Skip to content
Nikhil KamathNikhil Kamath

Nikhil Kamath x Netflix Co-CEO, Ted Sarandos | People by WTF | Ep. 10

In this candid deep dive, I sit down with Netflix Co-CEO Ted Sarandos to unpack the company’s remarkable journey from a DVD-by-mail service to a global streaming giant. We revisit Netflix's early battle with Blockbuster, the bold pivot to streaming, the company’s plans for India, and how they cracked the code on turning binge-watching into a universal habit. What was interesting for me was how he spots the next phenomenon before the world catches on. For anyone in media, tech, or entrepreneurship, here’s a masterclass in building and scaling in the entertainment space, and a reminder that you don’t always need a long story, just the right one. #NikhilKamath - Investor & Entrepreneur Twitter: https://x.com/nikhilkamathcio LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nikhilkamathcio/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nikhilkamathcio/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/nikhilkamathcio/ #TedSarandos - Co-CEO, Netflix LinkedIN: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tedsarandos/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/tedsarandos Timestamps: 00:00 - Intro 01:32 - Ted’s favourite Indian creator 02:15 - Netflix’s journey, pivots & vision 08:34 - Netflix’s hiring culture 11:52 - Ted’s journalism roots 14:06 - Ted’s childhood & relationship with money 16:39 - Rapid fire & banter 18:17 - How much of the world is narrative? 19:52 - Competing with Blockbuster 25:13 - Content choices, projections & finding tribes 28:05 - What defines success for Netflix 33:56 - How to best serve your story? 37:15 - Career advice & work cultures in India vs. US 41:02 - Will Netflix produce theatrical movies? 42:20 - Future of the theatre business 45:30 - The next big disruption 47:40 - Can AI create movies? 51:42 - Netflix’s tech & what it’s doing right 57:38 - Competing with other distributors 1:02:39 - Netflix’s streaming strategy 1:03:44 - What happens to conventional TV? 1:05:01 - Why people love true crime 1:06:11 - Why Netflix isn’t betting on live sports broadcasting 1:10:24 - India’s subscription model: why it’s a tough sell 1:13:29 - Will Netflix have an ads-only model? 1:16:58 - Married life 1:18:43 - How important is India for Netflix? 1:21:57 - Adapting to country-specific dynamics 1:24:28 - How Netflix greenlights projects 1:24:53 - A founder’s baggage: filling big shoes 1:28:17 - Validation & leadership 1:32:11 - Indian personality who left a lasting impression on Ted 1:34:11 - Ted’s secret to greenlighting hits 1:41:36 - How diversity contributes to Netflix’s success 1:42:42 - Can Netflix be global & local in India? 1:44:47 - Hollywood vs. Netflix 1:45:49 - Netflix’s role in podcasting’s future 1:47:16 - Youth & attention span 1:48:44 - Netflix’s future in gaming 1:51:56 - Closing thoughts Watch 'WTF is' Podcast on Spotify https://tinyurl.com/4nsm4ezn Watch 'People by WTF' Podcast on Spotify https://tinyurl.com/yme92c59 Watch 'WTF Online' on Spotify https://tinyurl.com/4tjua4th #WTFiswithnikhilkamath #PeopleByWTF #WTFOnline

Nikhil KamathhostTed Sarandosguest
Jun 7, 20251h 54mWatch on YouTube ↗

EVERY SPOKEN WORD

  1. 0:00 – 1:32

    Intro

    1. NK

      [upbeat music] If you were to describe Ted, the human, in three words, what would the three words be? [upbeat music] Hi, Ted.

    2. TS

      Hey, how are you?

    3. NK

      Thank you. Good.

    4. TS

      Thanks for having me.

    5. NK

      Thank you for coming. Uh, so you've been in India for 12 hours now?

    6. TS

      About [chuckles] about 12 hours, yeah.

    7. NK

      How does it feel?

    8. TS

      I love being- coming to India so much, and it's... I never get enough time here.

    9. NK

      Mm-hmm.

    10. TS

      Usually I come, and I've got a- they've got me working and grinding me out, and then shoot me back out, back in the sky.

    11. NK

      What-

    12. TS

      But it's, uh, it's a, it's a... I love the energy of India.

    13. NK

      What have you done so far today?

    14. TS

      Today, I, uh, came in, I met with the ministers, and I met-- I went to the Waves conference and spoke on stage-

    15. NK

      Mm-hmm

    16. TS

      ... and was interviewed. Uh.

  2. 1:32 – 2:15

    Ted’s favourite Indian creator

    1. NK

      Do you have a favorite creator in India?

    2. TS

      That's like, you know, we work with so many, it'd be like, uh, picking your kids, but, you know, picking your favorite child almost. But I have to tell you, early, early in coming to India, I met, uh, Shah Rukh Khan right away-

    3. NK

      Mm-hmm

    4. TS

      ... early, and we just, he hosted a very nice little dinner for, for me, and we just hit it off immediately. And, uh, I've come back since with my, with my wife, and we've had, uh, a ni- nice times together. I, he, we visited with each other in Los Angeles when his son was in school, uh, so we got to go out to dinner. So going, having dinner with Shah Rukh Khan in India is much different than having dinner with him-

    5. NK

      Yeah

    6. TS

      ... in, in Los Angeles. Uh, but so I would say, I mean, that's probably who, someone I know the most-

    7. NK

      Yeah

    8. TS

      ... and really enjoy

  3. 2:15 – 8:34

    Netflix’s journey, pivots & vision

    1. TS

      working with.

    2. NK

      So you've been at Netflix forever.

    3. TS

      Twenty-five years this, this... Just recently passed 25th, my past, my 25th year anniversary.

    4. NK

      I have watched a lot of your interviews, probably most of them.

    5. TS

      Sorry. [laughing]

    6. NK

      [laughing] I know Reed a little bit-

    7. TS

      Yeah

    8. NK

      ... 'cause we're in the Gates pledge together, so we have one offsite we do every year, which Gates organizes. And funnily enough, me and him did a speaking session last year, not on camera.

    9. TS

      Yeah.

    10. NK

      And I was asking him a bunch of questions on the, on a lot of the same stuff, like, "Where is content, the media space today, and where will it be at tomorrow?" And I've been reading about the story of Netflix and how many pivots you've had from starting off one way-

    11. TS

      Yeah

    12. NK

      ... to becoming another thing, to becoming another thing, and maybe you're another thing tomorrow altogether again. Uh, would you like to tell me the story in your words? You've been there almost from the beginning, and-

    13. TS

      Yeah, I, I met Reed in 1999-

    14. NK

      Mm

    15. TS

      ... October of 1999, and he... I, I had a, I was in the home video business for many years before. Um, I knew of Netflix because I bought a DVD player, and I opened up the box, and there was a card in there to join this thing called Netflix, and you could rent DVDs through the mail. Not subscription yet.

    16. NK

      Right.

    17. TS

      In fact, you just rent them one at a time.

    18. NK

      Yeah.

    19. TS

      And I never... I thought, "That's clever," you know, I, I thought, and I never really thought about it again much. And then a friend of mine, who I knew through the home video distribution, was working at Netflix, and Reed was trying to... They were trying, uh, their business was growing. They needed more inventory all the time. They had burned through all the cash, uh, and we need... And basically, the company at the time was buying all the DVDs from Walmart and Best Buy and that kind of thing. And, um, and he really was trying to figure out just how the distribution system worked. So this guy Mitch said, "Oh, you, um, this guy, Ted-

    20. NK

      Mm-hmm

    21. TS

      ... he just did a deal with the studios where they could, uh, where you could do revenue share."

    22. NK

      Mm-hmm.

    23. TS

      "Where you don't pay the, for the movies. They, you just pay every time they rent." And Reed goes, "Oh, we should talk to him." [chuckles] So he introduced us, and, uh, I did-

    24. NK

      What year was this?

    25. TS

      This was in 1999.

    26. NK

      Mm-hmm.

    27. TS

      And the, I was working for a company called, uh, West Coast Video at the time, which is like a, a smaller version of Hollywood or Blockbuster Video, you know?

    28. NK

      Mm-hmm.

    29. TS

      Um, and I did these deals, uh, for the same reason N- Netflix needed them. We had no cash. My business was very bad. And he, he, uh... So he, I did what was my first e-commerce transaction of any kind-

    30. NK

      Mm-hmm

  4. 8:34 – 11:52

    Netflix’s hiring culture

    1. NK

      Right. So when Reed started the company with this other person, Mark Randolph, I think-

    2. TS

      Mark Randolph, yeah.

    3. NK

      Uh, I remember reading this story about them. When he came back and took over the company as a CEO, Reed had already taken another company public-

    4. TS

      Yeah

    5. NK

      ... and he asked Mark to step down and took over. This culture of hiring, testing people quickly-

    6. TS

      Yeah

    7. NK

      ... and firing either very quickly or the ones that managed to stay in the ecosystem get paid a lot of money, it's a very different culture from many other corporations that have been built. Does that work for Netflix?

    8. TS

      It works very well for Netflix.

    9. NK

      Mm.

    10. TS

      I, I feel like it was a... mostly because it was articulated when you came in, and Reed's vision for i- I remember at the time I joined, including everyone who was stuffing envelopes, there was probably 175 people.

    11. NK

      Mm.

    12. TS

      And he was talking about talent density-

    13. NK

      Mm

    14. TS

      ... being an issue.

    15. NK

      Mm.

    16. TS

      And I go, "Talent density? You got s- 175 [chuckles] people here. What are you talking about?"

    17. NK

      Mm.

    18. TS

      And he goes, "I know, but we're gonna have these- we're gonna have tens of thousands of people, and tal- talent density will really matter."

    19. NK

      Mm.

    20. TS

      And, and I didn't even really even understand the concept, to be honest with you.

    21. NK

      Right.

    22. TS

      And he said, "No, it, the..." He said, "Why do these companies, these startups that start up, why- and they get great, and then they become big, fat companies and fail?

    23. NK

      Mm.

    24. TS

      Why is that? Well, the bigger you get, the further the core pe- the people who are working on it get away from the core mission. You get hiring people who do- who didn't start it, who didn't... It's not their passion-

    25. NK

      Mm-hmm

    26. TS

      ... maybe not even their core skill. Um, and you start building the business, so you can a- accommodate, uh, people who are not as good as the people you started with.

    27. NK

      Right.

    28. TS

      And you- and then, so, so you don't want chaos, so you have a bunch of rules, and then you start attracting people who like to work in places with a lot of rules. And then he, he said, "You can, um, you can idiot-proof your business, but then-

    29. NK

      Mm

    30. TS

      ... you're gonna end up with a business full of idiots." So the idea was really focus on talent density and tell everybody up front-

  5. 11:52 – 14:06

    Ted’s journalism roots

    1. NK

      Right. You were always into journalism, Ted. This is what I read-

    2. TS

      Yeah

    3. NK

      ... that in college, you ran the newspaper. You were the editor. You wanted to be a journalist growing up?

    4. TS

      I did. As a, as a kid, I really admired journalists.

    5. NK

      Mm.

