, talk about them really open and candidly even jab people a little bit. Like, what were you thinking?

[Emma Greed]

Can you do that to yourself? You can, yeah, for sure.

[Ted Sarandos]

And I do it myself. What was I thinking? I say that all the time, but I do think it's one of those things where again, it's back to risk, reward. There's things in your business that if they're catastrophic, you should absolutely be very careful all the time and don't take very calculated moves. Only if it's catastrophic. If the outcome's catastrophic, most decisions are not. And I think we tend to think of almost every decision as a catastrophic outcome when most of them really aren't. So understanding the difference is really, really important. And like I said, demystifying. Celebrate. When people took a big bet and missed, didn't wipe out anybody, it didn't change the outcome of the business much. We learned something. Let's not make the same mistake a thousand times, but go ahead and make a thousand mistakes over your life.

[Emma Greed]

And obviously, I feel like Netflix's biggest Gambles have really paid off. But is there one risk that still really haunts you?

[Ted Sarandos]

Haunting is not a good example. But I never want to. I don't feel haunted by it, but I never want to forget. There was a. When we did the split of streaming and DVD by mail, it's called Qwikster, we formed a new company and the ultimate thing was the decision was totally sound like we had to do that. It was existential if we didn't at some point monetize streaming. So it was definitely the right thing to do. We had a miscalculation in the consumer reaction. For a company that is very focused on the consumer, we missed the idea that people who were not directly impacted by a change would be upset by it.

[Emma Greed]

You mean not people that weren't even your customers?

[Ted Sarandos]

No. So basically if you were only taking DVDs or only streaming, you actually got a price decrease in one case and. And nothing in the other. But if you were doing both, you got basically a gigantic price increase.

[Emma Greed]

Got it.

[Ted Sarandos]

And so if your next door neighbor got a big price increase and you didn't, they were still mad at you.

[Emma Greed]

You were pissed. Yeah.

[Ted Sarandos]

You were still pissed.

[Emma Greed]

Yeah. Fair.

[Ted Sarandos]

So. And that was the big. That was a miss. That's how we miscalculated the churn impact from that. But I look back at that and think, you know, again, the haunting is don't forget about all the different aspects of consumer satisfaction.

[Emma Greed]

Yeah. And that's really hard to do when you're in it. Like you guys are in it. Cause you were trying to make a big. Your big change which ultimately paid off.

[Ted Sarandos]

And if we had just had known the number, I think we might have ultimately done exactly the same thing.

[Emma Greed]

You would have just digested it differently.

[Ted Sarandos]

100%.

[Emma Greed]

100%.

[Ted Sarandos]

And prepared people for it differently.

[Emma Greed]

Yes, yes, exactly. Do you think about Netflix as something that saved Hollywood or ruined it?

[Ted Sarandos]

Well, look, a self serving answer. I think it's saving because here's what I. A lot of people get wrapped up in the idea of how things used to be.

[Emma Greed]

Yeah.

[Ted Sarandos]

And there's something to. There's something great about what inspired me to do what I'm doing now is that stuff that I watched when I was young. So are we making things like that anymore? You know, those kind of things. So there's something to it before, but.

[Emma Greed]

Old habits and arguably, I mean you really are like I look at stranger things that my son who's 11 just showed me. I never watched it the first time around. I'm like in season three, watching it with my 11 year old. And it is like watching my childhood. I feel like I'm watching ET or something, like so nostalgic and so beautiful. And I feel like that's the difference between. Cause at Netflix, the stuff is like so like, it's so much quality to it.

[Ted Sarandos]

This is what we try. I mean, I tried to, like I said that thing that inspired me. Are we doing that for people today? And the big part of that is, have you developed a model that ensures that movies get made and that movies get watched? That's what matters. So for me, it's like the art form is above the distribution platform or above the business model, but the art form, to me, there is no business model without the art form and vice versa. So for me it's like, yeah, if people now would like to stay home and watch movies on Friday night, instead of going to the theater, let's meet the customer where they are and make great movies for them. And that to me, then when you say save or ruin, you know, people who, very narrowly people say, you know, my movie theater may have closed down. That wasn't because of Netflix. It was because people like, behavior changed.

[Emma Greed]

Yeah, behavior changed. Behavior just changed. It was inevitable.

[Ted Sarandos]

Yeah. And we would have, we have uncovered and discovered and honed a business model that ensures the long lasting, you know, a long lasting life for filmmakers and for film lovers. That's great news.

[Emma Greed]

It's great news. Do you think? I mean, does streaming just survive now and if, and if it doesn't, like, what is next?

