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

Nikhil Kamath 0:00 [upbeat music] If you were to describe Ted, the human, in three words, what would the three words be? [upbeat music] Hi, Ted.

Ted Sarandos 0:57 Hey, how are you?

Nikhil Kamath 0:58 Thank you. Good.

Ted Sarandos 0:59 Thanks for having me.

Nikhil Kamath 1:00 Thank you for coming. Uh, so you've been in India for 12 hours now?

Ted Sarandos 1:05 About [chuckles] about 12 hours, yeah.

Nikhil Kamath 1:07 How does it feel?

Ted Sarandos 1:08 I love being- coming to India so much, and it's... I never get enough time here.

Nikhil Kamath 1:12 Mm-hmm.

Ted Sarandos 1:12 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.

Nikhil Kamath 1:18 What-

Ted Sarandos 1:18 But it's, uh, it's a, it's a... I love the energy of India.

Nikhil Kamath 1:21 What have you done so far today?

Ted Sarandos 1:23 Today, I, uh, came in, I met with the ministers, and I met-- I went to the Waves conference and spoke on stage-

Nikhil Kamath 1:30 Mm-hmm

Ted Sarandos 1:30 ... and was interviewed. Uh.

Nikhil Kamath 1:33 Do you have a favorite creator in India?

Ted Sarandos 1:35 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-

Nikhil Kamath 1:46 Mm-hmm

Ted Sarandos 1:47 ... 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-

Nikhil Kamath 2:09 Yeah

Ted Sarandos 2:09 ... in, in Los Angeles. Uh, but so I would say, I mean, that's probably who, someone I know the most-

Nikhil Kamath 2:14 Yeah

Ted Sarandos 2:14 ... and really enjoy

Ted Sarandos 2:15 working with.

Nikhil Kamath 2:16 So you've been at Netflix forever.

Ted Sarandos 2:19 Twenty-five years this, this... Just recently passed 25th, my past, my 25th year anniversary.

Nikhil Kamath 2:25 I have watched a lot of your interviews, probably most of them.

Ted Sarandos 2:31 Sorry. [laughing]

Nikhil Kamath 2:34 [laughing] I know Reed a little bit-

Ted Sarandos 2:35 Yeah

Nikhil Kamath 2:36 ... '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.

Ted Sarandos 2:50 Yeah.

Nikhil Kamath 2:50 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-

Ted Sarandos 3:08 Yeah

Nikhil Kamath 3:08 ... 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-

Ted Sarandos 3:19 Yeah, I, I met Reed in 1999-

Nikhil Kamath 3:23 Mm

Ted Sarandos 3:23 ... 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.

Nikhil Kamath 3:42 Right.

Ted Sarandos 3:42 In fact, you just rent them one at a time.

Nikhil Kamath 3:44 Yeah.

Ted Sarandos 3:45 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-

Nikhil Kamath 4:19 Mm-hmm

Ted Sarandos 4:19 ... he just did a deal with the studios where they could, uh, where you could do revenue share."

Nikhil Kamath 4:23 Mm-hmm.

Ted Sarandos 4:23 "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-

Nikhil Kamath 4:32 What year was this?

Ted Sarandos 4:33 This was in 1999.

Nikhil Kamath 4:34 Mm-hmm.

Ted Sarandos 4:35 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?

Nikhil Kamath 4:42 Mm-hmm.

Ted Sarandos 4:43 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-

Nikhil Kamath 4:57 Mm-hmm

Ted Sarandos 4:57 ... which was I went out and bought an airline ticket to fly to San Jose to go meet Reed.

Nikhil Kamath 5:02 Mm-hmm.

Ted Sarandos 5:02 Um, and there was a kind of a warehouse, you know, of an office, and I went in and met with him. There was very few people in there at the time, and he laid out his vision for Netflix, which was almost exactly like it is right now.

Nikhil Kamath 5:17 Mm-hmm.

Ted Sarandos 5:18 Um, it would be all digital. Uh, there would be no, you know... The, the, the DVD through the mail thing was just, that's the cheapest way to move bits from here to there right now. Uh, it'll take, takes a couple of days, but it's very cheap.

Nikhil Kamath 5:31 Mm.

Ted Sarandos 5:32 And pretty, pretty soon, the internet will be almost free to distribute on, uh, and will move very fast, and we'll be able to do all this. Uh, that, we talked about it downloading instead of streaming at the time, 'cause that's, streaming, it didn't really quite exist yet.

Nikhil Kamath 5:43 Mm-hmm.

Ted Sarandos 5:44 Um, but that's the... Uh, it would be global, 'cause the internet would enable global distribution in ways that physical media would, would ne- could never do.

Nikhil Kamath 5:52 Mm-hmm.

Ted Sarandos 5:53 Um, and it sounded a little crazy to me, uh, in October of 1999, [chuckles] 'cause he said that all entertainment will come into the home on the internet.

Nikhil Kamath 6:01 Mm-hmm.

Ted Sarandos 6:01 You know, this is at a time when no entertainment was coming into the home on the internet.... um, but so i- i- in hindsight, of course, it was very visionary. I actually just thought he was kind of maybe, maybe not, uh, not fully playing with all mar- all of his marbles maybe. Uh, because, in fact, I had tried to watch video on the internet before, and it's very... It was terrible.

Nikhil Kamath 6:20 Yeah.

Ted Sarandos 6:21 And I just said, I d- I didn't see that it was gonna get from point A to point B anytime soon.

Nikhil Kamath 6:25 Mm.

Ted Sarandos 6:25 And he said to me, "Well, there's a thing called Moore's Law. The internet's gonna get fa- twice as fast at half the price every 18 months," and that's exactly what happened.

Nikhil Kamath 6:34 Mm.

Ted Sarandos 6:34 And I, um, he... Alfred made the job to come to work at Netflix to run the purchasing and programming, and I, at the time, I didn't- I wasn't looking for a job, so I just went back to work, and, um, he offered me the position.

Nikhil Kamath 6:51 Why purchasing and programming? You had no background in that, right?

Ted Sarandos 6:54 Uh, yeah, I did. At the, the, at the video, in video distribution-

Nikhil Kamath 6:57 Mm-hmm

Ted Sarandos 6:57 ... I, I'd ran distribution from the, the studios to the stores.

Nikhil Kamath 7:01 Mm-hmm.

Ted Sarandos 7:02 And then, and at the time that I met Reed, I was at West Coast Video, where I was doing the programming, marketing, and publicity, and all the p- all the purchasing for the stores. It was about 400 stores-

Nikhil Kamath 7:10 He's no longer active, is he, Reed?

Ted Sarandos 7:12 No, no.

Nikhil Kamath 7:12 Like, when I spoke to him last year, he was more like-

Ted Sarandos 7:15 Yeah

Nikhil Kamath 7:15 ... retirement phase.

Ted Sarandos 7:16 Yeah, he just recently, uh, stepped down from executive chair to chair-

Nikhil Kamath 7:20 Right

Ted Sarandos 7:20 ... of our board. So he's very helpful all the time. Like, you know-

Nikhil Kamath 7:23 Right

Ted Sarandos 7:23 ... we call him regularly for advice and input. I went out and visited him at Powder Mountain a couple weeks ago, and-

Nikhil Kamath 7:28 Right

Ted Sarandos 7:28 ... uh, and I just had a board meeting with him last week. So he's- he is an unbelievable resource, but-

Nikhil Kamath 7:33 Right

Ted Sarandos 7:33 ... um, but at the time, I wasn't sure if he was a crazy person or if he was the next coming. So he, um, he kept calling, though, and said, "You know, we've- you should come work here. We're- we're g- we're gonna do exciting things." And I said, "Look, ed, I- I'm just, you just got me at a bad time." Uh, and he said, "Why is that?" And I said, I just went... I described what was happening at my current job-

Nikhil Kamath 7:53 Mm-hmm

Ted Sarandos 7:53 ... which was that we had bought another company. They were both in very bad shape, and, uh, and I was di- I was renegotiating all my deals with the studios and all these things. And he said, [chuckles] this is classic Reed, he goes, "It sounds like they really need you there."

Nikhil Kamath 8:07 Mm.

Ted Sarandos 8:08 And I go, "Yeah, yeah, that's what's going on, really." And he goes, "Well, they need you in third-world countries feeding starving children. Why aren't you doing that?" [laughs] Well, that's true, and I started laughing, and I said, "I, I'd take the job," 'cause I liked him. I liked that- I liked that approach. So that was my beginning, and Reed had started the company-

Nikhil Kamath 8:23 Yeah

Ted Sarandos 8:24 ... um, with this vision to get there, and at the time, they were doing all kinds of things. They were selling po- movie posters or-

Nikhil Kamath 8:29 Right

Ted Sarandos 8:30 ... transactional rental. When I got there, they had just started doing the subscription when I got there.

Nikhil Kamath 8:34 Right. So when Reed started the company with this other person, Mark Randolph, I think-

Ted Sarandos 8:38 Mark Randolph, yeah.

Nikhil Kamath 8:39 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-

Ted Sarandos 8:49 Yeah

Nikhil Kamath 8:50 ... and he asked Mark to step down and took over. This culture of hiring, testing people quickly-

Ted Sarandos 9:00 Yeah

Nikhil Kamath 9:01 ... 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?

Ted Sarandos 9:16 It works very well for Netflix.

Nikhil Kamath 9:17 Mm.

Ted Sarandos 9:17 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.

Nikhil Kamath 9:30 Mm.

Ted Sarandos 9:31 And he was talking about talent density-

Nikhil Kamath 9:33 Mm

Ted Sarandos 9:33 ... being an issue.

Nikhil Kamath 9:34 Mm.

Ted Sarandos 9:34 And I go, "Talent density? You got s- 175 [chuckles] people here. What are you talking about?"

Nikhil Kamath 9:37 Mm.

Ted Sarandos 9:38 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."

Nikhil Kamath 9:43 Mm.

Ted Sarandos 9:43 And, and I didn't even really even understand the concept, to be honest with you.

Nikhil Kamath 9:46 Right.

Ted Sarandos 9:47 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?

Nikhil Kamath 9:55 Mm.

Ted Sarandos 9:55 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-

Nikhil Kamath 10:05 Mm-hmm

Ted Sarandos 10:05 ... 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.

Nikhil Kamath 10:15 Right.

Ted Sarandos 10:15 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-

Nikhil Kamath 10:26 Mm

Ted Sarandos 10:26 ... 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-

Nikhil Kamath 10:32 Mm-hmm

Ted Sarandos 10:32 ... "You're gonna have- this is gonna be a great place to work, but the bar is gonna be held very, very high. Uh, and if you can... This is not a family."

Nikhil Kamath 10:39 Right.

Ted Sarandos 10:39 "This is a sports team, a high-performing sports team." He goes, "You know, you wouldn't throw your brother out."

Nikhil Kamath 10:43 Right.

Ted Sarandos 10:44 He said, "But there's no shame of getting cut from the a great team. You can... A lot of great athletes get cut from a great team."

Nikhil Kamath 10:49 Mm.

Ted Sarandos 10:50 Which is a good way, a good, an interesting way to think about it, yeah.

Nikhil Kamath 10:52 Is it still like that? It's the very opposite of how things work in India, 'cause we are largely family-owned businesses.

Ted Sarandos 11:01 Yeah.

Nikhil Kamath 11:01 So, you know, the father retires, the kids take over, the cousins are there, the sisters, the brothers-

Ted Sarandos 11:07 Yeah

Nikhil Kamath 11:07 ... all of them together. I'm trying to, like, evaluate one versus the other and see what works for one and doesn't for another.

Ted Sarandos 11:15 I, I mean, it depends heavily on what you're doing.

Nikhil Kamath 11:17 Right.

Ted Sarandos 11:18 So I think that what we were doing depended on an, an incredible amount of great execution.

Nikhil Kamath 11:23 Mm.

Ted Sarandos 11:24 Um, build- building things that worked and very, you know, fixing big, hairy problems. And for, for engineers, you had to have a, a, an attractive enough problem for them to come solve and a big enough prize.

Nikhil Kamath 11:35 Right.

Ted Sarandos 11:35 So for, if you're doing that, and, and you know that there's gonna be competitors-

Nikhil Kamath 11:39 Mm

Ted Sarandos 11:39 ... and they're gonna get good at it, you need to be better at, better at it than they are, faster than they are. So, you know, someone has got to be responsible for better, faster, cheaper all the time, and you have to hold everyone's, you know, to a very high bar to do that.

Nikhil Kamath 11:52 Right. You were always into journalism, Ted. This is what I read-

Ted Sarandos 11:55 Yeah

Nikhil Kamath 11:55 ... that in college, you ran the newspaper. You were the editor. You wanted to be a journalist growing up?

Ted Sarandos 12:01 I did. As a, as a kid, I really admired journalists.

Nikhil Kamath 12:04 Mm.

Ted Sarandos 12:05 I, I, uh, I grew up in Phoenix, Arizona-

Nikhil Kamath 12:08 Mm

Ted Sarandos 12:08 ... 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.

Nikhil Kamath 12:32 Mm.

Ted Sarandos 12:32 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.

Nikhil Kamath 13:15 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?

Ted Sarandos 13:32 I think, um, some version of being a real source of truth, I think is a real commendable thing in a society.

Nikhil Kamath 13:38 Why is that?

Ted Sarandos 13:39 Uh, being able to tell the truth.