    6. TS

      I, I, uh, I grew up in Phoenix, Arizona-

    7. NK

      Mm

    8. TS

      ... and there's a, there was a, a reporter. His name was Don Bowles.... and he was doing a story about, he was covering a, a story about the m- the mob, the mob in Arizona, mobsters. And he got blown up and killed in his car. And I just, I remember that vividly, that story, even as a very young man, thinking that all he had to do was not write that story, and they wouldn't have killed him.

    9. NK

      Mm.

    10. TS

      And he had to write the story. And I just thought that, that, that was a, a level of heroes- of heroics that I didn't see in other things. So I, uh, set out to be a journalist and, um, started writing for the- you know, got on the school newspaper, became the editor of the school newspaper, and then went to two years of community college, uh, where I also mostly just worked on the newspaper and didn't go to class. Uh, so but they... I, I had realized somewhere around my second year of community college that I probably was never going to be a professional journalist. I wasn't that good. I wasn't that good. I don't, I don't know how I got that far from age 10 to 19 or so, uh, without anyone telling me that I was just an okay writer.

    11. NK

      And what was the trigger emotion? Like, the hero element of writing about something that everybody is scared to write about, is that the hero element? Or being able to depict a event in a manner that is more comprehendible than most?

    12. TS

      I think, um, some version of being a real source of truth, I think is a real commendable thing in a society.

    13. NK

      Why is that?

    14. TS

      Uh, being able to tell the truth.

    15. NK

      Is there such a thing as truth?

    16. TS

      Yeah, yeah.

    17. NK

      Everything is a interpretation from one lens or another-

    18. TS

      Yeah

    19. NK

      ... right?

    20. TS

      Yeah, I mean, you, look it, I definitely think that you, um, can watch... Two people can watch the same event and see two different things, but those, something happened, and you can explore it from man, multiple angles, but-

    21. NK

      Mm-hmm

    22. TS

      ... yeah, you, what, what you can't do is say, "That didn't happen."

    23. NK

      Right.

    24. TS

      Yeah.

    25. NK

      Okay.

  6. 14:06 – 16:39

    Ted’s childhood & relationship with money

    1. NK

      So you grew up, went to college, worked in the school newspaper, started working at a rental store, met Reed, started at Netflix.

    2. TS

      Yeah.

    3. NK

      That-

    4. TS

      The thing, it's funny, when the rental store was my first job-

    5. NK

      Uh-huh

    6. TS

      ... so I was, when I was going to school, I was working at the video store part-time. That was my part-time job. I paid my, my, I had to pay my own way through school. And, uh, the guy I met when in the, in the store, it was like a serendipitous thing. My, my mom, we- I thought we were poor. Like, I'd always think that-

    7. NK

      Mm

    8. TS

      ... I thought because our, we lived poorly. We had, um, our utilities would get turned off all the time, so we either, if we had the electricity on, we didn't have the water, or the water was off, the phone was off, or one of these things. But, but my mom always had these, like, luxury things, so she would... So she was just bad with money. We weren't that poor, really. But she had like, she bought... The first person I know who bought a VCR, and there was no reason to even own a VCR yet. [chuckles] You know, there weren't video stores yet, so you couldn't record things.

    9. NK

      Are you the opposite of that? Are you a frugal person when it comes to family?

    10. TS

      I think, um, when it comes to family?

    11. NK

      Yeah. Like, I feel like whatever my parents were-

    12. TS

      Yeah

    13. NK

      ... whatever they had excess of as a quality, as a emotional quality, I might overcompensate on the other end.

    14. TS

      I think when it comes to family, I'm generous. When it comes to my per- per- me personally, I'm frugal.

    15. NK

      Right.

    16. TS

      Like, I don't spend a lot on things for myself.

    17. NK

      Why, why is that? I see this in a lot of people where, I'm not saying your family is a patriarchy, I know your wife is a very accomplished person-

    18. TS

      Yeah

    19. NK

      ... who was an am- ambassador and all of that. But I see a lot of people, for the lack of a better word, the patriarch, the male breadwinner, the primary breadwinner of the family, is generally putting on the projection or the mask of frugality. Is it to subconsciously project onto the other family members that you are doing more by also contributing in that manner?

    20. TS

      [chuckles] Is it self-serving?

    21. NK

      Yeah.

    22. TS

      Like being, being-

    23. NK

      Everything in life-

    24. TS

      Yeah

    25. NK

      ... is self-serving.

    26. TS

      Yeah.

    27. NK

      Don't you think?

    28. TS

      Yeah, I think so. I think so.

    29. NK

      Yeah.

    30. TS

      Look, some of it is role... You, you think you're role modeling it.

  7. 16:39 – 18:17

    Rapid fire & banter

    1. NK

      If you were to describe Ted, the human, in three words, what would the three words be?

    2. TS

      [lips smack] Um, I'll go back to creative-

    3. NK

      Mm-hmm

    4. TS

      ... 'cause I think that's something I pride myself on.

    5. NK

      Mm-hmm.

    6. TS

      Uh, uh, curious-

    7. NK

      Mm-hmm

    8. TS

      ... and honest.

    9. NK

      Hmm.

    10. TS

      I mean, curious, you could say searching instead of curious, but-

    11. NK

      Yeah

    12. TS

      ... those are all nice att- those are all good. Those are all positive attributes, [chuckles] I guess. [chuckles]

    13. NK

      [chuckles] Honest about?

    14. TS

      Everything I can be.

    15. NK

      One thing that is wrong with the world today?

    16. TS

      Uh, lack of trust.

    17. NK

      Because?

    18. TS

      Probably because of the internet. [laughing] I mean, just the division of, the division of things, where you just start, um, probably... It, it, it goes back further than the internet. Obviously.

    19. NK

      Mm.

    20. TS

      It goes back, uh, for me, growing up in America, um, this journalist that I l- that I so admired, um, they probably started it, um-

    21. NK

      Mm

    22. TS

      ... by bringing down Nixon-

    23. NK

      Right

    24. TS

      ... uh, by telling the truth.

    25. NK

      Right.

    26. TS

      Which then people stopped having faith in systems-

    27. NK

      Mm

    28. TS

      ... and hierarchies. Uh, and then, so I, I often had the arguments with Reed-

    29. NK

      Mm

    30. TS

      ... when I would said, say that when Walter Cronkite-

  8. 18:17 – 19:52

    How much of the world is narrative?

    1. NK

      How much of the world today, Ted, is narrative?... I feel like there is an online world, there is a real world, and there is another world where our families live in and where we are more ourselves than we are in the other places. A lot of perception of how we are viewed in society has become a factor of the online world, because everybody's online so much of the time.

    2. TS

      Yeah.

    3. NK

      What do you think about that?

    4. TS

      Well, it's almost like once- you and I are having a conversation right now, I see the camera right there.

    5. NK

      Yeah. [laughs]

    6. TS

      [laughs] I know this is gonna be recorded-

    7. NK

      Yeah

    8. TS

      ... and played for other people.

    9. NK

      Would you say something differently-

    10. TS

      So-

    11. NK

      -if you could manifest no cameras around, and you could imagine that they didn't exist?

    12. TS

      I, I think I, I think I would.

    13. NK

      Right.

    14. TS

      I mean, I think, but I, I think I would, would m- be materials, maybe say m- things materially different.

    15. NK

      Right.

    16. TS

      But I, but, um, but I am aware of it, and so which changes the dynamic of the situation. So, so I think that because we're having this conversation and because it's being filmed-

    17. NK

      Mm-hmm

    18. TS

      ... uh, and it's gonna exist on the internet for a l- for a long time-

    19. NK

      Yeah

    20. TS

      ... uh, that people, you know, people will be slightly guarded.

    21. NK

      Right.

    22. TS

      And so then ther- therefore, I know that when I see anything-

    23. NK

      Right

    24. TS

      ... on the internet, on television, anywhere, that is slightly manufactured, slightly guarded.

    25. NK

      Mm.

    26. TS

      And every once in a while, when you see something that is not-

    27. NK

      Mm

    28. TS

      ... it's a rev- it's, it's a marvel. It's a revelation when you see something-

    29. NK

      Yeah

    30. TS

      ... that is authentic and real.

  9. 19:52 – 25:13

    Competing with Blockbuster

    1. NK

      So you joined Netflix, and then? Y- you were competing initially with Blockbuster.

    2. TS

      Blockbuster, which was as big a competitor as we could have imagined when-

    3. NK

      Right

    4. TS

      ... back then, yeah.

    5. NK

      How was that? How was that journey? Here is this behemoth, which was, what? An $8 billion company back then.

    6. TS

      Eight billion.

    7. NK

      And what was-

    8. TS

      Unimaginable that we could grow to $8 billion.

    9. NK

      Yeah. And $8 billion in 2003 is like, I don't know, $100 billion today.

    10. TS

      Today, yeah, yeah.

    11. NK

      Yeah.

    12. TS

      Yeah, and, and they were global.

    13. NK

      Uh.

    14. TS

      They were really the only glob- the only thing that we were aspiring to do, Blockbuster was the only company doing it, a, a real global entertainment brand.

    15. NK

      Right.

    16. TS

      D- Disney, for sure, but they were also-

    17. NK

      Mm

    18. TS

      ... uh, a very specific, narrow niche.

    19. NK

      Mm.

    20. TS

      But yeah.

    21. NK

      So when you started delivering DVDs to people's homes, mail order or whatever, it used to take two, three weeks, is what I read.

    22. TS

      Yeah, um, we had, uh, at beginning, we only had one center in California.

    23. NK

      Right.

    24. TS

      And it would take three to five days to get to the East Coast.

    25. NK

      Mm-hmm.

    26. TS

      Uh, and then California got one-day service all the time. So, uh, it took, it took us a while to figure out that the people in California liked it much better-

    27. NK

      Mm-hmm

    28. TS

      ... than the people in New York.

    29. NK

      Mm-hmm.

    30. TS

      So we started opening centers around the country so that we can get the one-day service. E- eventually, when the, at the peak of the DVD business-

  10. 25:13 – 28:05

    Content choices, projections & finding tribes

    1. NK

      Is that still true, like, people feel like they get judged by the content they consume?

    2. TS

      They do.

    3. NK

      It's almost a projection thing again?

    4. TS

      Yeah, like, I think there's, there's... We used to do this thing, uh, where you could put your, the things that were in your DVD queue.

    5. NK

      Mm-hmm.

    6. TS

      You could pu- you know, push a button, and put it on your Facebook profile, your... And there were some people who, um, wanted you to see their queue, and they didn't care about yours at all. [laughing]

    7. NK

      Mm.

    8. TS

      So that's that, that's a thing about it. It would say something about-

    9. NK

      Right

    10. TS

      ... their personality, that you'll think more of me if these movies are good.

    11. NK

      It's a bit like people posting pictures of the books they're reading on social media-

    12. TS

      Yeah

    13. NK

      ... which they might not be reading.

    14. TS

      Yes, but in some cases, they're maybe recommending the book because it moved them so much.

    15. NK

      Yeah.

    16. TS

      Or in other ones, they might just be saying, "Oh, look what I'm reading," yeah.

    17. NK

      The former might happen a lot more than the latter, I presume.