[Ted Sarandos]

Well, I think, though I don't know that there's a Internet level disruption coming in distribution over the next decade. I mean, the Internet, it was a pretty seismic shift in things. There'll be changes in creativity, I think, and how things get made, I think will be. Which will be very interesting, AI certainly being part of it. But also how AI creates the tools that we use to tell stories, even better. Like all those things. There'll be a lot of that kind of disruption that'll go on over the next couple of years. But I don't see a Internet level disruption in the kind of distribution business.

[Emma Greed]

You don't, because you don't think that AI is coming to completely do something that we don't even understand just yet.

[Ted Sarandos]

I think it's creating tools for filmmakers that, that empower them to tell stories they never could tell before.

[Emma Greed]

And there's nothing in those tools that concerns you that we get rid of. Like, you know, because again, I'm watching, you know, the Battle with various different, you know, entertainers with their name, image and likeness and the worries around things like that. Is that something that is worrying to you or you just think it's all about progress?

[Ted Sarandos]

No, I think Reid and I used to have this argument about whether or not I thought that in some ways the world was better when Walter Cronkite was the source of truth.

[Emma Greed]

Yeah.

[Ted Sarandos]

Because I think having a source of truth was a good thing.

[Emma Greed]

It was very helpful for you.

[Ted Sarandos]

Even if it was wrong. Even if it was wrong. It wasn't.

[Emma Greed]

No, no, no. But you know, there were great things about it.

[Ted Sarandos]

And then, you know, then you think of all the things that have progressed because we traded that in for the Internet and for lots of sources and you figure out the truth, that kind of thing. And so there's an underlying piece to any kind of progress people. If you're riding your horse around, you probably didn't want them at the cars to scare your horse on the road.

[Emma Greed]

Fair enough.

[Ted Sarandos]

There's all those kind of things that happen. You have to make those trade offs all the time. But don't let it stand in the way. Don't let the possibility of a downside take away the probability of an upside. And that's what I think is happening. With the cost of productions getting so high that you look at some of these films, is it ever good business to make a 3 or 400 million dollar mobile moving if the monetization model isn't moving faster and these tools can do a very similar thing for a more controllable price?

[Emma Greed]

Yeah. I mean, and seemingly I think it's really interesting because we talk about Netflix's competition as being other streamers or studios, but I think about YouTube for example. Right. YouTube is where if you're my 11 year old and my 8 year old, they're glued to YouTube for as long as I will allow them to be there, which is not very long. But you know, when you think about what's happening on a platform like that where it's user generated content that is actually costing absolutely nothing and kind of this endless unlimited watch time, how are you thinking about that part of the business?

[Ted Sarandos]

Think about every innovation since you and I were born. Television, pay television, VCRs, DVD players, the Internet, the smartphone, the iPad. Through all of those changes, professional storytelling has been a remarkably resilient business. You know the. Right. I mean the actual hours of consumption of television are pretty flat. They're pretty.

[Emma Greed]

Are they?

[Ted Sarandos]

Oh yeah, for sure. You think they would crater right through all this, but they Actually maintained. And I feel like there's the positive that comes from all that activity on YouTube, which is it's a promotional vehicle for a lot of long form storytelling that people like to have. And then there's this other place where it kind of meets in the middle where creators have a lot more opportunity and access to breakthrough because the cost of production is literally in your pocket right now.

[Emma Greed]

Literally.

[Ted Sarandos]

And distribution is possible too, right. From you never even leave your house. So that's a very. That's unbelievable for creators to be discovered and figure out then how do they go on to tell the stories that we talk about 50 years from now.

[Emma Greed]

Exactly.

[Ted Sarandos]

And so I think it's a great area of opportunity And I think YouTube is a complementary in many ways. Competitive in some ways, of course, because it's TV time, but for the most part it's a great vehicle for discovering new talent, for promoting existing stories. And on the side it's also created its own form of entertainment.

[Emma Greed]

So what do you think that Netflix has that YouTube doesn't then the other way around?

[Ted Sarandos]

Well, one is that for a creator we can do the monetization and share in the financial risk to tell more ambitious stories. So in that way it's all basically you bring the project and we'll share in the rewards. For us, it's like we can share in some of the financial risk and enable more, perhaps more aspirational, more ambitious storytelling.

[Emma Greed]

Yeah, well, I feel like you're doing so many different things. We spoke a bit earlier about the exploration with video podcasts. I'm very lucky that I know all about Ms. Rachel because I have two 3 year olds, so that's a part of my life every day. But also, you know, I had Meghan, Duchess of Sussex on this podcast and she spoke a lot about the type of partnership that you've done with her, which is like outside of the. Outside of the show, the as ever brand. So is that the type of. I'm just trying to think about the mix and the various different parts of the business. Is that more of the direction that you'll go in that will set you apart from the other platforms?