Nikhil Kamath 13:40 Is there such a thing as truth?

Ted Sarandos 13:42 Yeah, yeah.

Nikhil Kamath 13:43 Everything is a interpretation from one lens or another-

Ted Sarandos 13:46 Yeah

Nikhil Kamath 13:46 ... right?

Ted Sarandos 13:47 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-

Nikhil Kamath 13:59 Mm-hmm

Ted Sarandos 14:00 ... yeah, you, what, what you can't do is say, "That didn't happen."

Nikhil Kamath 14:04 Right.

Ted Sarandos 14:04 Yeah.

Nikhil Kamath 14:05 Okay.

Nikhil Kamath 14:07 So you grew up, went to college, worked in the school newspaper, started working at a rental store, met Reed, started at Netflix.

Ted Sarandos 14:15 Yeah.

Nikhil Kamath 14:16 That-

Ted Sarandos 14:16 The thing, it's funny, when the rental store was my first job-

Nikhil Kamath 14:18 Uh-huh

Ted Sarandos 14:18 ... 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-

Nikhil Kamath 14:35 Mm

Ted Sarandos 14:35 ... 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.

Nikhil Kamath 15:00 Are you the opposite of that? Are you a frugal person when it comes to family?

Ted Sarandos 15:04 I think, um, when it comes to family?

Nikhil Kamath 15:07 Yeah. Like, I feel like whatever my parents were-

Ted Sarandos 15:10 Yeah

Nikhil Kamath 15:12 ... whatever they had excess of as a quality, as a emotional quality, I might overcompensate on the other end.

Ted Sarandos 15:19 I think when it comes to family, I'm generous. When it comes to my per- per- me personally, I'm frugal.

Nikhil Kamath 15:24 Right.

Ted Sarandos 15:24 Like, I don't spend a lot on things for myself.

Nikhil Kamath 15:27 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-

Ted Sarandos 15:35 Yeah

Nikhil Kamath 15:35 ... 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?

Ted Sarandos 16:06 [chuckles] Is it self-serving?

Nikhil Kamath 16:07 Yeah.

Ted Sarandos 16:08 Like being, being-

Nikhil Kamath 16:08 Everything in life-

Ted Sarandos 16:09 Yeah

Nikhil Kamath 16:09 ... is self-serving.

Ted Sarandos 16:10 Yeah.

Nikhil Kamath 16:10 Don't you think?

Ted Sarandos 16:10 Yeah, I think so. I think so.

Nikhil Kamath 16:11 Yeah.

Ted Sarandos 16:12 Look, some of it is role... You, you think you're role modeling it.

Nikhil Kamath 16:15 Yeah.

Ted Sarandos 16:16 Um, part of it is that, like, for me, it's like, um, people who grew up in the Depression, and they get, then they later on have plenty-

Nikhil Kamath 16:22 Yeah

Ted Sarandos 16:23 ... but you still think you could lose it all the time.

Nikhil Kamath 16:25 Yeah.

Ted Sarandos 16:25 But I mean about, like, we would, we would have these periods growing up where we lived very well, went on a nice vacation and everything, and then come home, and we're broke. So, so I, this, this, this sense of that you could lose it-

Nikhil Kamath 16:37 Yeah

Ted Sarandos 16:37 ... is not, never far from me.

Nikhil Kamath 16:39 If you were to describe Ted, the human, in three words, what would the three words be?

Ted Sarandos 16:45 [lips smack] Um, I'll go back to creative-

Nikhil Kamath 16:49 Mm-hmm

Ted Sarandos 16:49 ... 'cause I think that's something I pride myself on.

Nikhil Kamath 16:51 Mm-hmm.

Ted Sarandos 16:52 Uh, uh, curious-

Nikhil Kamath 16:54 Mm-hmm

Ted Sarandos 16:58 ... and honest.

Nikhil Kamath 16:59 Hmm.

Ted Sarandos 17:01 I mean, curious, you could say searching instead of curious, but-

Nikhil Kamath 17:03 Yeah

Ted Sarandos 17:04 ... those are all nice att- those are all good. Those are all positive attributes, [chuckles] I guess. [chuckles]

Nikhil Kamath 17:09 [chuckles] Honest about?

Ted Sarandos 17:11 Everything I can be.

Nikhil Kamath 17:12 One thing that is wrong with the world today?

Ted Sarandos 17:15 Uh, lack of trust.

Nikhil Kamath 17:19 Because?

Ted Sarandos 17:20 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.

Nikhil Kamath 17:29 Mm.

Ted Sarandos 17:29 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-

Nikhil Kamath 17:38 Mm

Ted Sarandos 17:38 ... by bringing down Nixon-

Nikhil Kamath 17:40 Right

Ted Sarandos 17:40 ... uh, by telling the truth.

Nikhil Kamath 17:42 Right.

Ted Sarandos 17:42 Which then people stopped having faith in systems-

Nikhil Kamath 17:45 Mm

Ted Sarandos 17:45 ... and hierarchies. Uh, and then, so I, I often had the arguments with Reed-

Nikhil Kamath 17:50 Mm

Ted Sarandos 17:50 ... when I would said, say that when Walter Cronkite-

Nikhil Kamath 17:54 Mm-hmm

Ted Sarandos 17:54 ... was the news, and everybody tuned into the news to hear that from Walter Cronkite, um, that the world was a better place when there was one source of truth-

Nikhil Kamath 18:02 Mm

Ted Sarandos 18:02 ... even if it was wrong 25% of the time.

Nikhil Kamath 18:05 Is that happening today? People don't believe-

Ted Sarandos 18:07 They don't believe anything. I mean, a lot of people don't believe anything-

Nikhil Kamath 18:10 Yeah

Ted Sarandos 18:10 ... and no one believes everything.

Nikhil Kamath 18:12 Yeah.

Ted Sarandos 18:12 Uh, and I don't know that we- that's made the world a better place in some ways.

Nikhil Kamath 18:17 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.

Ted Sarandos 18:44 Yeah.

Nikhil Kamath 18:45 What do you think about that?

Ted Sarandos 18:46 Well, it's almost like once- you and I are having a conversation right now, I see the camera right there.

Nikhil Kamath 18:52 Yeah. [laughs]

Ted Sarandos 18:53 [laughs] I know this is gonna be recorded-

Nikhil Kamath 18:54 Yeah

Ted Sarandos 18:54 ... and played for other people.

Nikhil Kamath 18:55 Would you say something differently-

Ted Sarandos 18:56 So-

Nikhil Kamath 18:56 -if you could manifest no cameras around, and you could imagine that they didn't exist?

Ted Sarandos 19:03 I, I think I, I think I would.

Nikhil Kamath 19:05 Right.

Ted Sarandos 19:05 I mean, I think, but I, I think I would, would m- be materials, maybe say m- things materially different.

Nikhil Kamath 19:10 Right.

Ted Sarandos 19:10 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-

Nikhil Kamath 19:22 Mm-hmm

Ted Sarandos 19:22 ... uh, and it's gonna exist on the internet for a l- for a long time-

Nikhil Kamath 19:26 Yeah

Ted Sarandos 19:26 ... uh, that people, you know, people will be slightly guarded.

Nikhil Kamath 19:29 Right.

Ted Sarandos 19:29 And so then ther- therefore, I know that when I see anything-

Nikhil Kamath 19:32 Right

Ted Sarandos 19:33 ... on the internet, on television, anywhere, that is slightly manufactured, slightly guarded.

Nikhil Kamath 19:38 Mm.

Ted Sarandos 19:38 And every once in a while, when you see something that is not-

Nikhil Kamath 19:40 Mm

Ted Sarandos 19:41 ... it's a rev- it's, it's a marvel. It's a revelation when you see something-

Nikhil Kamath 19:44 Yeah

Ted Sarandos 19:44 ... that is authentic and real.

Nikhil Kamath 19:46 Maybe today is such a day?

Ted Sarandos 19:47 I hope so.

Nikhil Kamath 19:48 [laughs]

Ted Sarandos 19:48 I think so. I will, I promise to try.

Nikhil Kamath 19:50 [laughs]

Ted Sarandos 19:50 I promise to be, yeah.

Nikhil Kamath 19:52 So you joined Netflix, and then? Y- you were competing initially with Blockbuster.

Ted Sarandos 19:57 Blockbuster, which was as big a competitor as we could have imagined when-

Nikhil Kamath 20:00 Right

Ted Sarandos 20:00 ... back then, yeah.

Nikhil Kamath 20:01 How was that? How was that journey? Here is this behemoth, which was, what? An $8 billion company back then.

Ted Sarandos 20:08 Eight billion.

Nikhil Kamath 20:08 And what was-

Ted Sarandos 20:09 Unimaginable that we could grow to $8 billion.

Nikhil Kamath 20:11 Yeah. And $8 billion in 2003 is like, I don't know, $100 billion today.

Ted Sarandos 20:16 Today, yeah, yeah.

Nikhil Kamath 20:17 Yeah.

Ted Sarandos 20:17 Yeah, and, and they were global.

Nikhil Kamath 20:19 Uh.

Ted Sarandos 20:19 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.

Nikhil Kamath 20:27 Right.

Ted Sarandos 20:28 D- Disney, for sure, but they were also-

Nikhil Kamath 20:30 Mm

Ted Sarandos 20:30 ... uh, a very specific, narrow niche.

Nikhil Kamath 20:32 Mm.

Ted Sarandos 20:32 But yeah.

Nikhil Kamath 20:33 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.

Ted Sarandos 20:43 Yeah, um, we had, uh, at beginning, we only had one center in California.

Nikhil Kamath 20:47 Right.

Ted Sarandos 20:47 And it would take three to five days to get to the East Coast.

Nikhil Kamath 20:50 Mm-hmm.

Ted Sarandos 20:51 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-

Nikhil Kamath 20:58 Mm-hmm

Ted Sarandos 20:58 ... than the people in New York.

Nikhil Kamath 20:59 Mm-hmm.

Ted Sarandos 21:00 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-

Nikhil Kamath 21:07 Mm

Ted Sarandos 21:07 ... we were doing one-day delivery to e- everywhere in the country.

Nikhil Kamath 21:12 And I, I was reading this case study, which said that what did not work for Blockbuster specifically is the late fees. And, uh, I mean, there is this guy who talks about, Daniel Kahneman, who wrote this book, Thinking, Fast and Slow-

Ted Sarandos 21:27 Yeah

Nikhil Kamath 21:28 ... who speaks about when you look back at a memory, the thing that you remember is the peak pain or the peak joy in the memory.

Ted Sarandos 21:35 Yeah.

Nikhil Kamath 21:35 The returning a DVD after 10 days and paying that $3 a day late fee-

Ted Sarandos 21:40 Yeah, wiped out all the joy of it, yeah.

Nikhil Kamath 21:42 Wiped out all the joy of Blockbuster. Now-

Ted Sarandos 21:45 Yeah

Nikhil Kamath 21:45 ... when you built competition for Bla- Blockbuster, what did you do to ensure that that peak pain is not there? How did you mitigate that?

Ted Sarandos 21:55 So, you know, back in the... We talk about renting a, going to the video rental store, and I, I always joke with my kids that that's like being a blacksmith. That's a job that doesn't exist anymore. Um, but I said that you, that business was never a good customer satisfaction business. Almost nobody who walked in the door got the movie they came for.

Nikhil Kamath 22:13 Mm-hmm.

Ted Sarandos 22:14 So it became the second-choice business.

Nikhil Kamath 22:16 Mm-hmm.

Ted Sarandos 22:16 Uh, I always called it the managed dissatisfaction. Uh, so you, a- a, you didn't get what you came for.

Nikhil Kamath 22:23 Right.

Ted Sarandos 22:23 And then, b, when you brought it back, if you were a day late, you had to pay a fee, and that's all you remembered. So now you- nothing about this was great, but then you come back Friday night and do it all over again. Um, so for us, we were looking at, like, what is the thing, uh, that people really hate about this?

Nikhil Kamath 22:38 Mm-hmm.

Ted Sarandos 22:39 And, 'cause we're trying to get them to do something completely different. And it w- that late fee was their biggest counterposition, which was, there's never a late fee, because it's just, you keep it as long as you want. You just don't get another one till you return it.

Nikhil Kamath 22:50 Mm-hmm.

Ted Sarandos 22:50 And you had three movies at home all the time, so you never really had to rush out and make a... You could make all your decisions a week ahead, and if you give us a list, we'll give you everything on your list. Maybe, maybe not in the same order you asked for it, but you'll get everything on your list. So it took care of the first choice problem. It took care of the late fee problem. Um, we had everything ever published on DVD, so you had the selection and choice. Uh, and then the really valuable thing was the recommendations, that we would help you find something you loved.

Nikhil Kamath 23:19 Mm.

Ted Sarandos 23:19 And I'd learned so much working in that, for, in the first little video store I worked in, I learned lessons that I carried into Netflix for years. Um, biggest one for me was, uh, like, um, trade radius. So we d- I, we used to buy the movies for the store, and I liked art films, and I liked W- Woody Allen comedies. And, uh, and Arizona was not, didn't- there wasn't a lot of fans of, like, um, the New York coastal comedy. So I would buy these movies that I loved, and I'd say, "Wow, we can't, we can't support..." 'Cause it used to be, you buy the tape for $100, and you rent it out for $5 a night. You hope you make enough money to pay the $100, $100 back. These tapes would never pay back, and it used to make me crazy. And I figured out, there are plenty of Woody Allen fans in the country. There's not enough in the neighborhood that goes to come to this store. So if, if you had one cop- 1,000 copies of a movie in a store, none of them make money. If you had one copy in a thousand stores all over the United States, they'd all make money. So that was this kind of i- and then Netflix became this kind of-... national footprint inventory.