    18. TS

      Well, the other telling one for us on this one-

    19. NK

      Mm

    20. TS

      ... was the movies, we looked at how long people kept movies, and the movies that stayed out the longest are the ones that people are, are putting off watching, you know?

    21. NK

      Mm.

    22. TS

      So what sat on top of the TV the longest? And it was Gone with the Wind and Citizen Kane, all the greats that they thought they had to watch or should watch.

    23. NK

      Right.

    24. TS

      They never got around to them, [laughing] but they liked the idea that they could.

    25. NK

      Mm.

    26. TS

      Yeah.

    27. NK

      That's so interesting, though. Even in society today, a lot of our choices are less for us, but more to fit into the mold of the projection that we're putting out, right?

    28. TS

      Yeah.

    29. NK

      Yeah, like I would-

    30. TS

      That is one of the cool things about the internet, I think, that people were able to find their tribes.

  11. 28:05 – 33:56

    What defines success for Netflix

    1. NK

      What is a win for you? Like, if I am a Netflix subscriber, I pay my $5 fee. When I land on a Netflix screen, the homepage, and you're watching me land there, what's a win for you and what is a loss for you?

    2. TS

      Well-

    3. NK

      Is there something you want me to click?

    4. TS

      N- no, we just want you to pick the movie that you're gonna really love. The thing that we really value is when you push play, do you stay? So do you keep watching-

    5. NK

      Right

    6. TS

      ... it all the way through? It's a good indicator that you like it. I mean, I, I'm, I'm taking a leap that people... It's a subscription service-

    7. NK

      Mm

    8. TS

      ... so there's no extra fee. You can turn it off and watch something else. But people tend to watch the things that they like more of and then turn off the things they don't. So if you're turning it off, it was a bad pick. And, and I think what they find is, is that the more, and the more we get the right choice in front of you, the longer you stay a member. So, um, for us, a fail might be that people come on and just click all over the place, and search, and find something that they don't like and push play and turn it off. That's a bad... We, we've failed them in that, in that transaction.

    9. NK

      In a world where you also produce, and curate, and distribute content, wouldn't a win for you be when I click a, I click on a piece of content that you have produced versus sourced?

    10. TS

      It would be financially, but not if you didn't like it. So I don't want to- me making you or aiding, pushing you towards something you don't like-

    11. NK

      Mm-hmm

    12. TS

      ... is a very short relationship.

    13. NK

      Right. So Ted, most of our audience are people who want to build a business in the space of media and content. We cater to the entrepreneur-heavy crowd. Uh, so what I want to take away from today are some great insights of what might be low-hanging fruit to build in media. Um, I could be a content creator, I could be somebody aspiring to build a platform, I could be somebody who is an actor, a director, somebody who works in the space of media.

    14. TS

      Yeah.

    15. NK

      I could be a podcaster, a YouTuber, a, a independent musician, everything.

    16. TS

      Yeah.

    17. NK

      So if I were to largely categorize media today-... I was trying to write down, and I wrote down print media, what you did first, broadcast media, what I grew up on, uh, TV with pre-programmed-

    18. TS

      Yeah

    19. NK

      ... news media, uh, the news channels, big-ticket cinemas, long-form TV shows, I mean, the TV series, sport, the theater business, gaming, reality TV. If Ted was not part of Netflix, but you knew all that you have learned in the Netflix journey, and you had $100 to invest, is there one particular division where you would put your money behind? Binary $100, you can only put it or not.

    20. TS

      It's just a bet or not bet?

    21. NK

      Yeah.

    22. TS

      What's the, what's the goal?

    23. NK

      To make a return.

    24. TS

      To make a return. Um, I would say that, uh, producing content today g- is, you're gonna get the great return because the delivery models are evolving so rapidly, and the monetization is evolving so rapidly. Um, so, uh, which you didn't have streaming as its own separate category there, but what I think the great news of that is, is that's a viable business model-

    25. NK

      Mm-hmm

    26. TS

      ... to keep making content, to ma- m- keep making programming. So that's-

    27. NK

      And when you say make programming, are you talking about that me individually, say, I'm shooting this podcast?

    28. TS

      To me, the, the real, the real value is, is how does it monetize? And you can moni- it, stream- streaming in a subscription service at scale-

    29. NK

      Mm-hmm

    30. TS

      ... uh, can effectively monetize almost any content.

  12. 33:56 – 37:15

    How to best serve your story?

    1. NK

      There's a movie called Kantara. I don't know if you've heard of it.

    2. TS

      I know, I've, know, but I don't-

    3. NK

      Yeah

    4. TS

      ... yeah.

    5. NK

      It's a Kannada movie, where I come from-

    6. TS

      Yeah

    7. NK

      ... Bangalore, uh, my hometown.

    8. TS

      Yeah.

    9. NK

      It's made there. Again, very folksy, very local.

    10. TS

      Yeah.

    11. NK

      It's very interesting you're saying that. So in a manner, you're saying Bollywood should not try and sell or make the stories of Hollywood, and Hollywood should not try and make the stories of Bollywood?

    12. TS

      Right.

    13. NK

      Which is not what is happening, though.

    14. TS

      No. Look, I got worried years ago that when, uh, everyone was mak- when, when the China market opened up for America-

    15. NK

      Yeah

    16. TS

      ... America was making movies for China. China's making movies for China. Who's making movies for America?

    17. NK

      Yeah.

    18. TS

      Uh, so for me, it's like this idea that everything has to travel, everything has to be big. That's why you end up with a, a dispassionate relationship to movies.

    19. NK

      So local is a very interesting word.

    20. TS

      Yeah.

    21. NK

      Everybody in this room is, at the very core, like each one of us, deeply passionate about content from a different lens.

    22. TS

      Yeah.

    23. NK

      Somebody might be viewing it through the lens of sitting behind a camera. Someone's on audio. I might be speaking. Someone else is doing something. So beyond local, what else can you tell us? Long-form content, short-form content, movie, TV show?

    24. TS

      So I think that things have... Those lines are all blurring. I feel like the-

    25. NK

      Micro series.

    26. TS

      What's that?

    27. NK

      Micro series, that's a new word I heard.

    28. TS

      Yeah.

    29. NK

      Three-minute shows, one episode a day.

    30. TS

      Yeah, the micro dramas and these things.

  13. 37:15 – 41:02

    Career advice & work cultures in India vs. US

    1. NK

      am 20, and I'm trying to build a career in media, I am not going to college. I'm grow- I've grown up in Bangalore or in Bombay or in Chennai, or a city in India. If I had a choice to focus on print, the newspapers in India, join a streaming platform like yours, go into trying to join a production company, uh, be- do something in sport, do something in gaming, is there career advice you can give a 20-year-old me? Where should I go? Where could the odds of success be the highest?

    2. TS

      I-

    3. NK

      Financial success.

    4. TS

      Well, first of all, I think the first- what we try to do is figure out... I think the right first path is to get in to work for one of the agencies.

    5. NK

      Agencies like?

    6. TS

      Like, uh, CAA, UTA, these, uh, agencies who-

    7. NK

      Yeah

    8. TS

      ... represent talent-

    9. NK

      Talent management

    10. TS

      ... talent management. Um, you learn more about the business in six months than anyone could teach you, or that you could learn in a-- You'll get one little view of the world in any one of these jobs you're talking about-

    11. NK

      Mm-hmm

    12. TS

      ... where if you go into the agency business first, you'll-

    13. NK

      That's actually the op- I read his book-

    14. TS

      Yeah

    15. NK

      ... Mike Ovitz.

    16. TS

      Yeah.

    17. NK

      That is almost run like a cult. Their people behave in the very family. Everybody has the same car in a certain level of management. Their families live next to each other.

    18. TS

      Yeah.

    19. NK

      It's very cultish in that-

    20. TS

      They, they do work on percentages, though, so it's a meritocracy in that you, you get... You move up the ladder by making more, so it's-

    21. NK

      They work on a fixed percentage even without a contract, right?

    22. TS

      Yeah.

    23. NK

      They don't sign contracts-

    24. TS

      Correct, no contract

    25. NK

      ... with their talents.

    26. TS

      No. Right.

    27. NK

      But I actually, funnily enough, have a small partnership in a talent management agency here-

    28. TS

      Yeah

    29. NK

      ... called Collective. I think it's the largest in India. I have spent some time in their office. I haven't learned much. Why do you say [chuckles] ?

    30. TS

      Really? Well, ma- I don't know if the enter- if the inter- if the culture is differently, different here-

  14. 41:02 – 42:20

    Will Netflix produce theatrical movies?

    1. NK

      Yeah. I'm gonna digress a bit and ask you a question. A lot of people are freaked out by the fact or by the rumor that Netflix might soon produce theatrical movies. Don't the lines get blurred there?

    2. TS

      We're not doing that.

    3. NK

      You're not doing that.

    4. TS

      Yeah. Some of our movies go to the theaters just as a tactical part of the release.

    5. NK

      Mm-hmm.

    6. TS

      But our business is the subscription entertainment business, so the, the movies that we produce, we produce them for our subscription business. And I, and I think, you know, by looking at the box office, box office is pretty healthy in, in, in India. A little, it's down a bit. Uh-

    7. NK

      It's down, I think it's down-

    8. TS

      Yeah

    9. NK

      ... even today at pre-COVID levels, net collections of all theaters.

    10. TS

      Yeah, in the US, it's down about 20% right now, but remember, ticket prices are up 25%, so attendance is way down.

    11. NK

      Right.

    12. TS

      Uh, and I look at that as a sign from the consumers of what they want.

    13. NK

      Yeah.

    14. TS

      Uh, because, uh, average American consumer watches two movies a year in the theater-

    15. NK

      Mm-hmm

    16. TS

      ... watches seven movies a month on Netflix. So I take that as a sign that they would like to watch movies at home, thank you. So if I put them in the theater and then starve them, I, I won't let you see this movie because I have to put it in the theater for two months before, um, I don't know what that says to the people who gave me the money to make the movie in the first place. [laughing]

    17. NK

      So

  15. 42:20 – 45:30

    Future of the theatre business

    1. NK

      the- there's again, another friend of mine called Ajay, I was an investor in that company for a while, uh, runs the... It used to be the largest chain, but now they've combined to become the only chain of multiplexes in the country.

    2. TS

      Yeah.

    3. NK

      It's called PVR and INOX together. So whenever me and Ajay ca- catch up, I'm always asking him-... What is next for the thea- theatre business? Uh, the penetration of movie theatres in India is far lower than it is in the West, even lower than it is-

    4. TS

      There are fewer theatres?

    5. NK

      Much fewer.

    6. TS

      Yeah.

    7. NK

      Like, I would say a vast majority of our country still does not have access to a movie theatre.

    8. TS

      Yeah.

    9. NK

      The experience where for $20 a movie, a family of three or four can be entertained in a safe environment with air conditioning and food, if you choose to-

    10. TS

      Yeah

    11. NK

      ... access food and all of that, for three hours or four hours, uh, it sounds very appetizing to me from an experience standpoint for a vast majority of India.

    12. TS

      Yeah.

    13. NK

      But in theory, it is not playing out like that, maybe, because I don't think movie theatres are doing as well as they were doing five or 10 years ago.