[Ted Sarandos]

Yeah, look, I think what we have is cultural relevance. YouTube does too, but I would say that we have cultural relevance in a way that most outlets do. Not that when you go to a dinner party and someone says, oh my God, did you see the chances are they have Netflix and they can go home and push play and watch it, that's a very big thing. And in fact, I think one thing we Learned early with Megan. She has remarkable influence. Remarkable, remarkable. So when we did the documentary on her and Harry, when we ran the trailer announcing it, people, hundreds of people broke down every frame of the trailer.

[Emma Greed]

And would we note it. We're seeing this on a micro level right now.

[Ted Sarandos]

And the $20 shoes that she got from a village that was making these shoes sold out all over the world. And the $1,500 blanket that was on the chair sold out all over the world.

[Emma Greed]

That's some power. That's some influence.

[Ted Sarandos]

That's incredible power and influence. You can put. And I think that. So that for me it's like, okay, well how do we enable this to be a more holistic thing?

[Emma Greed]

Yes.

[Ted Sarandos]

So that's what that relationship is.

[Emma Greed]

But I mean the consumer products business is a very different thing. Right. For to go from having the data and understanding that a trailer with those two can do those type of numbers and then have the commercial impact to actually starting a brand. A physical product.

[Ted Sarandos]

Documentary itself was also one of the most watched documentaries we've ever had. Wow. So it was very, it was successful in every, by every measure. Now I don't think that you can have a consumer business, a consumer products business if you don't have a great entertainment business. So that's got to come first.

[Emma Greed]

It's got to come first.

[Ted Sarandos]

It's one of the funny things. I don't think much about legacy about.

[Emma Greed]

You don't?

[Ted Sarandos]

No, no, no. For sure.

[Emma Greed]

Not for the company and for yourself or just for yourself?

[Ted Sarandos]

For sure.

[Emma Greed]

Yeah. But for yourself, yeah.

[Ted Sarandos]

So company 100%.

[Emma Greed]

But I think that's so interesting for someone like you.

[Ted Sarandos]

Well, you know what? I read a lot about the history of our business. There's a guy, William Paley from CBS who very few people know who he is or what he does. And he changed everything about tele. He took CBS from radio to television, from syndication to owner operated channels to creating content for the channels out there. Understanding that we can't sell advertising unless people are watching our shows, we had to make great shows. Created the format of color television basically that became pale that you probably use outside of the U.S. but that was all started. See, I'll start by willing pale. So anyone who thinks that anyone's gonna. If they don't remember who William Paley is, they're not gonna remember who I am.

[Emma Greed]

So you're realistic. Fair enough, I'm realistic.

[Ted Sarandos]

So don't think about things like on those terms, but think about things like how do you enable things to go to the next Level, if you're thinking about legacy, you probably get more nervous about risk and you definitely probably get your eye off the prize, which is again, back to the end user.

[Emma Greed]

Yes.

[Ted Sarandos]

These people, they've gotta be entertained. They've gotta love what they're watching. They won't watch ads if they're not. They won't buy products if they're not. They won't stay a subscriber if they're not. So at the end of the day, the whole thing is how do you bring incredible entertainment to people at scale when we have 700 million people who watch Netflix all the time?

[Emma Greed]

It's just wild.

[Ted Sarandos]

Everyone's taste is so remarkably.

[Emma Greed]

Everyone's taste is that we have so much stuff. Yeah.

[Ted Sarandos]

And so.

[Emma Greed]

Yeah, but it's interesting to me because I heard that you kind of set your sights on this $1 trillion valuation, which is by 2030.

[Ted Sarandos]

Am I right in that that's not the goal. That's a possible outcome if we do everything else really well. That's the idea is, I think when we think about how do we continue to grow the business on the trajectory we've been growing on, and we're so under penetrated around the world, it's very possible that we continue to grow on that as long as we execute.

[Emma Greed]

So what are the key strategic moves, but also what are the leadership principles that are gonna get Netflix to the next? Because you're a huge, huge part of that. So how about getting to the next milestone for the business?

[Ted Sarandos]

Well, the core thing is that at our current size and our current membership base and our current engagement, we're about 5% of consumer spending on the things that we do. We're about 10% of TV time in our most mature markets. So we've got, as long as we can, kind of win those moments of truth. We have the movie that you're dying to see, the TV show. You can, you have to stay up one more hour, watch one more episode before you go to bed. As long as we continue to do that at the rate that we're doing and just constantly improve on it, we've got so much room to grow that I mean, imagine when we said double, double the base or double the revenue, double the engagement. You're talking about. You're still in the kind of low double digits in terms of market share. This is a very big market. We're very good at it, but we have to keep being very good at it to keep ahead of everybody else. And how do you kind of beat yourself? Yeah. And how do we beat yourself. We focus on that all the time. How do we be better than Netflix from last year? Reid used to always tell us we suck today compared to what we're going to be tomorrow. So you keep perspective.