Nikhil Kamath 24:25 Mm-hmm.

Ted Sarandos 24:25 So we can support very small niches, and then, or even more importantly, we could roll up small niches into big ones. So that's a, for me, was one of the biggest lessons that we learned there. The other one was people really cared about this, this choice thing. They really cared about find- picking something that, that... And I w- it always puzzled me, because it's a $5 transaction-

Nikhil Kamath 24:45 Mm.

Ted Sarandos 24:46 -and people would spend an hour in the store walking and reading all the boxes, and trying to figure out. And finally, I would start asking people in the store, like, "Well, well, why, uh, why are you spending so much time when you're trying to pick a movie?" And they said, "Well, I like how it makes me feel if I pick the movie and everyone likes it."

Nikhil Kamath 25:01 Mm-hmm.

Ted Sarandos 25:02 "It says a lot about me."

Nikhil Kamath 25:03 Mm-hmm.

Ted Sarandos 25:04 So there's a, there's a whole psychology to how you pick and finding things you like, that people value almost as a human being as much as, uh, a movie lover.

Nikhil Kamath 25:13 Is that still true, like, people feel like they get judged by the content they consume?

Ted Sarandos 25:18 They do.

Nikhil Kamath 25:19 It's almost a projection thing again?

Ted Sarandos 25:20 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.

Nikhil Kamath 25:27 Mm-hmm.

Ted Sarandos 25:27 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]

Nikhil Kamath 25:39 Mm.

Ted Sarandos 25:40 So that's that, that's a thing about it. It would say something about-

Nikhil Kamath 25:42 Right

Ted Sarandos 25:42 ... their personality, that you'll think more of me if these movies are good.

Nikhil Kamath 25:46 It's a bit like people posting pictures of the books they're reading on social media-

Ted Sarandos 25:52 Yeah

Nikhil Kamath 25:52 ... which they might not be reading.

Ted Sarandos 25:54 Yes, but in some cases, they're maybe recommending the book because it moved them so much.

Nikhil Kamath 25:58 Yeah.

Ted Sarandos 25:58 Or in other ones, they might just be saying, "Oh, look what I'm reading," yeah.

Nikhil Kamath 26:01 The former might happen a lot more than the latter, I presume.

Ted Sarandos 26:04 Well, the other telling one for us on this one-

Nikhil Kamath 26:07 Mm

Ted Sarandos 26:07 ... 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?

Nikhil Kamath 26:16 Mm.

Ted Sarandos 26:16 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.

Nikhil Kamath 26:24 Right.

Ted Sarandos 26:25 They never got around to them, [laughing] but they liked the idea that they could.

Nikhil Kamath 26:28 Mm.

Ted Sarandos 26:29 Yeah.

Nikhil Kamath 26:29 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?

Ted Sarandos 26:42 Yeah.

Nikhil Kamath 26:43 Yeah, like I would-

Ted Sarandos 26:45 That is one of the cool things about the internet, I think, that people were able to find their tribes.

Nikhil Kamath 26:50 Right.

Ted Sarandos 26:50 You know? Uh, they were able to find the, the people who like the quirky thing that I like, you know?

Nikhil Kamath 26:54 Right. Do people find their tribes, or they, they have a means of finding the tribe that is cool at that point of time?

Ted Sarandos 27:03 I think they... Yeah, they do.

Nikhil Kamath 27:04 Yeah. In a world today where, like, back then, choice and what one should watch, somebody recommending that or giving someone 100 titles or a million titles to choose from was a big thing. Do you think the world is moving today in a direction where I don't want a million choices? I want five choices, and I want you to tell me which the five best choices are.

Ted Sarandos 27:29 I mean, that's part of the bet, right, is that these kind of helping you pick... The worst thing you can give somebody, you'd think the worst thing would be a list of 100 movies, but the worst thing is a list of 1,000 movies.

Nikhil Kamath 27:39 Yeah.

Ted Sarandos 27:39 So, but actually, a curated list of five is unbelievably valuable.

Nikhil Kamath 27:43 Is that where you might go tomorrow?

Ted Sarandos 27:45 Well, it, it is- it wouldn't be us doing it. So you, even in these ways where we show you things today, we have to have a lot of very high confidence to only show you those things. So we'd still show you things that we have lower confidence that you're gonna love.

Nikhil Kamath 27:59 Mm-hmm.

Ted Sarandos 27:59 But, um, but the things that are most prominent are the things where the most confident you're gonna love.

Nikhil Kamath 28:05 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?

Ted Sarandos 28:21 Well-

Nikhil Kamath 28:21 Is there something you want me to click?

Ted Sarandos 28:23 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-

Nikhil Kamath 28:32 Right

Ted Sarandos 28:32 ... 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-

Nikhil Kamath 28:38 Mm

Ted Sarandos 28:38 ... 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.

Nikhil Kamath 29:10 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?

Ted Sarandos 29:25 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-

Nikhil Kamath 29:33 Mm-hmm

Ted Sarandos 29:33 ... is a very short relationship.

Nikhil Kamath 29:35 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.

Ted Sarandos 30:12 Yeah.

Nikhil Kamath 30:12 I could be a podcaster, a YouTuber, a, a independent musician, everything.

Ted Sarandos 30:18 Yeah.

Nikhil Kamath 30:19 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-

Ted Sarandos 30:37 Yeah

Nikhil Kamath 30:37 ... 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.

Ted Sarandos 31:12 It's just a bet or not bet?

Nikhil Kamath 31:13 Yeah.

Ted Sarandos 31:15 What's the, what's the goal?

Nikhil Kamath 31:17 To make a return.

Ted Sarandos 31:18 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-

Nikhil Kamath 31:40 Mm-hmm

Ted Sarandos 31:40 ... to keep making content, to ma- m- keep making programming. So that's-

Nikhil Kamath 31:45 And when you say make programming, are you talking about that me individually, say, I'm shooting this podcast?

Ted Sarandos 31:50 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-

Nikhil Kamath 31:57 Mm-hmm

Ted Sarandos 31:57 ... uh, can effectively monetize almost any content.

Nikhil Kamath 32:01 So you would put the money behind producing the content?

Ted Sarandos 32:05 Yeah.

Nikhil Kamath 32:06 And is there a specific kind of content that you think has more tailwind than other kind of content?

Ted Sarandos 32:11 This is the... I'm gonna give you the cheap answer.

Nikhil Kamath 32:13 Yeah.

Ted Sarandos 32:14 Good. [laughing]

Nikhil Kamath 32:15 [laughing]

Ted Sarandos 32:15 You know what I mean? 'Cause I think what, the people have such crazy diverse taste.

Nikhil Kamath 32:19 Right.

Ted Sarandos 32:19 And the things that you like, I may not like, and vice versa, so the good version of what you're setting out to make is always gonna work.

Nikhil Kamath 32:25 Mm.

Ted Sarandos 32:26 But there's the, the, it's very broad.

Nikhil Kamath 32:28 Mm.

Ted Sarandos 32:28 Uh, so many things that we, that s- the fact that Squid Game would be a global sensation like it is-

Nikhil Kamath 32:34 Yeah

Ted Sarandos 32:34 ... it's completely unpredictable.

Nikhil Kamath 32:36 Yeah.

Ted Sarandos 32:36 I mean, the Korean team who picked it-

Nikhil Kamath 32:39 Yeah

Ted Sarandos 32:39 ... they knew it was gonna be a big hit in Korea. They were right.

Nikhil Kamath 32:41 Yeah.

Ted Sarandos 32:42 And it turns out those things that are big local hits-

Nikhil Kamath 32:45 Yeah

Ted Sarandos 32:45 ... they have the best chance of traveling, 'cause they're very, very good.

Nikhil Kamath 32:48 Yeah.

Ted Sarandos 32:49 But this weird, you know, you, you, you might think, "Well, what, what you ought to do is take a movie and get that guy from Squid Game, and then, uh, get Shah Rukh Khan, and then you get, uh, B- Brad Pitt, and put them in a movie together."

Nikhil Kamath 33:00 Yeah.

Ted Sarandos 33:00 And then you've got this hodgepodge thing that no one recognizes.

Nikhil Kamath 33:03 Right.

Ted Sarandos 33:03 It's not familiar to anybody-

Nikhil Kamath 33:04 Right

Ted Sarandos 33:04 ... and no one watches it.

Nikhil Kamath 33:05 Right.

Ted Sarandos 33:06 So, so this idea of, you know, authentically local storytelling being the most globally valuable is unintuitive but totally true.

Nikhil Kamath 33:16 Familiarity is a good thing?

Ted Sarandos 33:18 Yeah. Yeah.

Nikhil Kamath 33:19 So-

Ted Sarandos 33:19 No, I think people will see... Like I said, I think when you watch Squid Game, it's very fundamentally Korean storytelling. It's, you know, Korean horror. It's, uh, there's nothing about it that is, you know, the, the edges aren't shaved, shaved down at all. Uh, but people see something in it, you know, class, uh, fairness. All tho- those are very universal themes, and they see the universal themes in it.

Nikhil Kamath 33:45 Mm.

Ted Sarandos 33:45 You know, you think about this idea that how many... There's not that many total stories in the world really. They're just told differently, different variants of them. Uh, they're all boiled down to some form of Shakespeare, you know?

Nikhil Kamath 33:55 Right.

Nikhil Kamath 33:56 There's a movie called Kantara. I don't know if you've heard of it.

Ted Sarandos 33:58 I know, I've, know, but I don't-

Nikhil Kamath 33:59 Yeah

Ted Sarandos 34:00 ... yeah.

Nikhil Kamath 34:00 It's a Kannada movie, where I come from-

Ted Sarandos 34:02 Yeah

Nikhil Kamath 34:02 ... Bangalore, uh, my hometown.

Ted Sarandos 34:04 Yeah.

Nikhil Kamath 34:04 It's made there. Again, very folksy, very local.

Ted Sarandos 34:07 Yeah.

Nikhil Kamath 34:08 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?

Ted Sarandos 34:21 Right.

Nikhil Kamath 34:22 Which is not what is happening, though.

Ted Sarandos 34:23 No. Look, I got worried years ago that when, uh, everyone was mak- when, when the China market opened up for America-

Nikhil Kamath 34:30 Yeah

Ted Sarandos 34:31 ... America was making movies for China. China's making movies for China. Who's making movies for America?

Nikhil Kamath 34:35 Yeah.

Ted Sarandos 34:36 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.

Nikhil Kamath 34:45 So local is a very interesting word.

Ted Sarandos 34:47 Yeah.

Nikhil Kamath 34:47 Everybody in this room is, at the very core, like each one of us, deeply passionate about content from a different lens.

Ted Sarandos 34:57 Yeah.

Nikhil Kamath 34:57 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?

Ted Sarandos 35:14 So I think that things have... Those lines are all blurring. I feel like the-

Nikhil Kamath 35:18 Micro series.

Ted Sarandos 35:20 What's that?

Nikhil Kamath 35:20 Micro series, that's a new word I heard.

Ted Sarandos 35:22 Yeah.

Nikhil Kamath 35:22 Three-minute shows, one episode a day.

Ted Sarandos 35:25 Yeah, the micro dramas and these things.

Nikhil Kamath 35:26 Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Ted Sarandos 35:27 Yeah, I d- I don't know that that's a... It's fun.

Nikhil Kamath 35:29 Yeah.

Ted Sarandos 35:29 I don't know that that's a business yet.

Nikhil Kamath 35:30 Yeah.

Ted Sarandos 35:30 Um, I've looked at it quite a bit. I, I think that the, like, a, a documentary particularly is something, the way it fails mostly is a short that should have been a feature, a feature that should have been a short. Uh, just picking the running time that's appropriate to the story you're telling. So the one thing that's great about a, a series is an eight-hour movie is probably not gonna work [chuckles] .

Nikhil Kamath 35:52 Right.

Ted Sarandos 35:52 But sometimes there's eight hours of storytelling, and doing it in one-hour bites or 30-minute bites is the right, the perfect way to tell this story in eight hours, and it has to be eight hours.

Nikhil Kamath 36:03 Mm.

Ted Sarandos 36:03 You know, let, let the story lead every time.

Nikhil Kamath 36:06 And it doesn't matter. It, it could be a eight-hour movie, it might work, right?

Ted Sarandos 36:09 Completely. Look at the... I watched, um, uh, it's Adolescence from the UK-

Nikhil Kamath 36:14 Yeah, yeah

Ted Sarandos 36:14 ... which is a very big s- big sensation now around the world. So if you watch the whole thing, it's four hours long. It's only 40 minutes longer than The Brutalist, one movie [laughing] .

Nikhil Kamath 36:24 Mm. Right.

Ted Sarandos 36:25 Yeah.

Nikhil Kamath 36:25 Can I also say, Ted, it's very impressive that unlike many s- CEOs in your shoes-... you're not selling the organization you belong to beyond a point, you know?

Ted Sarandos 36:41 Yeah.