    14. TS

      And, you know, it's interesting, almost everything else, uh, for like, live events, is back bigger than pre-COVID. Live concerts, sporting events, all these things, all bigger. So I, I actually think the consumers go to the- went to the- went back to the theatre and said, "This isn't much better than watching at home." Where you go to a concert, it's a totally different experience than listening to a CD. Or you go to, you know, you go to a sporting event, it's way different than watching a football game on television. Uh, and we're- seeing the movie, for m- most movies, is pretty much... It's not much better an experience. Now, depending on the size of the theatre, it may not be a better experience at all. Now, I, I... You see a movie in a big IMAX room-

    15. NK

      Yeah

    16. TS

      ... uh, that's some- and it's the right movie, it's mind-blowing. I love that that still exists.

    17. NK

      That is Ajay's-

    18. TS

      Yeah

    19. NK

      ... business model.

    20. TS

      Yeah.

    21. NK

      Have you spoken to him, Ajay? The largest multiplex.

    22. TS

      I have not, no. We don't, we don't really distribute-

    23. NK

      Yeah

    24. TS

      ... theatrically, so yeah.

    25. NK

      But again, for $20 and a three-hour window-

    26. TS

      Yeah

    27. NK

      ... barring cricket, maybe, like, somebody sitting at home watching a cricket match-

    28. TS

      Yeah

    29. NK

      ... or actually watching Netflix for three hours or four hours, there aren't that many options for families, right?

    30. TS

      Yeah.

  16. 45:30 – 47:40

    The next big disruption

    1. TS

      yeah.

    2. NK

      The really affluent of audience with the most spending power, also because the cost of television has gotten so democratised, can afford large screen TVs at home, right?

    3. TS

      Can't?

    4. NK

      Can.

    5. TS

      Yeah, they can now.

    6. NK

      Yeah.

    7. TS

      And it's getting the cheaper and cheaper, yeah. You know, it's cheaper to make a large screen TV now than it is to make a phone.

    8. NK

      Yeah.

    9. TS

      So I think, I think, uh, you know, people will go up that curve, yeah.

    10. NK

      Yeah. So what's the next big disruption here?

    11. TS

      It's a great question, because, you know, the internet... It's gonna be tough to find one that's gonna be as big as the internet was a disruption to entertainment, like it was to many things.

    12. NK

      Right.

    13. TS

      Um, I think it's gonna likely to be- less likely to be in distribution and be in creativity. And, you know, some AI is certainly part of it, virtual production is certainly part of it. Uh, the way people can create-

    14. NK

      Mm-hmm

    15. TS

      ... uh, will, can take things to a whole different level than they were. You know, every... It, it's moving very fast, too. Um, and I, I'm not afraid of AI, and I hope creators aren't afraid of crea- of AI, 'cause I actually think they're- it's gonna make great tools to tell stories even better-

    16. NK

      Mm-hmm

    17. TS

      ... and make it possible to make movies they couldn't before. Um, and I, it not meant- won't likely displace the things that humans are very particularly good at, performance, emotion, uh, writing, uh, the things in the writing and the a- and the performance.

    18. NK

      Mm-hmm.

    19. TS

      But things like, uh, the technology it takes to de-age an actor-

    20. NK

      Mm-hmm

    21. TS

      ... those tools have moved so fast now, that versus five year... When we did The Irishman, that technology was about probably $30 million of the budget was just the technology to do the de-aging, and it was very disruptive to the production cycle. You know, uh, what actors had to put on their face and all that kind of thing, extra camera rigs, all kinds of different things. Uh, today, we can do that exact film better for a fraction of that. Maybe the entire... We just made a movie called Pedro Paramore. The cinematographer on that film, the, uh, Irishman, was the director of Pedro Paramore. He, he basically was, made this entire movie for less than the tech- than the de-aging budget for The Irishman.

  17. 47:40 – 51:42

    Can AI create movies?

    1. NK

      What do you think of a world where AI has gotten to the point where I could just prompt and say that, "Make a movie of Ted and Nikhil having a conversation around topics like A, B, C, D, E," and it does it so well that Ted and Nikhil are no longer required? What happens then?

    2. TS

      I, um, it's an interesting hypothetical. I don't know that that ever happens. I mean, meaning that it's, the, the art of the prompt is also gonna be a human skill. Now, you'd think the prompts become self-training at some point.

    3. NK

      Yeah.

    4. TS

      Um, it's interesting. You know, the bigger thing I worry about is that the, the- you put something in, and the prompt will spit something, will spit something out, and you think, "No, not like this, like this. Not like this, like this. Not like that, like this." Whether or not people stop taking the step of, of saying, "Not like this," [chuckles] and just go with what the-

    5. NK

      Yeah

    6. TS

      ... with the, with what, with what was spit out.

    7. NK

      Yeah.

    8. TS

      Um, that, that's, that would be the danger, but it- there won't be any need to, uh, 'cause I really think the things that it's gonna do is lower the cost of doing things in a way that make- makes it possible to tell bigger and better stories. And then, but, but still requires people to do that.

    9. NK

      Yeah.

    10. TS

      'Cause think of imagination and, and emotion-... uh, are the things that really- the, in fact, what AI is doing today is, like, the antithesis of imagination.

    11. NK

      Mm-hmm.

    12. TS

      It's take- it's giving you the most predictable outcome-

    13. NK

      Mm-hmm

    14. TS

      ... uh, based on these kind of rough ideas you're giving it. So the... But I think those tools will become very much like, uh, visual effects tools or very much like, uh, computer animation. You know, you're using the tools to tell the story and express yourself in a way that you couldn't before. And I think of the, the leap forward from 2D hand-drawn animation to CG animation is much bigger than the leap front we're gonna experience with AI. And more animators today, those films are more expensive, actually, and employ more people and more creatives, and they're better than they've ever been.

    15. NK

      Yeah.

    16. TS

      Yeah.

    17. NK

      I was watching, uh, Lion King: Mufasa.

    18. TS

      Yeah.

    19. NK

      Incredible.

    20. TS

      Yeah, isn't it great?

    21. NK

      Yeah. Yeah.

    22. TS

      Remember we were just talking about theaters?

    23. NK

      Mm-hmm.

    24. TS

      Is it crazy that... My, my kids are 28 and 30. When they were very little, I took them to see The Lion King on Broadway, and I just looked up recently, that thing has made- that play has made more money than the film.

    25. NK

      Really?

    26. TS

      Made billions of dollars. The play, the play, the-

    27. NK

      Yeah

    28. TS

      ... between the touring companies and everything else, it's made, I think, almost $10 billion.

    29. NK

      Wow!

    30. TS

      Yeah. If you could invest in just that one [laughing]

  18. 51:42 – 57:38

    Netflix’s tech & what it’s doing right

    1. NK

      We can go back to the Netflix story. So, you started sending DVDs in a world where VCRs were ruling the roost.

    2. TS

      Yeah.

    3. NK

      You went from delivering them in three weeks to deliver- delivering them the next day or the same day and all of that. Blockbuster started to die, Netflix started to rise. When did the switch from sending something physically to almost sending something to someone's home digitally happen? And I don't need you to go into the details of this, but can you explain to me like I'm a 10-year-old boy, how the tech behind it works? The cost of storing on a server, the cost of me making a call from my device that I want this particular video, and the cost of streaming it. Because this, I will tell you, as a member or as a subscriber of Netflix and every other streaming platform there is, you guys are doing something right, which others have not caught on to. Like, if I were to watch a movie on Amazon, even the forwarding experience-

    4. TS

      Yeah

    5. NK

      ... when I go from minute 5 to minute 30-

    6. TS

      Yeah

    7. NK

      ... it is so much more seamless on Netflix. Uh, these tiny things like UI, I feel are the difference between everything, the, the tiny stuff.

    8. TS

      Yeah.

    9. NK

      Can you tell me, like, broad picture, what it- what does that look like?

    10. TS

      Well, you've gotta keep in mind, when we started doing this, the vision was always to be a digital delivery business.

    11. NK

      Mm-hmm.

    12. TS

      So all the work that was going into this all started back in day one.

    13. NK

      Mm-hmm.

    14. TS

      Um, it's the, the, the, the, the technology itself, you know, for... It's on demand, it's streaming, it's not downloading, it's not mass live. So it's really optimized for point-to-point delivery, and the biggest thing that we've d- put a lot of money and, and, uh, and effort into is every device that's connected to the television, Netflix is individually optimized for that devi- for that device. So things like, early on, one of the things we were finding is Netflix would work better when your connection's faster.

    15. NK

      Mm-hmm.

    16. TS

      And sometimes your connection would slow down on you, and the, it would start buffering.

    17. NK

      Mm-hmm.

    18. TS

      And that's the worst thing that can happen in a stream. So they built in the ability to downshift, basically, send you a lo- lower-res picture for a minute while the, while your speed catches up, and it all happened in the cache behind the scenes, so you never felt it. So very, very subtle, very gentle down- you know, a degradation of picture quality for a few minutes, then comes right back. So that's stuff we were working on at the very beginning of streaming-

    19. NK

      Mm

    20. TS

      ... 'cause they knew that this, you know, that was not gonna be an acceptable way to watch a movie. Um, the, the work that goes into picture quality, that goes into compression, uh, that goes into having building, uh, this open connect system that actually puts the data physically nearer people's prop- homes, so it's not traveling so far on the internet.... helps the delivery sys- the content delivery services, uh, get, you know, serve us better-

    21. NK

      Mm-hmm

    22. TS

      ... and us cheaper to serve us than anybody else. But we did all that work and invested it for almost... I would bet ev- all the other entertainment companies, their second biggest, their biggest expense is marketing.

    23. NK

      Mm-hmm.

    24. TS

      And ours is tech, second only to content.

    25. NK

      Mm.

    26. TS

      So the, the, the model itself is not, it's not about whether or not how the technology itself works, whether or not it's opti- it's perfectly optimized for variable speed, variable device, variable connection, all meant to do the same thing, which is not to, not to get stuck, [chuckles] you know?

    27. NK

      Mm.

    28. TS

      Uh, and deliver the most high-quality experience possible, sound and vid- video and audio. So we had, in the earliest days of Netflix, when we had terrible quality of content-

    29. NK

      Mm-hmm

    30. TS

      ... the content was lousy, what we were streaming.

  19. 57:38 – 1:02:39

    Competing with other distributors

    1. NK

      So I met the YouTube CEO-

    2. TS

      Neil?

    3. NK

      ... a couple of days ago. Neil.

    4. TS

      Yeah, he's a good man.

    5. NK

      Is he competition?

    6. TS

      Yeah, for sure. Or definitely for same thing, for time and attention, and increasingly for ad dollars, yeah.

    7. NK

      'Cause he's doing movies, and you will do music at some point, right?

    8. TS

      That we'll do music?

    9. NK

      Yeah.

    10. TS

      No. No.

    11. NK

      No? But you will do-

    12. TS

      There's plenty of music out there. It's, you know, and, and it's, again, I think it's a very different business model.

    13. NK

      But you will do, like, podcasts and individual content creators putting up content.