[Emma Greed]

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[Ted Sarandos]

So I'll tell you, this is back to that early 1999 meeting with Reid. He said something that now in hindsight was very telling, which was that that I'm going to build a company that's going to be around way after me. So what he said in that explicitly was there was going to be a succession. This company was going to be around longer than Reid. So he started thinking about succession a long time before he actually moved on and he brought me on as a co CEO, which is unheard of for a founder to bring on a coat, to bring the co CEO bring in a co CEO. And what he was doing back then was, I think, trying to prove to himself and to the board and to me that this was a good model and a company, that he and I had this kind of unofficial way of separating the entertainment and the tech side of the business and focusing on those two things. That was never really written in a job description or anything, but that this was a great way to do this and have a successful succession, which would be required if I'm going to have a company that's going to be ran after me.

[Emma Greed]

Right.

[Ted Sarandos]

So, I mean, he's a genius in that way and he's incredibly generous. The fact that I exist makes no sense really, in a way that you'd have to have a CEO with a lack of ego to have the voice and the face of the company so often be someone other than the founding CEO. He was 100% totally committed to the success of the business and he understood human nature enough to know that it was would take proving. So he set off on this plan to have a succession and to create this co CEO model. And I don't think the co CEO model is for everybody, but for our business it works really well. And Greg and I have this relationship similar to what Reid and I had in that our focus is on our deep expertise and our deep passion and we defer to each other in those things that are. What are the things that you know more than I do and you're more passionate about it than I. But that solves all the jump balls, which was my biggest concern about co CEOs down the road would be, well, what do you do when you disagree totally?

[Emma Greed]

What do you do when you disagree?

[Ted Sarandos]

Well, that's it. You defer to each other in the areas of expertise and passion, and then you support each and you support each other no matter what. No matter what. And I think that that's been so important and you say, how do you keep doing this? I think it's a great example. Like last week I was in Madrid at our 10th anniversary event with all of our talent in the media and the government in Spain. And Greg was in the UK at the Wall Street Journal conference. So somehow the CEO of Netflix was in two places at once. It makes it impossible.

[Emma Greed]

Kind of amazing. It brings a whole new meaning to divide and conquer.

[Ted Sarandos]

I want to try it.

[Emma Greed]

Yeah.

[Ted Sarandos]

You have to have two people who respect each other, who like each other, who compliment whose skill sets complement each other. I would say this with complete confidence that I don't want Greg to go away so I could be the CEO, and he doesn't want me to go away so he could be the CEO. I never wanted Reid to go anywhere. So you have to have people like that who mostly are concerned with the success of the business and the welfare of the business over their own title or position or career trajectory.

[Emma Greed]

And what happens with Reid now? Do you still speak to him? Because obviously, he's such a visionary and such an incredible guy all the time. You still have that connectivity around the business.

[Ted Sarandos]

Yeah, it's a great. Like, for us, it's a great safety net. It's a great thing. Hey, we're thinking about this. What do you think about this?

[Emma Greed]

I mean, we'd all take a little conversation with Reid about anything, wouldn't we?

[Ted Sarandos]

100%.

[Emma Greed]

The idea that you get to do it about his baby is a real inspiration. Who else have you had in your career, like a mentor or somebody that's been important to you as you've kind of been in this unbelievable career that you've had for the last 30 years?

[Ted Sarandos]

The thing you said about people who've done it before and people. I mean, it's a real feat to have achieved some of the things that. One of the great luxuries of my job is I've had the opportunity to meet, in some cases, really get to know all my heroes. I don't know. I don't think of anybody, really, that I haven't met yet that I really want to or that I feel like, oh, my God, I can't.

[Emma Greed]

How lucky.

[Ted Sarandos]

And I've taken something from all of those relationships over the years, and they're. By definition, they're older than I am, which is at some point, I realized to myself, well, wow, these my heroes. I'm going to lose them. So when Norman Lear passed, for me, this was like a source of great inspiration, creative inspiration, business inspiration, Understood storytelling, understood the audience, and also was just like a spiritually centered person. And he would make you think bigger than yourself and whatever challenges you might be having right now. We'd sit down to dinner, and almost every single time, he would say the same thing. Imagine how many things had to happen for you and I to be sitting right here right now, every single time. And so. And I knew I was. We were gonna lose Norman at some point. He was. You know, he's 100 years old, but for me, it was one of my great Mentors and heroes that I got incredible experience of spending time with. Recently, I met Dick Van Dyke.

[Emma Greed]

Oh, my goodness. You did?

[Ted Sarandos]

Yeah. And the reason, by the way, I'm.

[Emma Greed]

Such a huge Dick Van Dyke fan, I can't even tell you.

[Ted Sarandos]

So when I used to. When I told you my parents would let me stand all night watching tv, what did I watch?

[Emma Greed]

Well, you had the Dick Van Dyke.