Nikhil Kamath 36:42 We interview a lot of people, especially Westerners who come to India, who are constantly going back and following the diktat of the cor- corporation that's sitting behind, and it gets boring to people beyond a point.

Ted Sarandos 36:53 Yeah, yeah.

Nikhil Kamath 36:53 It's nice that you're being slightly candid. [laughing]

Ted Sarandos 36:58 [laughing]

Nikhil Kamath 36:59 Okay.

Ted Sarandos 36:59 Yeah.

Nikhil Kamath 37:00 So local duration-

Ted Sarandos 37:01 Slightly, just slightly. [laughing]

Nikhil Kamath 37:03 For now.

Ted Sarandos 37:04 Okay. [chuckles]

Nikhil Kamath 37:05 There's room to get better. [laughing]

Ted Sarandos 37:07 [laughing] Okay, I'll take the feedback.

Nikhil Kamath 37:09 [laughing] Okay. Local duration-

Ted Sarandos 37:12 Yeah

Nikhil Kamath 37:12 ... doesn't matter. Again, if I

Nikhil Kamath 37:15 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?

Ted Sarandos 37:50 I-

Nikhil Kamath 37:51 Financial success.

Ted Sarandos 37:52 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.

Nikhil Kamath 38:01 Agencies like?

Ted Sarandos 38:01 Like, uh, CAA, UTA, these, uh, agencies who-

Nikhil Kamath 38:05 Yeah

Ted Sarandos 38:05 ... represent talent-

Nikhil Kamath 38:06 Talent management

Ted Sarandos 38:07 ... 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-

Nikhil Kamath 38:17 Mm-hmm

Ted Sarandos 38:17 ... where if you go into the agency business first, you'll-

Nikhil Kamath 38:20 That's actually the op- I read his book-

Ted Sarandos 38:22 Yeah

Nikhil Kamath 38:22 ... Mike Ovitz.

Ted Sarandos 38:23 Yeah.

Nikhil Kamath 38:24 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.

Ted Sarandos 38:37 Yeah.

Nikhil Kamath 38:37 It's very cultish in that-

Ted Sarandos 38:38 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-

Nikhil Kamath 38:44 They work on a fixed percentage even without a contract, right?

Ted Sarandos 38:47 Yeah.

Nikhil Kamath 38:47 They don't sign contracts-

Ted Sarandos 38:48 Correct, no contract

Nikhil Kamath 38:48 ... with their talents.

Ted Sarandos 38:49 No. Right.

Nikhil Kamath 38:49 But I actually, funnily enough, have a small partnership in a talent management agency here-

Ted Sarandos 38:56 Yeah

Nikhil Kamath 38:56 ... 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] ?

Ted Sarandos 39:07 Really? Well, ma- I don't know if the enter- if the inter- if the culture is differently, different here-

Nikhil Kamath 39:11 Yeah

Ted Sarandos 39:11 ... than it would be in the US.

Nikhil Kamath 39:12 The culture is very similar-

Ted Sarandos 39:13 Yeah

Nikhil Kamath 39:14 ... to the-

Ted Sarandos 39:14 So in the US, you will be on the phone with them negotiating, listening to them negotiate the deal. You, you know, the agents, their-

Nikhil Kamath 39:21 Yeah

Ted Sarandos 39:21 ... their assistants are on the phones. They're actually listening to the, to the calls-

Nikhil Kamath 39:25 Yeah

Ted Sarandos 39:25 ... and listening to the details of deals that otherwise they're just trying to scrape, you know, dig through the trash to read the turn of contracts. Um, where I think you can just learn- you learn more, you're more hands-on, you realize why things do and don't work, and why deals fall apart, all those kind of things. And, and so I think you just get more of a broad picture of the entertainment business.

Nikhil Kamath 39:46 Yeah.

Ted Sarandos 39:46 And then if you want to get into what you want to do particularly, I think you should find the thing that you're really, really good at.

Nikhil Kamath 39:52 Mm.

Ted Sarandos 39:52 And I think for a way, my- one of my life lessons, back to my journalism versus executive, um, is I was passionate about being a journalist. I, I just wasn't very good at it. If I would've... I, I think if I would've been really good at it, I would've been even more passionate about it, and I would- And the reason I dropped out of it even, I said, "Well, everyone I'm seeing ahead of me, none of them are doing very well in, in life. You know, they're working in small markets and working their way up." And if you're going to do that, you've gotta really love it. You know, struggle for 10 years and do all that. And versus if you just find something that you're really good at, you will excel, and you'll feel good. You will get passionate at things that you're good at because you'll be proud of yourself for being good at them, and you will excel at those things that you're really good at. And you figure that out by doing a lot of different things. That's what I mean about the agencies giving you exposure-

Nikhil Kamath 40:40 Yeah

Ted Sarandos 40:40 ... to different things that you probably don't know that you're gonna love-

Nikhil Kamath 40:43 Yeah

Ted Sarandos 40:43 ... or, or that you're good at, 'cause you've never- 'cause you... This is what your 20s are for.

Nikhil Kamath 40:47 Yeah.

Ted Sarandos 40:47 You know, your, in your 20s, try things. You go out there, and if you don't, and if they don't work, quit. Or, you know, or you, you'll get fired maybe, but if you don't, if you don't get fired, quit-

Nikhil Kamath 40:56 Yeah

Ted Sarandos 40:56 ... and try something else.

Nikhil Kamath 40:57 I'm gonna-

Ted Sarandos 40:58 You shouldn't be unhappy at work in your 20s. You should be moving on to the next thing in your 20s.

Nikhil Kamath 41:02 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?

Ted Sarandos 41:17 We're not doing that.

Nikhil Kamath 41:18 You're not doing that.

Ted Sarandos 41:18 Yeah. Some of our movies go to the theaters just as a tactical part of the release.

Nikhil Kamath 41:22 Mm-hmm.

Ted Sarandos 41:22 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-

Nikhil Kamath 41:37 It's down, I think it's down-

Ted Sarandos 41:38 Yeah

Nikhil Kamath 41:39 ... even today at pre-COVID levels, net collections of all theaters.

Ted Sarandos 41:43 Yeah, in the US, it's down about 20% right now, but remember, ticket prices are up 25%, so attendance is way down.

Nikhil Kamath 41:51 Right.

Ted Sarandos 41:51 Uh, and I look at that as a sign from the consumers of what they want.

Nikhil Kamath 41:55 Yeah.

Ted Sarandos 41:55 Uh, because, uh, average American consumer watches two movies a year in the theater-

Nikhil Kamath 42:00 Mm-hmm

Ted Sarandos 42:00 ... 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]

Nikhil Kamath 42:19 So

Nikhil Kamath 42:20 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.

Ted Sarandos 42:35 Yeah.

Nikhil Kamath 42:35 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-

Ted Sarandos 42:54 There are fewer theatres?

Nikhil Kamath 42:55 Much fewer.

Ted Sarandos 42:55 Yeah.

Nikhil Kamath 42:56 Like, I would say a vast majority of our country still does not have access to a movie theatre.

Ted Sarandos 43:04 Yeah.

Nikhil Kamath 43:04 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-

Ted Sarandos 43:20 Yeah

Nikhil Kamath 43:21 ... 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.

Ted Sarandos 43:32 Yeah.

Nikhil Kamath 43:34 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.

Ted Sarandos 43:41 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-

Nikhil Kamath 44:21 Yeah

Ted Sarandos 44:21 ... uh, that's some- and it's the right movie, it's mind-blowing. I love that that still exists.

Nikhil Kamath 44:24 That is Ajay's-

Ted Sarandos 44:26 Yeah

Nikhil Kamath 44:26 ... business model.

Ted Sarandos 44:27 Yeah.

Nikhil Kamath 44:27 Have you spoken to him, Ajay? The largest multiplex.

Ted Sarandos 44:30 I have not, no. We don't, we don't really distribute-

Nikhil Kamath 44:32 Yeah

Ted Sarandos 44:32 ... theatrically, so yeah.

Nikhil Kamath 44:35 But again, for $20 and a three-hour window-

Ted Sarandos 44:38 Yeah

Nikhil Kamath 44:39 ... barring cricket, maybe, like, somebody sitting at home watching a cricket match-

Ted Sarandos 44:43 Yeah

Nikhil Kamath 44:43 ... or actually watching Netflix for three hours or four hours, there aren't that many options for families, right?

Ted Sarandos 44:50 Yeah.

Nikhil Kamath 44:50 Like, uh, if you had a choice, would you buy into or short-sell into any theatre business today?

Ted Sarandos 44:59 I, I, I don't wanna- I don't know their business that well.

Nikhil Kamath 45:01 Yeah.

Ted Sarandos 45:02 It's a high fixed cost business-

Nikhil Kamath 45:04 Right

Ted Sarandos 45:04 ... and that the, and there's- that the consumers have found substitutes for.

Nikhil Kamath 45:08 Right.

Ted Sarandos 45:08 Um, but again, I think that, well, there's something that's really wonderful about seeing a big movie in the theatre and enjoying it.

Nikhil Kamath 45:15 Do you go, Ted?

Ted Sarandos 45:17 I do. I do.

Nikhil Kamath 45:17 Yeah. They must just hate you when you get in. [laughing]

Ted Sarandos 45:22 [laughing]

Nikhil Kamath 45:23 Which was the last-

Ted Sarandos 45:24 But I don't go as often as I used to, but I-

Nikhil Kamath 45:25 Mm.

Ted Sarandos 45:25 'Cause mostly 'cause I'm just not finding-

Nikhil Kamath 45:27 Yeah

Ted Sarandos 45:28 ... the, the movies that I wanna see there anymore,

Ted Sarandos 45:30 yeah.

Nikhil Kamath 45:31 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?

Ted Sarandos 45:44 Can't?

Nikhil Kamath 45:44 Can.

Ted Sarandos 45:45 Yeah, they can now.

Nikhil Kamath 45:46 Yeah.

Ted Sarandos 45:46 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.

Nikhil Kamath 45:52 Yeah.

Ted Sarandos 45:52 So I think, I think, uh, you know, people will go up that curve, yeah.

Nikhil Kamath 45:55 Yeah. So what's the next big disruption here?

Ted Sarandos 45:59 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.

Nikhil Kamath 46:08 Right.

Ted Sarandos 46:08 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-

Nikhil Kamath 46:21 Mm-hmm

Ted Sarandos 46:21 ... 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-

Nikhil Kamath 46:36 Mm-hmm

Ted Sarandos 46:36 ... 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.

Nikhil Kamath 46:52 Mm-hmm.

Ted Sarandos 46:52 But things like, uh, the technology it takes to de-age an actor-

Nikhil Kamath 46:56 Mm-hmm

Ted Sarandos 46:57 ... 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.

Nikhil Kamath 47:40 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?

Ted Sarandos 48:03 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.

Nikhil Kamath 48:18 Yeah.

Ted Sarandos 48:18 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-

Nikhil Kamath 48:38 Yeah

Ted Sarandos 48:39 ... with the, with what, with what was spit out.

Nikhil Kamath 48:40 Yeah.

Ted Sarandos 48:41 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.

Nikhil Kamath 48:55 Yeah.

Ted Sarandos 48:55 '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.

Nikhil Kamath 49:04 Mm-hmm.

Ted Sarandos 49:04 It's take- it's giving you the most predictable outcome-

Nikhil Kamath 49:06 Mm-hmm

Ted Sarandos 49:07 ... 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.

Nikhil Kamath 49:41 Yeah.

Ted Sarandos 49:41 Yeah.

Nikhil Kamath 49:42 I was watching, uh, Lion King: Mufasa.

Ted Sarandos 49:46 Yeah.

Nikhil Kamath 49:46 Incredible.

Ted Sarandos 49:47 Yeah, isn't it great?

Nikhil Kamath 49:48 Yeah. Yeah.

Ted Sarandos 49:49 Remember we were just talking about theaters?

Nikhil Kamath 49:51 Mm-hmm.

Ted Sarandos 49:51 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.

Nikhil Kamath 50:02 Really?

Ted Sarandos 50:02 Made billions of dollars. The play, the play, the-

Nikhil Kamath 50:04 Yeah

Ted Sarandos 50:04 ... between the touring companies and everything else, it's made, I think, almost $10 billion.

Nikhil Kamath 50:08 Wow!

Ted Sarandos 50:09 Yeah. If you could invest in just that one [laughing]

Nikhil Kamath 50:13 [laughing] Tough to call it, no? Like, before it happens.

Ted Sarandos 50:15 Yeah, yeah.

Nikhil Kamath 50:17 In terms of live, uh, my team was telling me that there was this episode of Black Mirror which was interactive, and you could control the outcome you wanted to a certain extent.

Ted Sarandos 50:30 Ba- Bandersnatch, yeah.

Nikhil Kamath 50:32 Yeah.

Ted Sarandos 50:32 Yeah.

Nikhil Kamath 50:32 Do you think that'll happen?

Ted Sarandos 50:34 I... You know, it wasn't- it was very interesting and novel.

Nikhil Kamath 50:37 Yeah.

Ted Sarandos 50:37 Um, it wasn't huge. Uh, you know, um, video games do that so much better.

Nikhil Kamath 50:42 Yeah.

Ted Sarandos 50:43 You know, if you really want to control all your outcomes and, and design the, design the worlds you're playing in and all those kind of things, that- I think video games is a better outlet for doing that. [upbeat music] What do- tell me what we're eating.