    14. TS

      I think there's a, um, there's a class of creators on YouTube-

    15. NK

      Mm-hmm

    16. TS

      ... that is pretty close to professional content. I kind of think of them as kind of pro-am creators. The things they're doing look pretty great. Um, podcast is a form of user g- of, you know, user-generated content. Uh, the line between a talk show and a podcast are getting pretty blurry.

    17. NK

      Yeah.

    18. TS

      Um-

    19. NK

      Like, we have 20 people working on this-

    20. TS

      Yeah

    21. NK

      ... so I don't know what we are.

    22. TS

      Yeah.

    23. NK

      Yeah.

    24. TS

      So there's no reason that wouldn't be on Netflix.

    25. NK

      Yeah.

    26. TS

      I actually believe that, uh, our, it, the, the, that content will better monetize on Netflix than it does on YouTube. Not all of it-

    27. NK

      Mm-hmm

    28. TS

      ... but certain, for certain cla- you know, creators, it certainly would. So we'll look for, we'll look to do that.

    29. NK

      Yeah, so we don't monetize any of our content.

    30. TS

      Yeah.

  20. 1:02:39 – 1:03:44

    Netflix’s streaming strategy

    1. NK

      Uh, so Netflix, we had gotten to the time where you spend the initial years figuring out the tech. This is after you have solved the Blockbuster problem, evolved beyond that. What happened next? You figured out how to stream using technology in a manner that is more convenient, faster, no latency than the incumbent players or anybody. You didn't have any incumbents back then, right?

    2. TS

      No, not really.

    3. NK

      There was no competition for streaming.

    4. TS

      Not really. I mean, we started streaming almost the exact same time that Amazon and Hulu did-

    5. NK

      Right

    6. TS

      ... in the US. So and they, and started originals almost the exact same time.

    7. NK

      Right.

    8. TS

      So we were, we were watching how all three of us were running for, running for the same prize at that time.

    9. NK

      Mm-hmm.

    10. TS

      Most of... One of our concerns was that Hulu did a lot of TV, and Netflix, because of our DVD roots, we were kind of known as a movie company, and we really wanted to make sure that we didn't become the movie company, and Hulu became the DV- the TV company.

    11. NK

      Mm-hmm.

    12. TS

      So that's why we kind of got into TV at the same time, licensing TV shows.

  21. 1:03:44 – 1:05:01

    What happens to conventional TV?

    1. NK

      What happens to old school TV, the TV that I grew up on? Like, the TV where I used to go- I still remember, I used to go home from school at 3:00 PM and watch this particular cartoon called SWAT Kats and Powerpuff Girls and-

    2. TS

      Yeah

    3. NK

      ... Teenage Mut- and I used to watch Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. I remember watching all these Indian soaps-

    4. TS

      Yeah

    5. NK

      ... you know, with my mother, like, late in the night, Kyunki Saas Bhi and all of that. What happens to that entire industry?

    6. TS

      I mean, I guess a lot of it shows up in re- in retro channels.

    7. NK

      Mm.

    8. TS

      Uh, I think that there'll be an economic model where we'll, we'll have more of it over time. Um, these fast services-

    9. NK

      Mm

    10. TS

      ... that are mostly ad-supported-

    11. NK

      Mm-hmm

    12. TS

      ... I think those are mostly delivering most of those episodes to people.

    13. NK

      Mm-hmm.

    14. TS

      Uh, YouTube certainly does some of that.

    15. NK

      Right.

    16. TS

      So, but I feel like there's a lot of different ways to get to it. And no one's gonna be making shows like that anymore-

    17. NK

      Right

    18. TS

      ... um, which is kind of interesting. I, I can never figure out why, uh, a, a show that worked for a seven-year-old this year-

    19. NK

      Mm-hmm

    20. TS

      ... doesn't work for a seven-year-old two years from now.

    21. NK

      Mm.

    22. TS

      Uh, but it, but it's because the, the marketplace moves so fast. Kids now, you know, mostly wanna... It's more aspirational.

    23. NK

      Mm.

    24. TS

      So by the time you get to seven now, you wanna watch what 10-year-olds watch.

    25. NK

      Mm.

    26. TS

      Yeah.

  22. 1:05:01 – 1:06:11

    Why people love true crime

    1. NK

      Do you see a shift in content where... I know this can't be specific for India and the US, they're probably completely different, but what is working in the US today and what is working in India? Somebody was telling me that crime, horror, spirituality are ruling the roost in India. Is that different in the US?

    2. TS

      It's similar, too. You know, um, crime is very big. Uh, people love true crime.

    3. NK

      Mm-hmm.

    4. TS

      I mostly think because people... I don't think because people are macabre.

    5. NK

      Mm-hmm.

    6. TS

      I think they rather like crime because they're, um, pro- puzzle solvers, problem solvers, and we're trying to try to solve a puzzle.

    7. NK

      Mm.

    8. TS

      I think it's very built into our DNA to figure things, figure things out. I think, I think of religion is, is that. Uh, why did people go west in the United States, you know, in the US when they landed?

    9. NK

      Mm-hmm.

    10. TS

      Um, to, to get to the next thing, and if I figure it all out. People wanna know the... how, how it began and how it ended, um, and figure out all those things. So I actually think people are very curious, and that, that true crime scratches a puzzle itch that people have. But yeah, so that's very, very universal. Works everywhere.

  23. 1:06:11 – 1:10:24

    Why Netflix isn’t betting on live sports broadcasting

    1. NK

      So talking about Netflix in India specifically, I think you have two incumbent, I would say, competition, for the lack of a better word. Mm, sport, cricket for one of them, for Disney Hotstar-

    2. TS

      Yeah

    3. NK

      ... JioHotstar now, has been a big funnel to get in a large audience. Uh, cricket is a religion in India. If you put IPL on a certain platform, it changes everything.

    4. TS

      Yeah.

    5. NK

      You have taken a slightly more nuanced approach, where you're not taking the very expensive broadcasting rights of a sport, but like you did on F1, you create a documentary behind it, and it works just as well.

    6. TS

      Yeah.

    7. NK

      Would you like to elaborate as to why you did that-

    8. TS

      Yeah

    9. NK

      ... and your thoughts around that?

    10. TS

      Formula 1 is probably the best example of the theory playing out.... for me, I believe that big sports, cricket in, in India, the NFL in the United States, [lips smack] is s- those leagues are so powerful. The, the consumer demand for them is so high, they should get all the money. So whoever's delivering it, it's just a distribution business, should be very, very low margin just for distribution only. So if, if I have that game and then next week I lose it and it goes to the next person, that audience, that whole audience is gonna go from here to here. So at the end of the day, I don't know why you would lose a lot of money on a sport, because it's... You'll never get to the place where it's profitable. So, and you probably can't make enough profit on everything else, so you could lose too much on that sport. So one of the tests for it for me was, to what you just described with Formula 1, we built this show called Drive to Survive. Formula 1's very popular around the world, but weirdly unpopular in the United States. We- people didn't know the sport. They didn't know how it works. They didn't know these people. It's play- it's race- the races are in the middle of the night, so, um, it just never got popular. So we did this documentary series, introdu- what I loved about the sport and why I thought it'd make great television, it's, you know, beautiful people doing dangerous things in beautiful places. You know, that's pretty good TV. Uh, and that's what happened. I think people tuned into the shows. They learned about the, the, the drivers, and they figured out how the rules worked. They got more and more interested in watching races. So when the deal came up, I thought, "Okay, now we have an audience of Formula 1 fans."

    11. NK

      Mm-hmm.

    12. TS

      The, the audience has gone up, but not dramatically. It's gone up two or three times, though, from what it was. It was very small.

    13. NK

      Mm-hmm.

    14. TS

      The, the rights... So let's just say I was holding those rights. When that contract came up, because of all the j- all the brand building I did for Formula 1, that fee went up 10 times. That, that would've been my reward for growing Formula 1, [chuckles] is my fee would've gone up 10 times. So I look at it like, um, big league sports, likely the league owners keep all the profits always.

    15. NK

      Mm-hmm.

    16. TS

      And you could... Now, what we're doing now, our version of this would be something like the NFL on Christmas Day-

    17. NK

      Mm-hmm

    18. TS

      ... where we actually create a Netflix event around it.

    19. NK

      Mm-hmm.

    20. TS

      Where we have back-to-back football on the, that day. We have a Beyonce concert in between, and it was a real kind of a fun, like, Christmas Day pro- piece of programming that's very unique to Netflix. Uh, and that a reason to have Netflix is for that day.

    21. NK

      Mm-hmm.

    22. TS

      Um, so that's the way our, our kinda take on it, or creating the big sport event ourself, like we did with, uh, Jake Paul and Mike Tyson's fight.

    23. NK

      Is that the way me aspiring to create content? Like, you told me earlier that the best low-hanging fruit to build a business in this field is to produce content. You've told me, "Go local." You've said, "Duration doesn't matter." You said, "Familiarity is actually a good thing because people click it." If I were to build something around sport, then should I look at building a reality show on top of cricket, for example?

    24. TS

      I mean, it's... You, you've got to have an interesting take on it that someone else hasn't yet.

    25. NK

      Right.

    26. TS

      But yeah, and that, those stories, there's a lot of stories to be told.

  24. 1:10:24 – 1:13:29

    India’s subscription model: why it’s a tough sell

    1. NK

      This entire subscription model, Ted, like, India has struggled with that. Like, I know maybe Disney Hotstar or JioHotstar now has 50, 60, or 100 million subscribers who are paying some kind of a fee, but I find that subscribing for something is not a easy sell in India. Uh, advertising is palpable, but-

    2. TS

      Why do you, why do you... It is definitely true.

    3. NK

      Yeah.

    4. TS

      Why do you think, why do you think that is? There's something in the culture.

    5. NK

      I don't know.

    6. TS

      Yeah.

    7. NK

      Like, I've thought of this, like, when we've thought of media business, we considered can we have a subscription fee where we charge people every month for a media business that we were ideating? When you come down to extrapolating, one part of it is affordability. I think there might be 100 or 200 million people in India who can actually afford-

    8. TS

      Yeah

    9. NK

      ... to spend that premium towards an additional expense in the household.

    10. TS

      Right, and they have to have broadband at home-

    11. NK

      Yeah

    12. TS

      ... and big screen TV. Yeah.

    13. NK

      Yeah, I would say 200 million. But outside of that, I feel like culturally we are averse to paying a online fee for something that is recurring in a manner that the Americans are not.

    14. TS

      Yeah, the recurring charge is, was definitely a cultural-

    15. NK

      Yeah

    16. TS

      ... outside of their cultural norm.

    17. NK

      Yeah, I don't know how.

    18. TS

      I, I couldn't understand it either when we first got here. I thought, "Who wouldn't want that? It's so convenient."

    19. NK

      Mm. Mm.

    20. TS

      "Well, why would you wanna have to go back and pay in to the credit card every month?" And then somebody explained it to me. They said, "Well, it's just the, it's just the, that is the cultural norm. What if somebody asked you for your debit card?"

    21. NK

      Right.

    22. TS

      You would say, "No way!"

    23. NK

      Yeah.

    24. TS

      Yeah. Yeah.