[Ted Sarandos]

Show, Jack Benny, the Burns and Allen, I Love Lucy. And so I've seen every episode of Dick Van Dyke a hundred times. I never got the chance to meet him. And I went out to see him in Malibu.

[Emma Greed]

You did?

[Ted Sarandos]

And I sat for a couple hours.

[Emma Greed]

Is he in Malibu?

[Ted Sarandos]

He's amazing. Yes, he's amazing.

[Emma Greed]

You might find me walking around trying to find him. I mean, I cannot tell you how many times I've watched Mary Poppins just because of Dick Van. I mean, I was just obsessed. I was obsessed with his body movements and the way he had this terrible accent.

[Ted Sarandos]

He doesn't like Mary Poppins from.

[Emma Greed]

No, he doesn't.

[Ted Sarandos]

From Mary Poppins. Disneyland that they were gonna. When they did a remodel or something.

[Emma Greed]

He wanted to do Insane.

[Ted Sarandos]

It's in his living room.

[Emma Greed]

That's a lot to live with. That's a real lot to live with.

[Ted Sarandos]

And then on business side, the Bob Daly who worked for Bill Paley. That's all I know so much about Bill Paley from Bob Daly. You know, to understand. Here's the guy who basically, why there's a movie of the week like that. To me, it's like, that's, you know, the guy who put movies on television.

[Emma Greed]

So how have you. What did you do to cultivate those relationships? Because, again, you were operating in a totally different time, in a totally different. And, you know, like, Netflix was doing stuff that nobody else had done before. So how did you speak to those guys and make it make sense for where you were?

[Ted Sarandos]

I think, early on, I mean, I'm a fan at the core. I'm a fan. I think they're used to talking to a fan. And so that was a big part of it. And I think, again, I have this mixed memories of my parents because young and chaotic and all those things were all true. But also, they created these amazing opportunities that shaped who I am. And when I was, like, 10 years old, my parents would go to Las Vegas for Labor Day weekend and I would get dropped off at the Sands Hotel for the Jerry Lewis telethon, and I would go and watch the show live and then go back and you get in line and you go back through for 24 hours, 10 years old, alone in Las Vegas, going to this thing now because of that. I saw Johnson, I saw George Burns, I saw all these people had such an enormous influence on my life and what I wanted to do. And that encouraged, that built my passion for entertainment in so many ways that because of my parents being kind of reckless, it exposed me to things that I wouldn't have otherwise ever had the opportunity to see and know. So when I talk to. I'm a bit of an old soul in that way. So when I talk to them, I could talk to them about. Because I have a deep knowledge of not just their work, but what was going on in the world when they were doing that. So to me, that's the most valuable thing you could have is a mentor and people who gone ahead of you and have done it at a level that you can only dream of.

[Emma Greed]

That you can only dream of. I want to talk to you a little bit about family because you have a wonderful wife who I know very well, and you've got kids and obviously you've built this career. How do you think about your family and what you've been able to do and put all of those things together? What does that look like for you?

[Ted Sarandos]

It's interesting. Nicole are coming together. Was. So now you look at it and go, of course these two came together. You know, at the time it didn't make any sense.

[Emma Greed]

It seems so obvious to me.

[Ted Sarandos]

It didn't make any sense at the time, but boy, it does now. And I just remember when I first met her, I couldn't take my eyes off her en both because she's beautiful, but also this energy that she had.

[Emma Greed]

But also, I mean, to be quite honest, for a guy like you, from where you were from, you kind of married like a Hollywood princess or something. I don't know how to describe it, but she's like Hollywood royalty, 100%.

[Ted Sarandos]

The fact I didn't even know who she was at the time, which is.

[Emma Greed]

You didn't know who she was when.

[Ted Sarandos]

We met, I did not know who she was. I did not know her family.

[Emma Greed]

So I know the story because I've asked Nicole, you met an Obama fundraiser. You were very late.

[Ted Sarandos]

I was very late.

[Emma Greed]

You got told you were late.

[Ted Sarandos]

Her first words to me were, you are late.

[Emma Greed]

That seems just not Nicole.

[Ted Sarandos]

I watched her work, play this room that she put together, coordinating people. You go there, you go there. If you want to meet the senator, he's not coming to your table. He's going to that table. And I'm like, who is this?

[Emma Greed]

Who is this woman? Yeah.

[Ted Sarandos]

That night after the event, we went, we had dinner, we spoke for three straight hours, and we were married eight months later.

[Emma Greed]

I mean, that's crazy. That's crazy. And I'm pretty sure you must have been quite close to her family, too.

[Ted Sarandos]

Very. And loved her father and her mother and her brother Alex.

[Emma Greed]

I mean. And for those that don't know, I mean, just to talk about Nicole's father just for a second, because it's.