Nikhil Kamath 51:20 Uh, this, I think, is cottage cheese.

Ted Sarandos 51:23 Yeah.

Nikhil Kamath 51:23 This. This is some kind of peach with sourdough bread.

Ted Sarandos 51:28 Okay.

Nikhil Kamath 51:29 And this is lamb.

Ted Sarandos 51:30 Oh, cool. I like lamb. [laughing] Okay. Um, yeah, so I, I mean, they definitely- I look at things that happen on the TV that compete for time on TV-

Nikhil Kamath 51:39 Mm-hmm

Ted Sarandos 51:39 ... and games are definitely a part of that.

Nikhil Kamath 51:41 Yeah.

Nikhil Kamath 51:42 We can go back to the Netflix story. So, you started sending DVDs in a world where VCRs were ruling the roost.

Ted Sarandos 51:54 Yeah.

Nikhil Kamath 51:55 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-

Ted Sarandos 53:02 Yeah

Nikhil Kamath 53:02 ... when I go from minute 5 to minute 30-

Ted Sarandos 53:05 Yeah

Nikhil Kamath 53:05 ... 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.

Ted Sarandos 53:18 Yeah.

Nikhil Kamath 53:19 Can you tell me, like, broad picture, what it- what does that look like?

Ted Sarandos 53:23 Well, you've gotta keep in mind, when we started doing this, the vision was always to be a digital delivery business.

Nikhil Kamath 53:30 Mm-hmm.

Ted Sarandos 53:30 So all the work that was going into this all started back in day one.

Nikhil Kamath 53:34 Mm-hmm.

Ted Sarandos 53:35 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.

Nikhil Kamath 54:09 Mm-hmm.

Ted Sarandos 54:10 And sometimes your connection would slow down on you, and the, it would start buffering.

Nikhil Kamath 54:15 Mm-hmm.

Ted Sarandos 54:16 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-

Nikhil Kamath 54:41 Mm

Ted Sarandos 54:42 ... '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-

Nikhil Kamath 55:09 Mm-hmm

Ted Sarandos 55:09 ... 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.

Nikhil Kamath 55:21 Mm-hmm.

Ted Sarandos 55:21 And ours is tech, second only to content.

Nikhil Kamath 55:25 Mm.

Ted Sarandos 55:28 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?

Nikhil Kamath 55:46 Mm.

Ted Sarandos 55:47 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-

Nikhil Kamath 55:55 Mm-hmm

Ted Sarandos 55:55 ... the content was lousy, what we were streaming.

Nikhil Kamath 55:57 Mm-hmm.

Ted Sarandos 55:57 We had people doing what they called golden eye test on the stream-

Nikhil Kamath 56:01 Mm-hmm

Ted Sarandos 56:01 ... to make sure the stream looked beautiful, 'cause eventually the content was gonna get good. So I think most people, when they saw Netflix growing up, they thought, "Oh, that's, that's easy. We'll buy some off-the-shelf software and, and, and stream. Ev- everyone can stream. Look at YouTube's doing it," you know, that kind of thing. Uh, but the truth of it is, it's really hard, and it's really complicated, especially in a multi-device world and with variable speed and speeds of connection. And sometimes you see it break down, like on the live, the Jake Paul, Mike Tyson fight.

Nikhil Kamath 56:29 Mm-hmm.

Ted Sarandos 56:29 You know, we pushed the internet right to the limits, uh-

Nikhil Kamath 56:32 Mm-hmm

Ted Sarandos 56:32 ... that night. Uh, but we learned so much. Now, we, we got a lifetime of learning that night, so then you see the NFL on Christmas Day, trouble-free.

Nikhil Kamath 56:41 Mm-hmm.

Ted Sarandos 56:41 So, so to me, it's like, for us, we are a tech company that got into entertainment. Um, we, we still have a very much of a, of a tech DNA, even though we've become primarily a te- a entertainment company, but our DNA is still very much a tech company.

Nikhil Kamath 56:57 So in a way, you're... You don't have one USP, but you have two. One is content curation, and the other is tech. Is that right?

Ted Sarandos 57:08 Yeah. But if, if no matter how good the content is-

Nikhil Kamath 57:14 If the tech isn't-

Ted Sarandos 57:14 ... if the delivery is bad, it doesn't matter.

Nikhil Kamath 57:15 Yeah.

Ted Sarandos 57:16 And then, and vice versa is true, too.

Nikhil Kamath 57:17 So the tech first, and then-

Ted Sarandos 57:18 If the, the tech can be beautiful, if the content's terrible, people are still gonna, are gonna turn you off.

Nikhil Kamath 57:21 But tech-

Ted Sarandos 57:22 You have to have both

Nikhil Kamath 57:22 ... more important than the content even?

Ted Sarandos 57:24 I think, I think it's a cost of entry. It's table stakes.

Nikhil Kamath 57:26 Yeah.

Ted Sarandos 57:26 The tech has to work better. And I think what you just described, almost everyone describes to me that.

Nikhil Kamath 57:31 Yeah.

Ted Sarandos 57:31 That why can't they do it as well as you do? Why, why does it not work when I push play on this one?

Nikhil Kamath 57:35 Yeah.

Ted Sarandos 57:36 You know, so.

Nikhil Kamath 57:38 So I met the YouTube CEO-

Ted Sarandos 57:40 Neil?

Nikhil Kamath 57:40 ... a couple of days ago. Neil.

Ted Sarandos 57:41 Yeah, he's a good man.

Nikhil Kamath 57:43 Is he competition?

Ted Sarandos 57:45 Yeah, for sure. Or definitely for same thing, for time and attention, and increasingly for ad dollars, yeah.

Nikhil Kamath 57:50 'Cause he's doing movies, and you will do music at some point, right?

Ted Sarandos 57:57 That we'll do music?

Nikhil Kamath 57:58 Yeah.

Ted Sarandos 57:58 No. No.

Nikhil Kamath 57:59 No? But you will do-

Ted Sarandos 58:01 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.

Nikhil Kamath 58:06 But you will do, like, podcasts and individual content creators putting up content.

Ted Sarandos 58:11 I think there's a, um, there's a class of creators on YouTube-

Nikhil Kamath 58:16 Mm-hmm

Ted Sarandos 58:17 ... 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.

Nikhil Kamath 58:32 Yeah.

Ted Sarandos 58:33 Um-

Nikhil Kamath 58:33 Like, we have 20 people working on this-

Ted Sarandos 58:34 Yeah

Nikhil Kamath 58:34 ... so I don't know what we are.

Ted Sarandos 58:36 Yeah.

Nikhil Kamath 58:36 Yeah.

Ted Sarandos 58:37 So there's no reason that wouldn't be on Netflix.

Nikhil Kamath 58:39 Yeah.

Ted Sarandos 58:40 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-

Nikhil Kamath 58:47 Mm-hmm

Ted Sarandos 58:47 ... but certain, for certain cla- you know, creators, it certainly would. So we'll look for, we'll look to do that.

Nikhil Kamath 58:52 Yeah, so we don't monetize any of our content.

Ted Sarandos 58:54 Yeah.

Nikhil Kamath 58:54 We don't have ads. We don't have sponsors. It's largely like a charity project around entrepreneurship in India.

Ted Sarandos 59:02 Mm-hmm.

Nikhil Kamath 59:03 But for people like us, where we put it freely on everything without ads-

Ted Sarandos 59:09 Yeah

Nikhil Kamath 59:10 ... sitting behind a pla-

Ted Sarandos 59:11 For you, the reach is the most important part.

Nikhil Kamath 59:13 Yeah.

Ted Sarandos 59:13 Yeah.

Nikhil Kamath 59:14 Yeah, sitting behind a platform kind of doesn't make sense, 'cause then you can't be on every other platform.

Ted Sarandos 59:18 Right.

Nikhil Kamath 59:19 So for someone like me, say we produce content, we don't produce a lot of it-

Ted Sarandos 59:24 Yeah

Nikhil Kamath 59:24 ... but the little bit that do we put, that we do put out is great quality, and we do it here at WTF, which is this channel. I have a broking business. We produce a bunch of content from there. So we have maybe 10, 20 different things which are parallelly running at any time. To bring that under a umbrella and be able to compete with a larger distributor, what do you think we can do? Is there a shot? Like, if you had to suggest a playbook of building a-

Ted Sarandos 59:56 Why, why do you want to compete with them? Why not just co-opt them?

Nikhil Kamath 1:00:00 The problem is, while we distribute on them, we never know... We don't get to touch our subscribers in a way. We don't know their names.

Ted Sarandos 1:00:13 Yeah.

Nikhil Kamath 1:00:13 We don't know their email IDs. We don't know their phone numbers. We don't know who they are, what is working, what is not working. Uh, like, take your example, a movie producer who's independent will never have access to the kind of data Netflix has access to. You might know tomorrow with cameras on television sets or mobile phones, that you could probably gauge when the pupils of a certain person dilate when they're watching a certain character do a certain thing-

Ted Sarandos 1:00:45 Yeah

Nikhil Kamath 1:00:45 ... in a particular movie. So if you don't control the medium, you don't access the data. In turn, you can't... It's like trying to compete with 100, the d- the data that someone else has. Tomorrow, YouTube will make their own content, like Netflix makes their own.

Ted Sarandos 1:01:02 Yeah.

Nikhil Kamath 1:01:03 It happens in every industry, right? You look at a food delivery platform.

Ted Sarandos 1:01:07 Yeah.

Nikhil Kamath 1:01:08 ... when you don't know who you are, if I'm a restaurant and I don't know-

Ted Sarandos 1:01:11 Yeah, but they never, I mean, it's, uh, one of- tell you what, that's an interesting one, because I think that business has got content creators willing to give them their programming for free.

Nikhil Kamath 1:01:19 Yeah.

Ted Sarandos 1:01:20 So and when- in fact, if they start paying for any of it, it might screw up the whole system.

Nikhil Kamath 1:01:24 Mm.

Ted Sarandos 1:01:24 [chuckles] So, so that, that may be the one difference, but I do think that there's... I think about it in terms of, like, companies like Shopify-

Nikhil Kamath 1:01:31 Mm-hmm

Ted Sarandos 1:01:32 ... where companies, most of the companies on Shopify mostly are- also sell on Amazon and have all those dynamics that you talk about, but they use Shopify to present their brand. They use it to get learning, they- all the learns that you're talking about, that they're getting from being more direct- feeling like they're more direct to consumer.

Nikhil Kamath 1:01:50 Mm-hmm.

Ted Sarandos 1:01:50 And then apply those things to Amazon the best they can, to their Amazon selling the best they can. So I think that might be the same thing with YouTube. There's a lot of third-party companies that analyze YouTube analytics, that can tell you all the things that you would know if you owned YouTube.

Nikhil Kamath 1:02:04 But they would never let me touch my subscriber, even with a third party.

Ted Sarandos 1:02:09 Yeah, you have to do other things to do that. That's what, again, what the Shopify does is-

Nikhil Kamath 1:02:12 Yeah

Ted Sarandos 1:02:13 ... it creates, creates touch points with consumers.

Nikhil Kamath 1:02:15 Right.

Ted Sarandos 1:02:16 Yeah.

Nikhil Kamath 1:02:16 In fact, a lot of the new business models I see on YouTube is build distribution on YouTube, then figure out a way to transition your subscribers out of it.

Ted Sarandos 1:02:26 Yeah.

Nikhil Kamath 1:02:27 And then in turn, you can engage with them.

Ted Sarandos 1:02:28 It's like food delivery, right?

Nikhil Kamath 1:02:29 Yeah.

Ted Sarandos 1:02:29 My, uh, the restaurant in my neighborhood that I order from all the time-

Nikhil Kamath 1:02:33 Yeah

Ted Sarandos 1:02:33 ... started putting a thing in the bag that said-

Nikhil Kamath 1:02:35 Yeah

Ted Sarandos 1:02:35 ... you know, "Order from me directly-"

Nikhil Kamath 1:02:37 Yeah, yeah, yeah

Ted Sarandos 1:02:37 ... "please." You know? Yeah.

Nikhil Kamath 1:02:38 Yeah.

Nikhil Kamath 1:02:39 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?

Ted Sarandos 1:03:06 No, not really.

Nikhil Kamath 1:03:06 There was no competition for streaming.

Ted Sarandos 1:03:08 Not really. I mean, we started streaming almost the exact same time that Amazon and Hulu did-

Nikhil Kamath 1:03:13 Right

Ted Sarandos 1:03:13 ... in the US. So and they, and started originals almost the exact same time.

Nikhil Kamath 1:03:18 Right.

Ted Sarandos 1:03:18 So we were, we were watching how all three of us were running for, running for the same prize at that time.

Nikhil Kamath 1:03:24 Mm-hmm.

Ted Sarandos 1:03:24 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.

Nikhil Kamath 1:03:37 Mm-hmm.

Ted Sarandos 1:03:38 So that's why we kind of got into TV at the same time, licensing TV shows.

Nikhil Kamath 1:03:44 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-

Ted Sarandos 1:04:00 Yeah

Nikhil Kamath 1:04:00 ... Teenage Mut- and I used to watch Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. I remember watching all these Indian soaps-

Ted Sarandos 1:04:06 Yeah

Nikhil Kamath 1:04:07 ... you know, with my mother, like, late in the night, Kyunki Saas Bhi and all of that. What happens to that entire industry?