    25. NK

      Yeah.

    26. TS

      'Cause we, uh, our first efforts were... B- 'cause remember, it was not even allowed to have recurring charges.

    27. NK

      Yeah.

    28. TS

      That we said, "Oh, we should work with the government to try to see if we can change that, or change the banking regulations-

    29. NK

      Yeah

    30. TS

      ... so we could change that." And instead, it was, instead of saying, "Oh, is that what the consumer wants?"

  25. 1:13:29 – 1:16:58

    Will Netflix have an ads-only model?

    1. NK

      You have this plan where you're subsidizing the monthly fee, but showing advertising, and I read that it's working really well for you.

    2. TS

      Yeah.

    3. NK

      And as much as 50% of new audience is coming in through that. If that were to grow, and all Netflix has ads, what happens then?

    4. TS

      Well, I don't think there's ever a world where we do all Nev- all, all ads.

    5. NK

      Yeah.

    6. TS

      It's- we're a choice brand, so, um, so the folks who really don't want ads, there's, there's always gonna be an option for them to do that. In fact, I think that our business will be primarily a, a subscription, uh, for the foreseeable future. We'll grow the ad business to be a good part of our business, for sure.

    7. NK

      Mm-hmm.

    8. TS

      Uh, but I think that even, even when it's very healthy, it'll still be 20% of the business.

    9. NK

      I think-

    10. TS

      It's interesting, 'cause the, the ads-only model doesn't support the kind of ambitious content that we, that we put on.

    11. NK

      Yeah.

    12. TS

      Um, and so the, the trick is finding the right balance of ad load and entertainment, or where the consumers say, "Yeah, I'll, I'll take a lower fee and I don't- I'll watch the ads and it's fine," or it's like, "Oh, we have to put on too many ads to make this even watchable." You've seen that, I think-

    13. NK

      Yeah

    14. TS

      ... happen in some other places, so.

    15. NK

      You spend more money on content now than anybody, right? Netflix.

    16. TS

      Yeah. Yeah.

    17. NK

      That puts you in a position where most popular people across the world really want face time with you, likely. How does that change the dynamics inside your head?

    18. TS

      Uh, that's a good... Well, you know, we've been in the... It's been interesting, 'cause I think when we started out, even when we weren't spending as much as everybody else-

    19. NK

      Mm

    20. TS

      ... we set out to be kind of artist-friendly.

    21. NK

      Mm-hmm.

    22. TS

      Uh, so we had a, always had a disproportionate dis- draw with talent.

    23. NK

      Yeah.

    24. TS

      Uh, first, before it was the money, it was the better place to work. Um, and for me, it's very... I think it's very, it's a very ex- exciting part of the business, to be around and working with very creative people.

    25. NK

      Mm-hmm.

    26. TS

      So, um, I don't, I don't kid myself, but, like, a lot of, like what you said, I think, uh-

    27. NK

      Mm

    28. TS

      ... it's most- it's a- it's the chair [chuckles] and people wanna be whoever's in the chair.

    29. NK

      Yeah.

    30. TS

      Um, I'm glad that today it's Bela Bajari and her team, and-

  26. 1:16:58 – 1:18:43

    Married life

    1. NK

      used to be an ambassador.

    2. TS

      She was ambass- US Ambassador to the Bahamas, yeah.

    3. NK

      Wow.

    4. TS

      Yeah.

    5. NK

      Have you been married a long while, Ted?

    6. TS

      Yeah. Uh, 15 years. Yeah.

    7. NK

      And how did you meet?

    8. TS

      Uh, we met during- on the Obama campaign. She was, she was the finance chair for California, Southern California.

    9. NK

      Mm.

    10. TS

      Uh, and I was a, uh, a guest who arrived for one of the events that she was running.

    11. NK

      Mm-hmm.

    12. TS

      Um, I got there late. I was the last person to arrive, and so the very first words my wife said to me was, "You're late." [laughing]

    13. NK

      [laughing]

    14. TS

      And, um, I get in there, I arrive at the event, and there's a place to take a picture with then Senator Obama, and then go into the event.

    15. NK

      Mm-hmm.

    16. TS

      I get there, she goes, "You're late." I go, "I'm sorry." She go, "Well, take your picture and go and get your seat." So I do this thing, and I get... And I go to the, my table, and, uh, she comes by the table to tell the host of the table, "If- the, the senator is not coming to your table. If you want to meet the senator, you gotta go to that table." So I just leaned into her and I go, "Who is this?"

    17. NK

      Mm.

    18. TS

      He goes, "What do you mean?" He goes... I go, "Who is this woman? She's amazing."

    19. NK

      Mm.

    20. TS

      And he goes, uh, "How do you not know her? This- she's Nicole Avon. How do you not know-

    21. NK

      Mm

    22. TS

      ... Nicole Avon?"

    23. NK

      Mm.

    24. TS

      And I go, "I don't know her." And he goes, "Oh, I'll, I'll introduce you to her later."

    25. NK

      [chuckles]

    26. TS

      So a- at the end of the night, he- we left the event and went to, uh, a dinner.

    27. NK

      Right.

    28. TS

      10 of 10 people, and I'm sitting there talking to my friend Lawrence Bender, who hosted the table, and he said, um, "Oh, here comes Nicole." Um, and she came in by herself, and she goes, uh, "You gotta switch seats, so you can talk to her. She's great."

    29. NK

      Mm.

    30. TS

      And we switched seats, and I sit and talk to her. We talked for three and a half hours.

  27. 1:18:43 – 1:21:57

    How important is India for Netflix?

    1. NK

      So Netflix in India, you don't have significant market share yet. How important is it for you as a market, and how are you approaching it? Like, what is working for you in India, and what is not working for you in India?

    2. TS

      Well, I think, to your point, uh, w- earlier about the figuring out the good product-market fit, including payment systems and all those things, uh, early on-

    3. NK

      Mm

    4. TS

      ... took us a couple of years to get that right.

    5. NK

      Mm-hmm.

    6. TS

      Um, I also think that, you know, the, the, as the product has ramped up, our very first, uh, Indian original show was Sacred Games.

    7. NK

      Mm-hmm.

    8. TS

      And I thought, "This is gonna be great." This is... They- people in India love movies.... um, this, this is a, a TV show that feels as big as a movie, it has movie stars.

    9. NK

      Mm-hmm.

    10. TS

      Uh, and-

    11. NK

      I loved the show.

    12. TS

      Well, what's interesting about it-

    13. NK

      Yeah

    14. TS

      ... is, like, it was very, very novel, but-

    15. NK

      Yeah

    16. TS

      ... I didn't realize that we were gonna be, like, introducing a brand-new kind of entertainment to a country-

    17. NK

      Yeah

    18. TS

      ... the size of India.

    19. NK

      Yeah.

    20. TS

      Uh, 'cause there was nothing else like it. You know, the, for TV was typically, I think, would be s- sports and talk, and very... Not, not the kind of cinema-infused television that we've been doing around the world. So for me, it was like, if I did it all over again-

    21. NK

      Mm-hmm

    22. TS

      ... would I have done Sacred Games a couple years later, and did things a little- some things that were more, uh, more populist, uh-

    23. NK

      Mm-hmm

    24. TS

      ... programming? Maybe, maybe. But we knew that India was gonna be, um, a, a slower journey to get to where we want to get to, but, but that it's a great prize at the end of the day.

    25. NK

      Right.

    26. TS

      So, I mean, right now you can see how fast Indian households are adopting fixed broadband.

    27. NK

      Mm-hmm.

    28. TS

      Um, s- big-screen TVs are growing.

    29. NK

      Mm-hmm.

    30. TS

      The addressable market in India is, uh, exploding in the next couple of years, so it's exciting.

  28. 1:21:57 – 1:24:28

    Adapting to country-specific dynamics

    1. NK

      a... I don't know much about Bollywood. Like, I know a little bit. I have a bunch of friends who work in Bollywood-

    2. TS

      Yeah

    3. NK

      ... or in the media or content space. Uh, whoever I ran into over the last week, I kept asking them, like, "I'm meeting Ted. Tell me, as an industry insider, what would you like me to ask him?" I asked a friend called Adar, a friend called Amrit, Dinu, like a bunch of people, Hitesh, Janay, people I ran into all of last week. Each one had a different question, almost. Janay is a younger lawyer, uh, 26 years old. He works in the entertainment zone a little bit, but is primarily a, primarily a lawyer. He was asking me, "In terms of content moderation and regulation, is there a different benchmark you apply on a country by virtue of microdynamics in the country? Like, when you're regulating content-

    4. TS

      Yeah

    5. NK

      ... how do you look at India?"

    6. TS

      We, we try- obviously, we program to the lo- the sensibilities of the audience. But I do think, you know, we're- we usually try to be mindful and respectful. Obviously, always follow local law when it comes to these things around the world-

    7. NK

      Yeah

    8. TS

      ... um, and lean into expression a little, you know, for the, for- protect free speech with, of the artist, and-

    9. NK

      Mm-hmm

    10. TS

      ... uh, but also don't do things that are, uh, [tsking] uh, unnecessarily provocative.

    11. NK

      If I get inspired by the conversation I hear today, I'm in the audience, and I set about ideating what kind of content to build, can you tell me one theme that I should build in?

    12. TS

      No.

    13. NK

      One specific theme?

    14. TS

      No.

    15. NK

      Like a micro theme?

    16. TS

      No, 'cause I don't think you can reverse engineer into something that we want, you know?

    17. NK

      No?

    18. TS

      Yeah. No, you kind of-

    19. NK

      Do you have a algorithm like YouTube has one?

    20. TS

      No, it's all-

    21. NK

      What do you favor?

    22. TS

      Definitely not on the, on greenlighting.

    23. NK

      No?

    24. TS

      Uh, the idea re- mostly it is the quality of the storytelling. Is this a world that people are gonna wanna spend time in? Are these people people care about? Do I care how these people... what happens to these people? Do I, so I'll stick with them till the end?

    25. NK

      Mm-hmm.

    26. TS

      And that, that is very unintuitive, what the, what, what will the, what will give you to a y- get you to a yes on any, every one of those, or all of those, or any of those. [laughing] So for me, it's like, be careful not to kind of reverse engineer your way-

    27. NK

      Mm

    28. TS

      ... into a pitch. Just you have to write a story that people have got to see, and you've

  29. 1:24:28 – 1:24:53

    How Netflix greenlights projects

    1. TS

      got to make.

    2. NK

      So when Netflix is greenlighting a project today, is it data or is it gut?

    3. TS

      It's gut.

    4. NK

      Yeah?

    5. TS

      Yeah. I mean, remember, you've got- you're picking stories that you, you're predicting someone's gonna wanna see. You're predicting, will this person be able to deliver this vision-

    6. NK

      Mm

    7. TS

      ... to the screen?

    8. NK

      Mm.

    9. TS

      Have they ever done it before?

    10. NK

      Mm.

    11. TS

      Sometimes they, sometimes they've never done it before, so you really are going with the creator-

    12. NK

      Yeah

    13. TS

      ... betting on the creator, and betting on the story that they pitch to you.

    14. NK

      Yeah.