[Ted Sarandos]

Clarence Avon is one of the most important people in the history of show business. And people think they Simple. They boil it down to say, you.

[Emma Greed]

Know, the Godfather, Godfather of black music.

[Ted Sarandos]

It wasn't just music. It was everything. I mean, he got Muhammad Ali a TV special on ABC and negotiated, which changed the whole trajectory of his personality.

[Emma Greed]

Yeah. And Nicole grew up around that. I mean, she grew up right at the.

[Ted Sarandos]

These people who I dreamed about meeting when I was a kid. They were at Nicole's house every day.

[Emma Greed]

Yes.

[Ted Sarandos]

And for her, it was almost like. Oh. Like she couldn't understand why people were so excited that Harry was at their house. And it was Harry Belafonte.

[Emma Greed]

She's like, yeah, yeah. Oh, him.

[Ted Sarandos]

Yeah. And every kid has Muhammad Ali doing magic tricks at their birthday party, don't they? So. But what was really great about it for me at the time, too, was meeting, getting to know Clarence and getting to know more about him and someone who understood what I was doing.

[Emma Greed]

Yes.

[Ted Sarandos]

My parents, unfortunately, did not really understand, you know, my business.

[Emma Greed]

And listen, nobody can. But somebody like that must have been incredibly, incredibly important, I guess. Important to you.

[Ted Sarandos]

100%. I mean, this guy was like the consummate dealmaker.

[Emma Greed]

Yes.

[Ted Sarandos]

And he would. And I would. Making complex deals, like, very complex deals. And we'd go walk through something he did in the 60s or the 70s or the 80s that had incredible similarities. He, in fact, I think, was a big inspiration for me around why you take care of talent? Because they need to. They need to be able to focus on creation. And they can't do that if they're worried about getting crushed on a deal. And they've got to have people to have their back. So all these things, I think, is why he was so respected. And so I didn't know his story, which at the end was ridiculous. I didn't know his story.

[Emma Greed]

Yeah, no, it's like more. I mean, again, I watched the documentary.

[Ted Sarandos]

And, like, the Colt made this great documentary called the Black Godfather.

[Emma Greed]

I mean, so it was such a Great documentary. But again, I don't think I knew. I don't know an eighth of anything that was in there. It's really surprising.

[Ted Sarandos]

We're a product of our parents.

[Emma Greed]

Yes, we are better or worse.

[Ted Sarandos]

And, you know, for Nicole, she got the better of both of her parents, which is amazing. I think growing up in that house, prepared for the life that we live in so many ways.

[Emma Greed]

No doubt.

[Ted Sarandos]

And I told you, her mother, Jacqueline, not only was just a role model of elegance, but also when she got into something, she got in deep. Just that Nicole, and I'm sure you heard the story, but the spinoff from Bridgerton, Queen Charlotte, Nicole's mother, Jacqueline, was an enormous history and thought it was very important to make sure her kids understood black history. So Queen Charlotte, obviously black royalty. She tells me one day, you should have it. Someone should make a movie about Queen Charlotte. And I go, no, we did. It's on. She's a character on Bridgerton. And she goes, no, no, the real Queen Charlotte. So she goes disappears down the hall. She comes back with a stack of books and two handwritten letters that Queen Charlotte herself had written that she bought at auction years ago.

[Emma Greed]

I used to.

[Ted Sarandos]

And she goes, get educated on Queen Charlotte and hands me the stack.

[Emma Greed]

And you're like, okay, I will.

[Ted Sarandos]

I went home and did what I should do. I read those books. I read those letters. And I called Shonda Rhimes and I said, shonda, this character, now that you've introduced her to the world, someone's gonna make this movie. Yes, you should do it.

[Emma Greed]

It needs to be you.

[Ted Sarandos]

She goes, let me talk. Send me what? Send me what she sent. I sent it to her. She called me the next day, says, we're doing this.

[Emma Greed]

Obsessed.

[Ted Sarandos]

So that's why Chandler, Rhonda dedicated the first episode to Jackie, as she should. Yeah.

[Emma Greed]

So beautiful. I love that. All right, so my one last question before I move you to rapid fire. I just want to understand, in terms of your kids, what do you think, given everything you know, what are you teaching your own children about their careers, about business, about what's important? Like, what are the lessons that you've learned that you really want to pass on?

[Ted Sarandos]

So my daughter Sarah, as a producer who's just had her first film as a producer into the Tribeca and South by South.

[Emma Greed]

Are you very proud, Ted?

[Ted Sarandos]

Very proud. Very proud. My son is an editor. He's very talented. He knew at 12 years old he wanted to be an editor. He and his Buddies had a YouTube channel and used to cut videos. And my Daughter wasn't sure. She kind of fell into it a little bit. She moved to New York. Her first job in New York was a PA on uncut gems for a 20. You know, so basically with two brilliant indie directors, the Safdie Brothers, making an indie film in New York in October, this is hard work. I said if you.