Ted Sarandos 1:04:12 I mean, I guess a lot of it shows up in re- in retro channels.

Nikhil Kamath 1:04:16 Mm.

Ted Sarandos 1:04:17 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-

Nikhil Kamath 1:04:23 Mm

Ted Sarandos 1:04:23 ... that are mostly ad-supported-

Nikhil Kamath 1:04:25 Mm-hmm

Ted Sarandos 1:04:25 ... I think those are mostly delivering most of those episodes to people.

Nikhil Kamath 1:04:30 Mm-hmm.

Ted Sarandos 1:04:30 Uh, YouTube certainly does some of that.

Nikhil Kamath 1:04:32 Right.

Ted Sarandos 1:04:32 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-

Nikhil Kamath 1:04:38 Right

Ted Sarandos 1:04:38 ... 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-

Nikhil Kamath 1:04:45 Mm-hmm

Ted Sarandos 1:04:45 ... doesn't work for a seven-year-old two years from now.

Nikhil Kamath 1:04:48 Mm.

Ted Sarandos 1:04:48 Uh, but it, but it's because the, the marketplace moves so fast. Kids now, you know, mostly wanna... It's more aspirational.

Nikhil Kamath 1:04:56 Mm.

Ted Sarandos 1:04:56 So by the time you get to seven now, you wanna watch what 10-year-olds watch.

Nikhil Kamath 1:05:00 Mm.

Ted Sarandos 1:05:00 Yeah.

Nikhil Kamath 1:05:02 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?

Ted Sarandos 1:05:26 It's similar, too. You know, um, crime is very big. Uh, people love true crime.

Nikhil Kamath 1:05:31 Mm-hmm.

Ted Sarandos 1:05:31 I mostly think because people... I don't think because people are macabre.

Nikhil Kamath 1:05:36 Mm-hmm.

Ted Sarandos 1:05:36 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.

Nikhil Kamath 1:05:42 Mm.

Ted Sarandos 1:05:42 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?

Nikhil Kamath 1:05:54 Mm-hmm.

Ted Sarandos 1:05:54 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.

Nikhil Kamath 1:06:11 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-

Ted Sarandos 1:06:28 Yeah

Nikhil Kamath 1:06:28 ... 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.

Ted Sarandos 1:06:44 Yeah.

Nikhil Kamath 1:06:45 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.

Ted Sarandos 1:07:03 Yeah.

Nikhil Kamath 1:07:04 Would you like to elaborate as to why you did that-

Ted Sarandos 1:07:06 Yeah

Nikhil Kamath 1:07:06 ... and your thoughts around that?

Ted Sarandos 1:07:08 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."

Nikhil Kamath 1:08:39 Mm-hmm.

Ted Sarandos 1:08:39 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.

Nikhil Kamath 1:08:45 Mm-hmm.

Ted Sarandos 1:08:46 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.

Nikhil Kamath 1:09:14 Mm-hmm.

Ted Sarandos 1:09:14 And you could... Now, what we're doing now, our version of this would be something like the NFL on Christmas Day-

Nikhil Kamath 1:09:20 Mm-hmm

Ted Sarandos 1:09:20 ... where we actually create a Netflix event around it.

Nikhil Kamath 1:09:23 Mm-hmm.

Ted Sarandos 1:09:23 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.

Nikhil Kamath 1:09:37 Mm-hmm.

Ted Sarandos 1:09:37 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.

Nikhil Kamath 1:09:46 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?

Ted Sarandos 1:10:15 I mean, it's... You, you've got to have an interesting take on it that someone else hasn't yet.

Nikhil Kamath 1:10:19 Right.

Ted Sarandos 1:10:19 But yeah, and that, those stories, there's a lot of stories to be told.

Nikhil Kamath 1:10:24 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-

Ted Sarandos 1:10:52 Why do you, why do you... It is definitely true.

Nikhil Kamath 1:10:54 Yeah.

Ted Sarandos 1:10:54 Why do you think, why do you think that is? There's something in the culture.

Nikhil Kamath 1:10:57 I don't know.

Ted Sarandos 1:10:58 Yeah.

Nikhil Kamath 1:10:58 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-

Ted Sarandos 1:11:28 Yeah

Nikhil Kamath 1:11:29 ... to spend that premium towards an additional expense in the household.

Ted Sarandos 1:11:34 Right, and they have to have broadband at home-

Nikhil Kamath 1:11:36 Yeah

Ted Sarandos 1:11:36 ... and big screen TV. Yeah.

Nikhil Kamath 1:11:38 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.

Ted Sarandos 1:11:54 Yeah, the recurring charge is, was definitely a cultural-

Nikhil Kamath 1:11:57 Yeah

Ted Sarandos 1:11:57 ... outside of their cultural norm.

Nikhil Kamath 1:11:59 Yeah, I don't know how.

Ted Sarandos 1:12:00 I, I couldn't understand it either when we first got here. I thought, "Who wouldn't want that? It's so convenient."

Nikhil Kamath 1:12:06 Mm. Mm.

Ted Sarandos 1:12:06 "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?"

Nikhil Kamath 1:12:17 Right.

Ted Sarandos 1:12:18 You would say, "No way!"

Nikhil Kamath 1:12:19 Yeah.

Ted Sarandos 1:12:19 Yeah. Yeah.

Nikhil Kamath 1:12:20 Yeah.

Ted Sarandos 1:12:21 'Cause we, uh, our first efforts were... B- 'cause remember, it was not even allowed to have recurring charges.

Nikhil Kamath 1:12:26 Yeah.

Ted Sarandos 1:12:26 That we said, "Oh, we should work with the government to try to see if we can change that, or change the banking regulations-

Nikhil Kamath 1:12:31 Yeah

Ted Sarandos 1:12:31 ... so we could change that." And instead, it was, instead of saying, "Oh, is that what the consumer wants?"

Nikhil Kamath 1:12:35 Mm.

Ted Sarandos 1:12:35 Yeah, and it turned out you were right, the consumer doesn't want it.

Nikhil Kamath 1:12:37 Yeah. I'm trying to figure what could culturally have made us that way. We're a more savings-oriented country.

Ted Sarandos 1:12:49 Yeah.

Nikhil Kamath 1:12:50 Could that be a reason, that you don't... The, the amount of money in your bank account, we place, we place a great degree of weightage in knowing what nu- what that number is, and it makes us feel good.

Ted Sarandos 1:13:04 I, um, uh, we don't... I don't wanna stereotype it-

Nikhil Kamath 1:13:07 Mm

Ted Sarandos 1:13:07 ... but I feel like, uh, my experience has been that, um, that, uh, Indian, uh, people are more mindful of their money than American people are.... mi- mindful to your point, that you know-

Nikhil Kamath 1:13:18 Yeah

Ted Sarandos 1:13:18 ... what you have, you know-

Nikhil Kamath 1:13:19 Yeah

Ted Sarandos 1:13:19 ... what you wanna spend, that you're more mindful about it.

Nikhil Kamath 1:13:22 Yeah. And access to credit is lower than-

Ted Sarandos 1:13:24 Yeah

Nikhil Kamath 1:13:24 ... it is in America. Very few people have credit cards.

Ted Sarandos 1:13:27 Yeah.

Nikhil Kamath 1:13:29 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.

Ted Sarandos 1:13:37 Yeah.

Nikhil Kamath 1:13:38 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?

Ted Sarandos 1:13:50 Well, I don't think there's ever a world where we do all Nev- all, all ads.

Nikhil Kamath 1:13:54 Yeah.

Ted Sarandos 1:13:54 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.

Nikhil Kamath 1:14:11 Mm-hmm.

Ted Sarandos 1:14:11 Uh, but I think that even, even when it's very healthy, it'll still be 20% of the business.

Nikhil Kamath 1:14:17 I think-

Ted Sarandos 1:14:17 It's interesting, 'cause the, the ads-only model doesn't support the kind of ambitious content that we, that we put on.

Nikhil Kamath 1:14:24 Yeah.

Ted Sarandos 1:14:25 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-

Nikhil Kamath 1:14:40 Yeah

Ted Sarandos 1:14:40 ... happen in some other places, so.

Nikhil Kamath 1:14:42 You spend more money on content now than anybody, right? Netflix.

Ted Sarandos 1:14:46 Yeah. Yeah.

Nikhil Kamath 1:14:47 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?

Ted Sarandos 1:15:01 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-

Nikhil Kamath 1:15:08 Mm

Ted Sarandos 1:15:08 ... we set out to be kind of artist-friendly.

Nikhil Kamath 1:15:11 Mm-hmm.

Ted Sarandos 1:15:11 Uh, so we had a, always had a disproportionate dis- draw with talent.

Nikhil Kamath 1:15:16 Yeah.

Ted Sarandos 1:15:16 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.

Nikhil Kamath 1:15:30 Mm-hmm.

Ted Sarandos 1:15:31 So, um, I don't, I don't kid myself, but, like, a lot of, like what you said, I think, uh-

Nikhil Kamath 1:15:36 Mm

Ted Sarandos 1:15:36 ... it's most- it's a- it's the chair [chuckles] and people wanna be whoever's in the chair.

Nikhil Kamath 1:15:40 Yeah.

Ted Sarandos 1:15:41 Um, I'm glad that today it's Bela Bajari and her team, and-

Nikhil Kamath 1:15:44 Yeah

Ted Sarandos 1:15:44 ... uh, who are, who, who do most of that work today.

Nikhil Kamath 1:15:47 Yeah.

Ted Sarandos 1:15:48 Um, but I do feel like the, you know, our ability to help people find a big a- a big audience-

Nikhil Kamath 1:15:53 Mm

Ted Sarandos 1:15:53 ... is as exciting for me as it is for them.

Nikhil Kamath 1:15:56 Yeah.

Ted Sarandos 1:15:56 So.

Nikhil Kamath 1:15:57 But unlike a politician, your chair is almost in perpetuity. You don't have a fixed term where you are re-elected, right?

Ted Sarandos 1:16:05 Uh, if things start go- if things don't go well long, I will see how long that seat [laughing] ...

Nikhil Kamath 1:16:10 Yeah. I think it's easier to be oblivious of the chair as a corporate than it is as a elected politician who has to kind of fight for that chair periodically.

Ted Sarandos 1:16:23 Yeah.

Nikhil Kamath 1:16:23 Cyclically.

Ted Sarandos 1:16:23 Yeah. It's an interesting thing, 'cause my life is all, is... And my wife, too, our lives are kind of intertwined professionally-

Nikhil Kamath 1:16:30 Yeah

Ted Sarandos 1:16:31 ... and personally. So the folks that we work with, a lot of times, are my among my best friends.

Nikhil Kamath 1:16:36 Mm-hmm.

Ted Sarandos 1:16:36 Um, so and I do think there is that, that, that has- that relationship is always in check in that one dimension-

Nikhil Kamath 1:16:43 Right

Ted Sarandos 1:16:43 ... all the time. Like-

Nikhil Kamath 1:16:44 Yeah

Ted Sarandos 1:16:45 ... y- you know, I don't w- I don't wonder if that's why we're friends, 'cause he, 'cause they work here. Uh, but I, um, but I also don't give my... I wouldn't, I wouldn't use the friendship to move a business initiative, and I hope they wouldn't, either. Yeah.

Nikhil Kamath 1:16:57 Yeah. Your wife

Nikhil Kamath 1:16:58 used to be an ambassador.

Ted Sarandos 1:16:59 She was ambass- US Ambassador to the Bahamas, yeah.

Nikhil Kamath 1:17:02 Wow.

Ted Sarandos 1:17:03 Yeah.

Nikhil Kamath 1:17:03 Have you been married a long while, Ted?

Ted Sarandos 1:17:05 Yeah. Uh, 15 years. Yeah.

Nikhil Kamath 1:17:08 And how did you meet?

Ted Sarandos 1:17:11 Uh, we met during- on the Obama campaign. She was, she was the finance chair for California, Southern California.

Nikhil Kamath 1:17:18 Mm.

Ted Sarandos 1:17:18 Uh, and I was a, uh, a guest who arrived for one of the events that she was running.

Nikhil Kamath 1:17:22 Mm-hmm.

Ted Sarandos 1:17:23 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]

Nikhil Kamath 1:17:30 [laughing]

Ted Sarandos 1:17:32 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.

Nikhil Kamath 1:17:39 Mm-hmm.

Ted Sarandos 1:17:40 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?"

Nikhil Kamath 1:17:59 Mm.

Ted Sarandos 1:17:59 He goes, "What do you mean?" He goes... I go, "Who is this woman? She's amazing."

Nikhil Kamath 1:18:02 Mm.

Ted Sarandos 1:18:02 And he goes, uh, "How do you not know her? This- she's Nicole Avon. How do you not know-

Nikhil Kamath 1:18:06 Mm

Ted Sarandos 1:18:06 ... Nicole Avon?"

Nikhil Kamath 1:18:07 Mm.

Ted Sarandos 1:18:07 And I go, "I don't know her." And he goes, "Oh, I'll, I'll introduce you to her later."

Nikhil Kamath 1:18:10 [chuckles]

Ted Sarandos 1:18:10 So a- at the end of the night, he- we left the event and went to, uh, a dinner.

Nikhil Kamath 1:18:16 Right.

Ted Sarandos 1:18:16 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."

Nikhil Kamath 1:18:29 Mm.

Ted Sarandos 1:18:30 And we switched seats, and I sit and talk to her. We talked for three and a half hours.