  30. 1:24:53 – 1:28:17

    A founder’s baggage: filling big shoes

    1. NK

      Is there baggage of a founder, uh, Ted? Like, Reed was a fairly popular CEO and founder of Netflix.

    2. TS

      Yeah.

    3. NK

      When you fill someone's shoes, somebody like him, this is useful for anybody taking over a company which was run by a very popular, magnanimous character, what do you have to watch out for?

    4. TS

      I think you, you really just wanna be yourself. Don't try to be him, 'cause you're not.

    5. NK

      Right.

    6. TS

      You're not him.... um, you know, he- we talked about the succession of the company.

    7. NK

      Right.

    8. TS

      Reed talked about it with the board 10 years ago.

    9. NK

      Right.

    10. TS

      Um, when I met him in 1999, in a way, he was talking about succession.

    11. NK

      Right.

    12. TS

      He said to me, "I'm building a company that's gonna be around longer than me," which, which implies succession, right?

    13. NK

      Mm-hmm.

    14. TS

      So he, uh... it's always been on his mind.

    15. NK

      Mm-hmm.

    16. TS

      He asked me to be the co-CEO with him about seven years ago, five, six years ago-

    17. NK

      Mm-hmm

    18. TS

      ... um, which was a very unusual step for a founder CEO to take a co-CEO. Um, and, uh, but it was all part of his long-term plan, which was, "You know, I think that this business..." He and I, uh, Reed and I had been practical co-CEOs before that, me doing the entertainment, Reed doing the tech.

    19. NK

      Mm-hmm.

    20. TS

      Um, and then we just kind of- he kind of memorialized it by giving me the title, uh, and I broadened, broadened my scope a little bit. But I think in his head, he said, "I think this co-CEO thing is the right way to do it." And so when we, when we- so when he talked about him actually moving on, uh, it was the move to another co-CEO, me and Greg Peters, uh, in, in very similar model that I have- than we have with Reed. But neither of us... We both have our strengths.

    21. NK

      Mm-hmm.

    22. TS

      We both have our weaknesses. Neither of us are Reed, and we don't try to be.

    23. NK

      Do you think that's a good idea, having co-CEOs? I'm just like-

    24. TS

      It's very odd. It's odd that it doesn't... 'Cause it doesn't work in many s- there's a lot of stories where you can look back and, um, there were, uh, three co-Roman emperors that didn't go very well. [laughing]

    25. NK

      Mm.

    26. TS

      But if you look back and at the, the track record of the co-CEOs, and it's-

    27. NK

      Mm

    28. TS

      ... spotty.

    29. NK

      Mm.

    30. TS

      Uh, but I think where it really works well here is, we do two very distinctly different things. We manage two different, distinctly different cultures wi- inside the business, with tech culture and entertainment culture.

  31. 1:28:17 – 1:32:11

    Validation & leadership

    1. NK

      If I were to put myself in your shoe, when one person leads a company to as much success as Netflix has reached, a lot of my validation will come from the chair, the position that I hold in that company at that point of time. Is it the sign of a great leader to be able to let go of your source of validation while you're getting your validation?

    2. TS

      It's remarkable, right?

    3. NK

      Right.

    4. TS

      I mean, no, and Reed's not old.

    5. NK

      Yeah.

    6. TS

      [laughing]

    7. NK

      Yeah.

    8. TS

      Yeah, no, he's, uh, and-

    9. NK

      And he's, like, into sports, and he's doing this, that, and the other.

    10. TS

      Yeah, and he set up- and he set the company up better than he found it-

    11. NK

      Yeah

    12. TS

      ... and, uh, than he started it.

    13. NK

      Yeah.

    14. TS

      Um, he, he was confident, comfortable and confident. Much of his net worth is wrapped up in the stock, and so-

    15. NK

      Yeah

    16. TS

      ... he has a lot of skin in the game, whether or not-

    17. NK

      Yeah

    18. TS

      ... uh, that we, we make this work or not.

    19. NK

      Yeah.

    20. TS

      Uh, and he was very clear. He goes, "I, I don't want to come back." [laughing]

    21. NK

      The question I ask myself is, I'm 38 today. I-

    22. TS

      Today's your birthday?

    23. NK

      No, no.

    24. TS

      Oh, okay. [laughing]

    25. NK

      38 now. This year. [laughing]

    26. TS

      Wow! You chose tonight to bring your business. Okay.

    27. NK

      Yeah, I'm 38 now, and how much of a role does the little validation I have affect my overall mental well-being, and how much will go away if that were to be taken away? It's an interesting thought.

    28. TS

      Yeah, yeah. I mean, there, there are so many people who identify themselves so much with the work.

    29. NK

      Yeah.

    30. TS

      Someone said something to me one time, that they would be more embarrassed to fail at business than to fail in their marriage.

  32. 1:32:11 – 1:34:11

    Indian personality who left a lasting impression on Ted

    1. NK

      Any Indian editors, producers, actors that really stand out for you from the exposure you've had to India?

    2. TS

      It's such a hard question, 'cause I-

    3. NK

      Yeah

    4. TS

      ... you know, 'cause I, I just don't want people to say, "Well, what about me?" [laughing]

    5. NK

      [laughing] Can you name one individual, just one person, who has left a lasting impression on you in the entertainment industry in India?

    6. TS

      Doing her Aramande was probably one of the most, like, creatively interesting projects I've ever worked on in India. Um, I was involved in the greenlight meetings for it. He came into the, to LA to do the pitch.

    7. NK

      Who are you talking about?

    8. TS

      Uh-

    9. NK

      Sanjay Leela Bhansali.

    10. TS

      Yes.

    11. NK

      Yeah.

    12. TS

      Yeah. Uh, he came in with this very big vision.

    13. NK

      Mm.

    14. TS

      And I think, I think he almost like it was a dare-

    15. NK

      Mm

    16. TS

      ... like, "I dare you to make this. It's so big."

    17. NK

      Mm.

    18. TS

      Uh, and remember, he's a cinem- you know, he's a cinema legend, so he, the idea that he was gonna make a TV show was-

    19. NK

      Yeah

    20. TS

      ... almost unheard of. And I almost think he wasn't gonna... I thought he, when he came, for us to say no. Um, and then when he said, when we said yes, it was a long deli- there was a lot of delays.

    21. NK

      Mm.

    22. TS

      It was a complicated production. He did things, uh, built these enormous practical sets that we shot on.

    23. NK

      Mm.

    24. TS

      It, it was something beautifully old-fashioned about every element of the production.

    25. NK

      Mm-hmm.

    26. TS

      Uh, and I was just, he was so proud of it, and I was so proud of him. Um, and it was just such a great... That stands out to me as a, a real reflective of the Indian love of cinema.

    27. NK

      Try?

    28. TS

      Yeah.

    29. NK

      This is, I think, chicken pulao. Pulao's like biryani, but slightly different.

    30. TS

      Yeah.

  33. 1:34:11 – 1:41:36

    Ted’s secret to greenlighting hits

    1. NK

      So you've done some, like, really spectacular greenlighting of projects that nobody would've thought were reasonable, things like Korean shows, Squid Games, Money Heist. There's so many on your list, I don't know where to begin and where to end. What is that skill set that allows you to make these choices that other people have not been able to make?

    2. TS

      I think a lot of... You have to remember a lot of the things that, um, many things we passed on go on to be hits somewhere else.

    3. NK

      Mm-hmm.

    4. TS

      So don't, not like you get, not like your track record's all that clean.

    5. NK

      Mm-hmm.

    6. TS

      Um, now, remember, a lot of those shows are not, didn't turn out to be the show that was pit- being pitched, either.

    7. NK

      Mm-hmm.

    8. TS

      So there's, some of that goes on. But I think it's, uh, going, being able to, uh, have a little, be a little more daring about not being afraid to fail.

    9. NK

      Mm-hmm.

    10. TS

      Um, the, the culture kind of instills that in us, to take big swings and not being afraid to fail, learn from the failures and move on.

    11. NK

      Mm-hmm.

    12. TS

      Um, the other one is, is not being stuck in, "This thing didn't work 10 years ago, so I'm never gonna do that again."

    13. NK

      Mm-hmm.

    14. TS

      So I didn't have a lot of guardrails around the decision-making that way.

    15. NK

      Mm-hmm.

    16. TS

      Um, and a, a lot of... And I think some of it is, like, that I talked about earlier about just general curiosity, and to have some good judge of character of the people who are pitching, if whether or not they can actually do this thing that they're talking about. Um, the Duffer Brothers, when they came in with, with, uh, Stranger Things, that's an example, I think, of a show that they, they have never done anything that big. They made one, um, a small movie for Warner Brothers before, and they directed some, uh, episodes of a TV show before. And so we're giving them this enormous budget to make this enormous-scope show.

    17. NK

      Mm-hmm.

    18. TS

      And when you watch this little, tiny movie that they made for, um, for, for Warner Brothers and said, "Oh, wow, if they can make this on that little, tiny budget-

    19. NK

      Mm

    20. TS

      ... we got this. We got this," so.

    21. NK

      So if I want something to be greenlit by you, should I make, like, a demo tape? Is that the way?

    22. TS

      Well, I probably won't do it. [laughing]

    23. NK

      [laughing]

    24. TS

      You'd probably go to one of the people, m- many other people on the team-

    25. NK

      Yeah

    26. TS

      ... before it would get to me.

    27. NK

      Yeah.

    28. TS

      But a lot of the we, the, people do all kinds of pitches.

    29. NK

      Monica in India, right?

    30. TS

      Monica in India.

  34. 1:41:36 – 1:42:42

    How diversity contributes to Netflix’s success

    1. NK

      Another thing that is big for Netflix is DEI. You have people of different race, religion, spread acro- ethnicities spread across different parts of Netflix, from greenlighting to leading different roles and all of that. Is it working? Is... Like, the popular narrative as an outsider sitting in India when I hear about what is happening in America, everyone's talking about, you know, DEI having caused a issue in some college, and how it's not necessarily the best thing for business. Is DEI Netflix helping Netflix produce better content and be a better streamer?

    2. TS

      Well, look, we're telling stories for 700 million people around the world.

    3. NK

      Mm-hmm.

    4. TS

      We need the people who are picking them to- people who are making them, people who are promoting them, to be a lot like the audience that they're serving. So that diversity ve- very much plays into our success. So I, a- and there, I don't believe that there's any conflict with getting the best person and having a diverse workforce.

  35. 1:42:42 – 1:44:47

    Can Netflix be global & local in India?

    1. NK

      For a long time, you sat on the very top end of Indian streaming. By top end, I mean you cater to the, not completely, but to the English niche audience, and you were the most expensive of services. Of late, you're getting very popular shows, uh, like Kapil Sharma, and I heard something about CID. These are more domestic language talk shows in a way. Uh, can you be both? Can you sit on that end and, and, and on this end?

    2. TS

      I mean, that's the beauty of the personalization work that we've been doing since the company began-

    3. NK

      Mm-hmm

    4. TS

      ... is we're not doing those shows instead of doing these other shows. We're doing those in addition to them. So that if you like these kind of shows, then those- that's what you'll see on Netflix, and if you don't, you'll see other things. So, um, we're broadening the offering, not narrowing it to something else.