[Emma Greed]

Pretty hard work.

[Ted Sarandos]

If you come through that and you still want to do this, you found something. And she came out of it on fire. And so she's been working her way through networking, and, you know, she's someone who could solve almost any problem on a set. She's very impressive that way. And Tony, like I said, is a very gifted editor. He went to Charlotte, went to Chapman for film school. He went a very different route. Sarah did it kind of on the job. Tony went to school and networked that way. The one thing I try to impress on both of them, even though they're taking very different approaches, is to be dependable. Probably the most important thing in any job, in any role, is that you can be depended on. Show up when you're supposed to show up, be the one that people can count on to do whatever, and that you'll do that to get to the next place all the time. Being dependable is so important. It's probably a lost art in some ways, because I think there's a certain entitlement to us, to younger generations that get lost in that thing. Like, you owe it to the world to show up.

[Emma Greed]

You owe it to the world to.

[Ted Sarandos]

Show it to the world to show up.

[Emma Greed]

You owe it to yourself. I think that's what people really, really forget. I love that. No one. It's so funny. That's not an answer that people give. Be dependable.

[Ted Sarandos]

Yeah.

[Emma Greed]

Pretty simple.

[Ted Sarandos]

It'll get you pretty far. It'll get you far. It'll get you into rooms that you probably wouldn't have gotten into before. And I think it'll have. You'll be high on the list when people are thinking about the next one.

[Emma Greed]

Yeah, it's a really true one. Thank you for that. I love it. All right, onto the rapid fire. We'll go quick. So first thing you do when you wake up in the morning and the.

[Ted Sarandos]

Last thing at night, I'm watching something just before I go to bed. I mean, I watch a lot of movies and television, not just Netflix, but all the competition, too. So I'm sure at the end of the night, I mostly watch. But the literal unsexy thing I do is take my dogs out to go to the Bathroom.

[Emma Greed]

There you go. That'll do.

[Ted Sarandos]

And then I wake up and feed them.

[Emma Greed]

I'm happy to know that's you because I can't see Nicole in whatever caftanic she's like wearing. Doing the dogs.

[Ted Sarandos]

Very elegantly doing the dogs. She is. She is very elegantly doing the dogs. I am begrudgingly doing the dogs.

[Emma Greed]

Fair. Okay. There you go. What are you currently aspiring for in your business life?

[Ted Sarandos]

I think it's amazing to me that 26, you know, I'm into the 26 year at Netflix. I still get out of bed like it's day one. It's so exciting for me still. And the challenges of the business are big and evolving. There's not. I don't. I haven't had two years of net in the 25 that ever benefited.

[Emma Greed]

So lucky.

[Ted Sarandos]

Yeah. And I just want to keep pushing the business to keep the spirit of that alive and pushing into the next thing all the time. So that hardcore contrarian bet that we are. Are we still doing that? Are we still doing that?

[Emma Greed]

And what are you aspiring for in your personal life?

[Ted Sarandos]

I don't know. I turned 60 this year.

[Emma Greed]

Congratulations.

[Ted Sarandos]

Thank you for getting there, I guess.

[Emma Greed]

Yeah.

[Ted Sarandos]

And I really. I don't have regrets, you know, but I. My goal is that I maintain that I don't want to have regrets. I did tell the kids. I got back to advice for the kids. I told both Tony and Sarah. My only regret, really, as a young man was that I didn't spend a couple of years in New York in my 20s.

[Emma Greed]

I mean, New York in your 20s, that's a vibe.

[Ted Sarandos]

And they said they didn't really understand.

[Emma Greed]

It, like, why you guys go do it.

[Ted Sarandos]

And I said, yeah, because I go.

[Emma Greed]

By go do that.

[Ted Sarandos]

You will tolerate how crazy. It'll be an adventure in your 20s. It may not be in your 30s and 40s when you have other responsibilities.

[Emma Greed]

No. But New York, London, like a proper city like that, in your 20s, nothing can beat it.

[Ted Sarandos]

And Sarah just turned 30 and she's been living in New York now. She's been for years. And she loves it. She's a New Yorker.

[Emma Greed]

There you go.

[Ted Sarandos]

It wasn't for Toni. Tony decided not to take me up on that.

[Emma Greed]

Listen, one out of two is not bad. I would be happy. I'd be happy with that.

[Ted Sarandos]

Think about my path. That's the one thing I wish I had done.

[Emma Greed]

Yeah, that's not a bad bet to have. That'd be all right. You can go and spend, you know, your 70s in New York. There's always that day. It could be a rager.

[Ted Sarandos]

It's also an adventure.

[Emma Greed]

In your 70s, what is a book that changed your life?