Nikhil Kamath 1:18:34 Wow!

Ted Sarandos 1:18:34 And eight months later, we were married.

Nikhil Kamath 1:18:36 Wow. [laughing]

Ted Sarandos 1:18:38 She's an amazing woman, Ni- Nicole. I mean, so-

Nikhil Kamath 1:18:40 Yeah, I'd love to meet her.

Ted Sarandos 1:18:41 Yeah, she's really phenomenal.

Nikhil Kamath 1:18:43 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?

Ted Sarandos 1:18:59 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-

Nikhil Kamath 1:19:08 Mm

Ted Sarandos 1:19:08 ... took us a couple of years to get that right.

Nikhil Kamath 1:19:10 Mm-hmm.

Ted Sarandos 1:19:10 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.

Nikhil Kamath 1:19:18 Mm-hmm.

Ted Sarandos 1:19:18 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.

Nikhil Kamath 1:19:27 Mm-hmm.

Ted Sarandos 1:19:28 Uh, and-

Nikhil Kamath 1:19:28 I loved the show.

Ted Sarandos 1:19:29 Well, what's interesting about it-

Nikhil Kamath 1:19:30 Yeah

Ted Sarandos 1:19:30 ... is, like, it was very, very novel, but-

Nikhil Kamath 1:19:32 Yeah

Ted Sarandos 1:19:32 ... I didn't realize that we were gonna be, like, introducing a brand-new kind of entertainment to a country-

Nikhil Kamath 1:19:37 Yeah

Ted Sarandos 1:19:37 ... the size of India.

Nikhil Kamath 1:19:38 Yeah.

Ted Sarandos 1:19:38 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-

Nikhil Kamath 1:19:51 Mm-hmm

Ted Sarandos 1:19:52 ... would I have done Sacred Games a couple years later, and did things a little- some things that were more, uh, more populist, uh-

Nikhil Kamath 1:19:58 Mm-hmm

Ted Sarandos 1:19:58 ... 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.

Nikhil Kamath 1:20:08 Right.

Ted Sarandos 1:20:08 So, I mean, right now you can see how fast Indian households are adopting fixed broadband.

Nikhil Kamath 1:20:14 Mm-hmm.

Ted Sarandos 1:20:14 Um, s- big-screen TVs are growing.

Nikhil Kamath 1:20:17 Mm-hmm.

Ted Sarandos 1:20:17 The addressable market in India is, uh, exploding in the next couple of years, so it's exciting.

Nikhil Kamath 1:20:24 And you have three plans in India. The cheapest one with ads, I think, is about 149 or 199-

Ted Sarandos 1:20:32 Yeah

Nikhil Kamath 1:20:32 ... I can't remember the number. Are you finding traction at that level, most of your traction at that level?

Ted Sarandos 1:20:40 No, they're, it's across the, it's across all the programs.

Nikhil Kamath 1:20:42 Right.

Ted Sarandos 1:20:42 Yeah. With whatever suits the individual. Yeah.

Nikhil Kamath 1:20:46 I don't wanna ask you about your sharing password thing, because I feel like you guys have-

Ted Sarandos 1:20:51 Blacked out, yeah. [laughing]

Nikhil Kamath 1:20:53 [laughing] You've spoken about it enough, and you've taken cognizance-

Ted Sarandos 1:20:56 Yeah

Nikhil Kamath 1:20:56 ... of that.

Ted Sarandos 1:20:57 And by the way, it was one of those things where the- I think allowing it and promoting it even early on-

Nikhil Kamath 1:21:02 Mm

Ted Sarandos 1:21:02 ... it was a good way to promote the business. And, and a lot of people got to try it that way, and those kind of things. And, you know, a lot of companies start with, uh, free trials in some form, and then eliminate them as you go, which is what we did.

Nikhil Kamath 1:21:13 Mm. In terms of India, any other nuance that you've learnt in the time that you've been here that is interesting? Content in India.

Ted Sarandos 1:21:24 I think it's interesting to me, like, uh, the first thing people wanna know anywhere I travel-

Nikhil Kamath 1:21:28 Mm

Ted Sarandos 1:21:28 ... is what do people only watch here?

Nikhil Kamath 1:21:31 Mm.

Ted Sarandos 1:21:31 And I'm more up, I'm more interested in the opposite, like, what- how are we more the s- how are we the same? And I was very surprised that, um, how international India is.

Nikhil Kamath 1:21:40 Mm.

Ted Sarandos 1:21:40 I think there was a belief or a, a conventional wisdom was that, uh, India is all Bollywood, and India is all local. And actually, the taste of the international shows play really, really well in India, so the, the taste is very broad and very global.

Nikhil Kamath 1:21:56 So I have

Nikhil Kamath 1:21:57 a... I don't know much about Bollywood. Like, I know a little bit. I have a bunch of friends who work in Bollywood-

Ted Sarandos 1:22:02 Yeah

Nikhil Kamath 1:22:02 ... 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-

Ted Sarandos 1:23:01 Yeah

Nikhil Kamath 1:23:01 ... how do you look at India?"

Ted Sarandos 1:23:02 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-

Nikhil Kamath 1:23:14 Yeah

Ted Sarandos 1:23:14 ... um, and lean into expression a little, you know, for the, for- protect free speech with, of the artist, and-

Nikhil Kamath 1:23:21 Mm-hmm

Ted Sarandos 1:23:21 ... uh, but also don't do things that are, uh, [tsking] uh, unnecessarily provocative.

Nikhil Kamath 1:23:28 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?

Ted Sarandos 1:23:43 No.

Nikhil Kamath 1:23:43 One specific theme?

Ted Sarandos 1:23:44 No.

Nikhil Kamath 1:23:44 Like a micro theme?

Ted Sarandos 1:23:45 No, 'cause I don't think you can reverse engineer into something that we want, you know?

Nikhil Kamath 1:23:49 No?

Ted Sarandos 1:23:49 Yeah. No, you kind of-

Nikhil Kamath 1:23:50 Do you have a algorithm like YouTube has one?

Ted Sarandos 1:23:52 No, it's all-

Nikhil Kamath 1:23:52 What do you favor?

Ted Sarandos 1:23:53 Definitely not on the, on greenlighting.

Nikhil Kamath 1:23:55 No?

Ted Sarandos 1:23:55 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?

Nikhil Kamath 1:24:09 Mm-hmm.

Ted Sarandos 1:24:09 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-

Nikhil Kamath 1:24:23 Mm

Ted Sarandos 1:24:23 ... into a pitch. Just you have to write a story that people have got to see, and you've

Ted Sarandos 1:24:28 got to make.

Nikhil Kamath 1:24:29 So when Netflix is greenlighting a project today, is it data or is it gut?

Ted Sarandos 1:24:33 It's gut.

Nikhil Kamath 1:24:34 Yeah?

Ted Sarandos 1:24:34 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-

Nikhil Kamath 1:24:42 Mm

Ted Sarandos 1:24:42 ... to the screen?

Nikhil Kamath 1:24:43 Mm.

Ted Sarandos 1:24:43 Have they ever done it before?

Nikhil Kamath 1:24:45 Mm.

Ted Sarandos 1:24:45 Sometimes they, sometimes they've never done it before, so you really are going with the creator-

Nikhil Kamath 1:24:49 Yeah

Ted Sarandos 1:24:49 ... betting on the creator, and betting on the story that they pitch to you.

Nikhil Kamath 1:24:52 Yeah.

Nikhil Kamath 1:24:53 Is there baggage of a founder, uh, Ted? Like, Reed was a fairly popular CEO and founder of Netflix.

Ted Sarandos 1:25:02 Yeah.

Nikhil Kamath 1:25:03 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?

Ted Sarandos 1:25:17 I think you, you really just wanna be yourself. Don't try to be him, 'cause you're not.

Nikhil Kamath 1:25:22 Right.

Ted Sarandos 1:25:22 You're not him.... um, you know, he- we talked about the succession of the company.

Nikhil Kamath 1:25:27 Right.

Ted Sarandos 1:25:27 Reed talked about it with the board 10 years ago.

Nikhil Kamath 1:25:29 Right.

Ted Sarandos 1:25:30 Um, when I met him in 1999, in a way, he was talking about succession.

Nikhil Kamath 1:25:33 Right.

Ted Sarandos 1:25:33 He said to me, "I'm building a company that's gonna be around longer than me," which, which implies succession, right?

Nikhil Kamath 1:25:41 Mm-hmm.

Ted Sarandos 1:25:42 So he, uh... it's always been on his mind.

Nikhil Kamath 1:25:45 Mm-hmm.

Ted Sarandos 1:25:45 He asked me to be the co-CEO with him about seven years ago, five, six years ago-

Nikhil Kamath 1:25:52 Mm-hmm

Ted Sarandos 1:25:52 ... 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.

Nikhil Kamath 1:26:09 Mm-hmm.

Ted Sarandos 1:26:09 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.

Nikhil Kamath 1:26:35 Mm-hmm.

Ted Sarandos 1:26:35 We both have our weaknesses. Neither of us are Reed, and we don't try to be.

Nikhil Kamath 1:26:39 Do you think that's a good idea, having co-CEOs? I'm just like-

Ted Sarandos 1:26:42 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]

Nikhil Kamath 1:26:54 Mm.

Ted Sarandos 1:26:54 But if you look back and at the, the track record of the co-CEOs, and it's-

Nikhil Kamath 1:26:58 Mm

Ted Sarandos 1:26:58 ... spotty.

Nikhil Kamath 1:26:59 Mm.

Ted Sarandos 1:26:59 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.

Nikhil Kamath 1:27:11 Mm-hmm.

Ted Sarandos 1:27:11 We're even physically in two different places in California.

Nikhil Kamath 1:27:14 Mm-hmm.

Ted Sarandos 1:27:14 Um, and it enables us to be- to bring out the best in ourselves, in the, in the things that we do, provide technical guidance and inspiration for people in an area that we're not... where we have our sea legs.

Nikhil Kamath 1:27:27 Mm-hmm.

Ted Sarandos 1:27:28 Um, and I think it helps for recruiting.

Nikhil Kamath 1:27:29 Mm-hmm.

Ted Sarandos 1:27:30 Uh, people wanna work for people that, that know what they're, you know, what they're doing in the area of that you're coming to work for us on. Um, so a- and, and, and I think it doesn't- it may not work at every company that does what we do, even, 'cause I feel like the company is inherently free of politics.

Nikhil Kamath 1:27:46 Mm-hmm.

Ted Sarandos 1:27:46 Um, all the things in the culture deck, it- we're not- Greg and I wouldn't backstab each other in the back for this job. Um, we both want this thing to work forever-

Nikhil Kamath 1:27:55 Right

Ted Sarandos 1:27:55 ... uh, the same way I didn't want Reed to leave.

Nikhil Kamath 1:27:57 Yeah.

Ted Sarandos 1:27:57 So, um, so I really think that it'll be, uh... it uniquely works at Netflix, and it may not work at every company, but I think it's worth always checking it out and testing the model out and see. You have to have two people who respect each other, two people who like working with each other, uh, two people who have a unique and complementary skill sets.

Nikhil Kamath 1:28:17 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?

Ted Sarandos 1:28:45 It's remarkable, right?

Nikhil Kamath 1:28:46 Right.

Ted Sarandos 1:28:47 I mean, no, and Reed's not old.

Nikhil Kamath 1:28:48 Yeah.

Ted Sarandos 1:28:48 [laughing]

Nikhil Kamath 1:28:49 Yeah.

Ted Sarandos 1:28:49 Yeah, no, he's, uh, and-

Nikhil Kamath 1:28:50 And he's, like, into sports, and he's doing this, that, and the other.

Ted Sarandos 1:28:52 Yeah, and he set up- and he set the company up better than he found it-

Nikhil Kamath 1:28:57 Yeah

Ted Sarandos 1:28:57 ... and, uh, than he started it.

Nikhil Kamath 1:28:58 Yeah.

Ted Sarandos 1:28:59 Um, he, he was confident, comfortable and confident. Much of his net worth is wrapped up in the stock, and so-

Nikhil Kamath 1:29:04 Yeah

Ted Sarandos 1:29:05 ... he has a lot of skin in the game, whether or not-

Nikhil Kamath 1:29:06 Yeah

Ted Sarandos 1:29:06 ... uh, that we, we make this work or not.

Nikhil Kamath 1:29:09 Yeah.

Ted Sarandos 1:29:09 Uh, and he was very clear. He goes, "I, I don't want to come back." [laughing]

Nikhil Kamath 1:29:15 The question I ask myself is, I'm 38 today. I-

Ted Sarandos 1:29:23 Today's your birthday?

Nikhil Kamath 1:29:24 No, no.

Ted Sarandos 1:29:24 Oh, okay. [laughing]

Nikhil Kamath 1:29:25 38 now. This year. [laughing]

Ted Sarandos 1:29:27 Wow! You chose tonight to bring your business. Okay.

Nikhil Kamath 1:29:30 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.

Ted Sarandos 1:29:48 Yeah, yeah. I mean, there, there are so many people who identify themselves so much with the work.

Nikhil Kamath 1:29:54 Yeah.

Ted Sarandos 1:29:55 Someone said something to me one time, that they would be more embarrassed to fail at business than to fail in their marriage.

Nikhil Kamath 1:30:02 I think so, 100%.