    5. NK

      ... what is, what is working, like, all the data you have on India now, which is significant in all the time that you've been here, can you tell me some non-obvious insights you have learned that I won't know?

    6. TS

      I, I'm sure that you would probably the, the, the international performance of con- of programming from Japanese anime, uh, to Turkish soaps, to all kinds of different things that you would not expect would work very well in India, work very well in India.

    7. NK

      Is it? We don't speak the language.

    8. TS

      I, I, I, un- I think for some reason, and that you probably understand better than I do, the audience has got very- is very hungry for diverse storytelling from around the world. They love Bollywood, they love South In- Indian action movies. They love all those, all local content for sure-

    9. NK

      Mm.

    10. TS

      -but m- far more adventurous as viewers than I expected.

    11. NK

      Could it go back to the projection lens that people want to show you what they're watching, so that they can speak about the fact that they watched a Korean show?

    12. TS

      I don't know. Maybe to each other, maybe to each other, but I don't think so. I think it's what they like. Again, they would turn it off, they'd give it... You know what

  36. 1:44:47 – 1:45:49

    Hollywood vs. Netflix

    1. TS

      I mean? They would just hit play for a minute, then turn it off.

    2. NK

      Mm.

    3. TS

      Uh, 'cause... But honestly, they're watching and loving content from around the world.

    4. NK

      Uh, I watched this interview of yours where the journalist was telling you you're killing Hollywood, and you were talking about how you're saving Hollywood.

    5. TS

      Yeah.

    6. NK

      Explain. You might be saving Hol- [laughs]

    7. TS

      I, I can't explain why he says we're killing, but yeah. I think saving is, like, what, what we're doing.

    8. NK

      Mm.

    9. TS

      I mean, we're continuing to be able to create an environment where we can get s- films made and TV shows made.

    10. NK

      Mm.

    11. TS

      Um, and doing it in a way that I think what's, what's, what I think is killing Hollywood is we're... people forgetting the audience.

    12. NK

      Mm.

    13. TS

      And, and for us, it's like we're, we're obsessed about on the audience-

    14. NK

      Mm

    15. TS

      ... and serving them how they want, the way they want, the content they want, the programming they want, uh, and doing it really well. And it's like, and the, the numbers speak, speak for themselves, where people are, what they're doing and what they're not doing.

    16. NK

      Mm-hmm.

    17. TS

      Um, and so I think we're onto the right track by listening to customers, like, listening to the, to the audience.

  37. 1:45:49 – 1:47:16

    Netflix’s role in podcasting’s future

    1. NK

      What do you think happens next in the podcasting world, the independent content creators who d- are not, not sitting behind any organization?

    2. TS

      Yeah.

    3. NK

      How does that world evolve? Does Netflix start competing there?

    4. TS

      Look, I think the more podcasts become forward, uh, video-forward-

    5. NK

      Mm-hmm

    6. TS

      ... um, and people are watching on TV-

    7. NK

      Mm-hmm

    8. TS

      ... which they are more, doing more and more frequently, it's very likely that a lot of those well could end up on Netflix. Not all of them, but I do think, uh, that there's a, there's a place on Netflix for them, and where they could- we could out- we could monetize better-

    9. NK

      Mm

    10. TS

      ... than it being out everywhere else so where they, uh, you, where you find podcasts. Because we have a big enough distribution platform to bring most of the audience to you the same way. So possibly, we're, we're looking at all of them, uh. So I'd say the, um, the breadth of places that we're looking for new storytelling and new creators, uh, is bigger than it used to be. It's not just film school, it's not just a film festival. Uh, a lot of times it's YouTube and TikTok and Instagram.

    11. NK

      Are they eating up a lot of the mindshare that used to go to fiction?

    12. TS

      N- um, I don't know what they're trading off for.

    13. NK

      Mm.

    14. TS

      So, like, our... We're not dropping, and they're growing.

    15. NK

      Mm-hmm.

    16. TS

      Um, it could be that they're just accelerating the decline of linear television-

    17. NK

      Mm-hmm

    18. TS

      ... uh, which it wouldn't be a bad thing for us.

    19. NK

      Mm-hmm.

    20. TS

      Um, so, uh, but I do think what people are using the TV for-

    21. NK

      Mm

    22. TS

      ... is very interesting, how it's, how evolved it just in the last couple of years.

  38. 1:47:16 – 1:48:44

    Youth & attention span

    1. NK

      A lot of people tell me, Ted, that the youth have no patience. They're dead scrolling all the time, and their ability to do one thing for a prolonged duration is limited. But then I know many, many young people who are watching 10 hours of a Netflix show without a break or maybe-

    2. TS

      [laughs]

    3. NK

      ... 15 or 20 hours.

    4. TS

      Yeah, I-

    5. NK

      So who's right?

    6. TS

      I, I, I have not given up on the attention span of youth, that when Squid Game drops-

    7. NK

      Mm

    8. TS

      ... they're gonna stop everything they're doing and watch Squid Game in two days.

    9. NK

      Yeah.

    10. TS

      Yeah.

    11. NK

      So is it increasing or decreasing?

    12. TS

      I think we have- you've got to entertain them. You have to be... We have to be more entertaining than dead scrolling. [laughs] Bingeing, you have to outbinge dead scrolling.

    13. NK

      Dead scrolling is like short-term spurts of dopamine, right?

    14. TS

      Yeah.

    15. NK

      What chemical is Netflix catering to when you're watching a 10-hour show?

    16. TS

      I, like, I think if our common references as a culture are memes-

    17. NK

      Yeah

    18. TS

      ... that's depressing. To me, they're throwa- 'cause they're throwaway.

    19. NK

      Mm.

    20. TS

      You know what I mean? You would know, uh, people of a certain age don't even, don't, won't even know the things that you and I were talking about tonight.

    21. NK

      Mm.

    22. TS

      So I, I feel like what's great about it is, is that we're getting into their soul, getting into their heart, getting into their, you know, into their, into their own experience. The way that you think about a movie that you grew up with, the way I remember seeing Jaws at 10 years old in the movie theatre, people screaming, popcorn flying in the air, that's, that's part of who I am.

    23. NK

      Mm.

    24. TS

      And that's what we're, we're trying to- we're tapping into that.

  39. 1:48:44 – 1:51:56

    Netflix’s future in gaming

    1. NK

      You have a interesting marketing strategy where you, where you produce content to market content. Does that work?

    2. TS

      What do you... Oh, you mean producing, like, a podcast to promote a, a show? Yeah, definitely. Definitely.

    3. NK

      Yeah?

    4. TS

      Yeah.

    5. NK

      Why does that work, versus, say, a billboard or a hoarding or-

    6. TS

      I, I think it works in conjunction with all those things, does not in place of. So there's, you have to touch, you have to have a lot of touch points to get in the culture these days. There's a lot of things competing for your attention. So sometimes if you're really deep in, you're a big podcast listener or watcher, uh, and we have a sh- and you're also a true crime lover, that that true crime podcast about this show upcoming, it's a natural.

    7. NK

      Right, and that works... So if I made content, if I produced a 10-part, one-hour series about something, let's say about the financial markets-... what would my go-to strategy be? Say I've met Monica and you, and you guys have greenlit it-

    8. TS

      Yeah.

    9. NK

      -you've paid for me to produce it, everything is done. I need to create a buzz about it because it's coming on Netflix's homepage tomorrow.

    10. TS

      Yeah.

    11. NK

      Where would I go? Like, would it be-

    12. TS

      Well, luckily, you have a great following of entrepreneurs, right?

    13. NK

      Yeah.

    14. TS

      So if, if you make a show like that-

    15. NK

      Yeah

    16. TS

      ... and it doesn't appeal to your base-

    17. NK

      Yeah

    18. TS

      ... it's doomed.

    19. NK

      Yeah. [chuckles]

    20. TS

      So you, you can go out-

    21. NK

      No, I mean, I mean, not for me specifically, but-

    22. TS

      No, I'm saying you, someone like you, you go out to your base.

    23. NK

      Yeah.

    24. TS

      If it's huge or if it's s- even small-

    25. NK

      Yeah

    26. TS

      ... uh, and then the, have the, have that echo, and it can get larger and larger.

    27. NK

      Do you think any competition could come for YouTube, Instagram, Twitter? I know each of them do a different things, but are you seeing something that I have not seen in terms of competition for anything?

    28. TS

      Yeah, they all have... These things all have life cycles.

    29. NK

      Yeah.

    30. TS

      You know? Rem- remember Myspace? [laughing]

  40. 1:51:56 – 1:54:43

    Closing thoughts

    1. TS

      Yeah.

    2. NK

      Yeah. I don't have any questions per se, Ted. Any fleeting thoughts? Like, anything you'd like to say? Advi- if, if you were to presume for a second-

    3. TS

      Yeah

    4. NK

      ... that you're talking to a 20-year-old Indian boy or girl who wants to start a business in media, content, anything you'd like to say to them?

    5. TS

      I, I think that young people, you said they're, a, a short attention span. I do think they're impatient.

    6. NK

      Mm.

    7. TS

      Um, and I do think that a lot of these, a lot of media jobs particularly-

    8. NK

      Mm-hmm

    9. TS

      ... uh, if you're gonna start a media business, y- you, to, to be very successful, you're gonna wanna know how to do everything that everyone's doing. And the best way to do that is to start at the bottom, put in the time, and work for a, work at a company-

    10. NK

      Mm

    11. TS

      ... be a production assistant on a, on a film, go get coffee for a writer's room-

    12. NK

      Mm

    13. TS

      ... do all those kind of things that you didn't think you wanted to do.

    14. NK

      Yeah.

    15. TS

      But if you wanna do a run- if you wanna run a business in this part-

    16. NK

      Mm

    17. TS

      ... you're gonna have to learn how, how all those things operate and how all those people work-

    18. NK

      Mm

    19. TS

      ... if you wanna be successful. And the best way to do it is to do it. And this is the beauty of being young, is you put in the little bit of time and figure out, as soon as you learn what you need to learn, as soon as you find that this part may be f- by the way, you may discover-

    20. NK

      Mm

    21. TS

      ... the avenue that you've really been looking for all the, all along-

    22. NK

      Mm-hmm

    23. TS

      ... uh, by spending that time in the writer's room or on set or in post-production or the VFX house-

    24. NK

      Mm-hmm

    25. TS

      ... uh, as an assistant, where you have opportunity to learn and be mentored. So, uh, I would say don't be impatient.

    26. NK

      Mm-hmm.

    27. TS

      Uh, take your time, learn the roles, learn the jobs, learn the people who do those jobs-

    28. NK

      Mm-hmm

    29. TS

      ... and see if that's really what you wanna do. That's so true.

    30. NK

      Any fleeting words for India, in your very short visit here?

Episode duration: 1:54:44

Install uListen for AI-powered chat & search across the full episode — Get Full Transcript

Transcript of episode QT2FGbR0nIM

Get more out of YouTube videos.

High quality summaries for YouTube videos. Accurate transcripts to search & find moments. Powered by ChatGPT & Claude AI.

Add to Chrome