[Ted Sarandos]

There's a book that Joe Franklin, who is a local New York television guy, wrote called the History of Comedy. And it was. I stole it from the school library in high school and it was because I couldn't stop reading it. I read it over and over again and it's all about comedy and comedians and the evolution from vaudeville to radio to television to film. And I'm sure I have the book still. It still has the Alhambra High School stamp on the inside.

[Emma Greed]

It probably does.

[Ted Sarandos]

I wonder what the language.

[Emma Greed]

You're a real comedy person, aren't you? I mean, one of my favorite things that happens in LA is like the Netflix comedy. What do you call it?

[Ted Sarandos]

Netflix is a joke.

[Emma Greed]

Netflix is a joke. I mean, I literally, that's my week. I just go to a show every single night. I think it's one of the best things that happen in the city. It's the most fun.

[Ted Sarandos]

Yeah. So, yeah, comedy has been the root of a lot of this stuff because. Because to me that's always been a challenge. Business environment, comedians. And then the idea that. Think about somebody like Lorne Michaels, who I think has been the most influential person in the history of comedy.

[Emma Greed]

No doubt.

[Ted Sarandos]

And I don't think anyone will ever be more influential than him.

[Emma Greed]

I mean, probably not. How do you do that body of work and that legacy and those career.

[Ted Sarandos]

Is the number of hours of television and film. So I think about all those things that again, back to rooted in comedy. Reading his book right now is phenomenal.

[Emma Greed]

Lauren. I'd like to read that book.

[Ted Sarandos]

It's such a great book.

[Emma Greed]

I mean. Yeah. So incredible. What is something that you valued when you were starting out that you no longer value?

[Ted Sarandos]

Hmm. That's a great. I would say I really valued sleep, but more than I do now. It seems backwards.

[Emma Greed]

It does seem backwards. But I love that you know what.

[Ted Sarandos]

It was because I didn't sleep a lot. I never was. I was always like a five hour sleeper. So every once in a while you'd get like an eight hour stretch of sleep and you're like, oh my God, that was the. But I feel like I'm a little backwards on that now.

[Emma Greed]

That'll work. And what is something that you value now that you didn't back then?

[Ted Sarandos]

Time.

[Emma Greed]

Time, no doubt.

[Ted Sarandos]

Yeah, I think it's finite, you know, and it just.

[Emma Greed]

Well, this time has been amazing. Thank you so much, David.

[Ted Sarandos]

Thank you.

[Emma Greed]

Love speaking to you.

[Ted Sarandos]

This is great. Thank you.

[Emma Greed]

If you're loving this podcast, be sure to click Follow on your favorite listening platform. While you're there, give us a review and a five star rating and share an episode you loved with a friend. You'll be so grateful. Aspire with Emma Greed is presented by Audacy. I'm your host, Emma Greed. Our executive producers are Corrine Gilliatt Fisher, Derek Brown and me. Our executive producers from Audacy are Maddy Sprung Keyser, Leah Reese, Dennis, Ashley Saludja and Jenna Weiss Berman. Stephen Key is our senior producer. Sound design and engineering by Bill Schultz. Angela Peluso is our booker. Original music by Charles Black Video production by Evan Cox, Kirk Courtney, Andrew Steele, Carlos Delgado and Arnie Agassi. Social Media by Olivia Homan Special thanks to Brittany Smith, Sydney Ford My teams at the lead company and WWE WME Maura Curran, Josephina Francis, Hilary Schuff, Eric Donnelly, Kate Hutchinson, Rose, Tim Meikle, Sean Cherry and Lauren Vieira. If you have questions for me, you could DM me at Aspire with Emma Greed. Greed is spelled G R E D E. That's Aspire A S P I R E with Emma Greed. Or you can submit a question to me on my website. Emma Greed Me Calling all sourdough tamers, souffle whisperers, Jammy Egg Savants Whether you're a pro, behind the line or just mastering your weeknight favorites, one brand can seriously uplevel your kitchen game. Hedley and Bennett. They make premium kitchen gear that's the perfect blend of style, durability and function. We're talking everything from aprons to super sharp Japanese steel knives, tools that not only look great, but truly perform. They've sold over a million aprons, and it shows. You've probably spotted them on top chefs, in your favorite restaurants and on your go to cooking shows. That's because every Headley and Bennett product is designed by chefs for chefs, using only the highest quality materials and they're built to last. Literally every product comes with a lifetime guarantee. If you're looking for a standout gift, their new collabs with mlb, NFL, Star Wars, Disney and more make Headley and Bennett the perfect gift for every cook and every fan. Check them out and see why pros and home cooks alike swear by them. Ready to upgrade your kitchen? Head over to Hedley and Bennett.com and use code podcast15 at checkout for 15% off your order. That's podcast15 for 15% off. Elevate your cooking experience with Headley and Bennett today.