Ted Sarandos 1:30:03 You, you, that's you?

Nikhil Kamath 1:30:04 Yeah.

Ted Sarandos 1:30:05 That's not me, but I, I, I know a lot of people-

Nikhil Kamath 1:30:07 Yeah

Ted Sarandos 1:30:07 ... for who, for whom that's true.

Nikhil Kamath 1:30:08 Yeah. All my validation comes from work.

Ted Sarandos 1:30:11 Yeah.

Nikhil Kamath 1:30:11 I don't have much else, where I'm getting the very tangible societal validation coming my way.

Ted Sarandos 1:30:22 Yeah.

Nikhil Kamath 1:30:23 A lot of people talk about how... talk about balance and talk about your life is fulfilled when you have A, B, C, D, E in equal-

Ted Sarandos 1:30:36 That's a fantasy, though, huh?

Nikhil Kamath 1:30:37 Yeah.

Ted Sarandos 1:30:37 Yeah.

Nikhil Kamath 1:30:37 Right?

Ted Sarandos 1:30:38 Yeah, yeah.

Nikhil Kamath 1:30:39 Yeah.

Ted Sarandos 1:30:39 There's never a balance.

Nikhil Kamath 1:30:40 Nobody has that, right?

Ted Sarandos 1:30:41 No, no.

Nikhil Kamath 1:30:42 People who-

Ted Sarandos 1:30:42 Life is perpetually wa- way out of balance.

Nikhil Kamath 1:30:45 People who say that are, like, just saying that.

Ted Sarandos 1:30:49 Yeah, I think it- or, or maybe it's just aspirational, that they seek life ba- life-work balance-

Nikhil Kamath 1:30:54 Yeah

Ted Sarandos 1:30:54 ... but there is no such thing.

Nikhil Kamath 1:30:56 Yeah.

Ted Sarandos 1:30:56 It's an exercise in futility to, to try to, to chase it.

Nikhil Kamath 1:30:59 Yeah. Fair point.

Ted Sarandos 1:31:00 In fact, it's probably... you're probably short-changing one or the other all the time-

Nikhil Kamath 1:31:04 Yeah

Ted Sarandos 1:31:04 ... uh, if you're, if you're trying to get that.

Nikhil Kamath 1:31:06 Yeah.

Ted Sarandos 1:31:06 Yeah.

Nikhil Kamath 1:31:06 I always feel like I'm letting someone down.

Ted Sarandos 1:31:08 Yeah.

Nikhil Kamath 1:31:09 Right?

Ted Sarandos 1:31:09 Yeah, yeah.

Nikhil Kamath 1:31:10 Yeah.

Ted Sarandos 1:31:11 That-

Nikhil Kamath 1:31:11 It's either your mother or your friend. [laughing]

Ted Sarandos 1:31:12 Yeah, that phrase, that life, life-work balance was designed to make you feel bad. [laughing]

Nikhil Kamath 1:31:17 Yeah, yeah. Are you hard on yourself?

Ted Sarandos 1:31:20 Yeah, very.

Nikhil Kamath 1:31:20 Yeah? In the work realm or in the family realm?

Ted Sarandos 1:31:25 I think both.

Nikhil Kamath 1:31:26 Mm.

Ted Sarandos 1:31:26 Um, I probably, um-... it's, my, like, my kids now are a- adults, so there's a- it's the- there's less of the, those kind of trade-offs that you make in business-

Nikhil Kamath 1:31:37 Mm-hmm

Ted Sarandos 1:31:37 ... business for family life. Um, but I, um, I always felt very guilty about the trade-offs you make, even though you've convinced yourself, "Well, I worked this hard to provide for this family so we could be this, so we could do this, so we could do that, and we could do this." Uh, but ultimately, there's, you know, probably they would've preferred the time.

Nikhil Kamath 1:31:53 What do they do, Ted?

Ted Sarandos 1:31:54 Um, my daughter is a producer, a film producer.

Nikhil Kamath 1:31:57 Mm-hmm.

Ted Sarandos 1:31:57 Um, just produced a movie called Bunny, that, uh, premiered at South by Southwest, and it's gonna be at, uh, the Tribeca Film Festival next month. Um, and my son is an editor, a film editor. So both in the business.

Nikhil Kamath 1:32:11 Any Indian editors, producers, actors that really stand out for you from the exposure you've had to India?

Ted Sarandos 1:32:20 It's such a hard question, 'cause I-

Nikhil Kamath 1:32:22 Yeah

Ted Sarandos 1:32:22 ... you know, 'cause I, I just don't want people to say, "Well, what about me?" [laughing]

Nikhil Kamath 1:32:28 [laughing] Can you name one individual, just one person, who has left a lasting impression on you in the entertainment industry in India?

Ted Sarandos 1:32:38 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.

Nikhil Kamath 1:32:52 Who are you talking about?

Ted Sarandos 1:32:53 Uh-

Nikhil Kamath 1:32:53 Sanjay Leela Bhansali.

Ted Sarandos 1:32:53 Yes.

Nikhil Kamath 1:32:54 Yeah.

Ted Sarandos 1:32:54 Yeah. Uh, he came in with this very big vision.

Nikhil Kamath 1:32:59 Mm.

Ted Sarandos 1:33:00 And I think, I think he almost like it was a dare-

Nikhil Kamath 1:33:02 Mm

Ted Sarandos 1:33:02 ... like, "I dare you to make this. It's so big."

Nikhil Kamath 1:33:04 Mm.

Ted Sarandos 1:33:04 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-

Nikhil Kamath 1:33:10 Yeah

Ted Sarandos 1:33:10 ... 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.

Nikhil Kamath 1:33:19 Mm.

Ted Sarandos 1:33:19 It was a complicated production. He did things, uh, built these enormous practical sets that we shot on.

Nikhil Kamath 1:33:27 Mm.

Ted Sarandos 1:33:28 It, it was something beautifully old-fashioned about every element of the production.

Nikhil Kamath 1:33:32 Mm-hmm.

Ted Sarandos 1:33:33 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.

Nikhil Kamath 1:33:48 Try?

Ted Sarandos 1:33:48 Yeah.

Nikhil Kamath 1:33:49 This is, I think, chicken pulao. Pulao's like biryani, but slightly different.

Ted Sarandos 1:33:56 Yeah.

Nikhil Kamath 1:33:56 Yeah. Okay, so this is crazy spicy, if you want to try.

Ted Sarandos 1:34:01 I can tell they put it in only to you. [laughing]

Nikhil Kamath 1:34:03 [laughing] Do you want to try it? Can you take spice?

Ted Sarandos 1:34:06 I'm gonna wait. I'm gonna wait. Yeah, I'm gonna push myself.

Nikhil Kamath 1:34:10 Yeah.

Nikhil Kamath 1:34:11 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?

Ted Sarandos 1:34:42 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.

Nikhil Kamath 1:34:49 Mm-hmm.

Ted Sarandos 1:34:50 So don't, not like you get, not like your track record's all that clean.

Nikhil Kamath 1:34:52 Mm-hmm.

Ted Sarandos 1:34:53 Um, now, remember, a lot of those shows are not, didn't turn out to be the show that was pit- being pitched, either.

Nikhil Kamath 1:34:58 Mm-hmm.

Ted Sarandos 1:34:58 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.

Nikhil Kamath 1:35:07 Mm-hmm.

Ted Sarandos 1:35:08 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.

Nikhil Kamath 1:35:14 Mm-hmm.

Ted Sarandos 1:35:15 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."

Nikhil Kamath 1:35:23 Mm-hmm.

Ted Sarandos 1:35:23 So I didn't have a lot of guardrails around the decision-making that way.

Nikhil Kamath 1:35:26 Mm-hmm.

Ted Sarandos 1:35:27 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.

Nikhil Kamath 1:36:00 Mm-hmm.

Ted Sarandos 1:36:00 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-

Nikhil Kamath 1:36:08 Mm

Ted Sarandos 1:36:08 ... we got this. We got this," so.

Nikhil Kamath 1:36:11 So if I want something to be greenlit by you, should I make, like, a demo tape? Is that the way?

Ted Sarandos 1:36:17 Well, I probably won't do it. [laughing]

Nikhil Kamath 1:36:18 [laughing]

Ted Sarandos 1:36:19 You'd probably go to one of the people, m- many other people on the team-

Nikhil Kamath 1:36:22 Yeah

Ted Sarandos 1:36:22 ... before it would get to me.

Nikhil Kamath 1:36:23 Yeah.

Ted Sarandos 1:36:23 But a lot of the we, the, people do all kinds of pitches.

Nikhil Kamath 1:36:25 Monica in India, right?

Ted Sarandos 1:36:26 Monica in India.

Nikhil Kamath 1:36:27 Mm.

Ted Sarandos 1:36:27 That, um, but the way, the way that people come in all the time is sometimes it's with a, a comp- a complete episode written.

Nikhil Kamath 1:36:34 Mm.

Ted Sarandos 1:36:34 Sometimes it is just a pitch, and a look book, and, uh, storytelling. I, I love pitches. The one thing I miss the most in being the co-CEO now is I don't get to hear many of the pitches anymore, and I loved hearing pitches. And I've seen some of the best pitches for some of the worst shows-

Nikhil Kamath 1:36:51 Mm

Ted Sarandos 1:36:51 ... and some of the worst [chuckles] pitches for the best shows.

Nikhil Kamath 1:36:53 [chuckles]

Ted Sarandos 1:36:54 So it's a... I've, I'm always amazed that no one teaches anyone how to do great pitches. There should be a whole college course on just pitches.

Nikhil Kamath 1:37:01 Mm.

Ted Sarandos 1:37:02 'Cause, I mean, that's the make or break thing, when you walk into a room. And I've seen people walk into a room with a great show and just read it off the page to you while you're, like, sitting like this, and they're just reading to you, so.

Nikhil Kamath 1:37:13 If I had to pick one thing over another, say I'm going to pitch to Monica, and hopefully some-

Ted Sarandos 1:37:19 She's tough.

Nikhil Kamath 1:37:20 [laughing]

Ted Sarandos 1:37:21 [laughing]

Nikhil Kamath 1:37:22 Would I do better with a look book, a script for an episode, or a demo three-minute video of the look and feel of the show?

Ted Sarandos 1:37:33 ... I bet with Monica, you'd do better with a script.

Nikhil Kamath 1:37:35 Yeah? She likes-

Ted Sarandos 1:37:37 I think she wants to know that you're committed, and that you're, you're gonna deliver, and that you're in.

Nikhil Kamath 1:37:42 Right.

Ted Sarandos 1:37:44 I'm guessing for you and her now. [laughing]

Nikhil Kamath 1:37:46 [laughing]

Ted Sarandos 1:37:49 This is delicious.

Nikhil Kamath 1:37:50 You like it?

Ted Sarandos 1:37:51 Mm.

Nikhil Kamath 1:37:51 Are you a rice fan?

Ted Sarandos 1:37:53 Mm-hmm.

Nikhil Kamath 1:37:53 Do you like rice-

Ted Sarandos 1:37:54 Yeah, definitely

Nikhil Kamath 1:37:54 ... as a carbohydrate?

Ted Sarandos 1:37:55 Yeah.

Nikhil Kamath 1:37:57 Yeah. So picking a micro-culture, like the Korean stuff-

Ted Sarandos 1:38:02 Yeah

Nikhil Kamath 1:38:02 ... before it has blown up, and making it mass, how do I learn to do that? Say, for example, I have to make the decision on producing or not producing A, B, C, and D. Somebody comes to me with a Korean drama five years ago and says, "We should do something like this." I'd be like, "Heck, no." What skill set do you have that allowed you to make that call, and how can I inculcate it?

Ted Sarandos 1:38:33 I think it goes back to the video store.

Nikhil Kamath 1:38:34 Mm-hmm.

Ted Sarandos 1:38:35 The beauty part of working in a video store, they were empty all day.

Nikhil Kamath 1:38:38 Mm-hmm.

Ted Sarandos 1:38:39 All the business happened after s- after work. So all day, I watched everything. I watched everything in the store. So one thing that I have that some people don't-

Nikhil Kamath 1:38:48 Mm-hmm

Ted Sarandos 1:38:48 ... is I've seen almost everything. [chuckles]

Nikhil Kamath 1:38:51 Mm.

Ted Sarandos 1:38:51 So when someone comes in with an idea or a pitch, I already have some framework where I've seen it before, where it's worked, what didn't work about it, not just in American film, from... So when, when we did, uh, uh, in Korea, before Parasite-

Nikhil Kamath 1:39:05 Mm-hmm

Ted Sarandos 1:39:05 ... we made Bong Joon Ho's movie called Okja.

Nikhil Kamath 1:39:07 Mm-hmm.

Ted Sarandos 1:39:08 And I was very familiar with his work. I've seen all of his film before.

Nikhil Kamath 1:39:13 Mm-hmm.

Ted Sarandos 1:39:13 And he was, um... I, I remember that wh- where he was in his life at that time. He told me a story that there was a, a cor- a box set of Korean movies on DVD that Martin Scorsese did the director's commentary on. And that he's talking about movies in Korea, and he was... And he, and he, Bong said, "And Martin Scorsese said my name." He got very excited to tell me-

Nikhil Kamath 1:39:34 Mm

Ted Sarandos 1:39:34 ... that Martin Scorsese said his name.

Nikhil Kamath 1:39:36 Mm.

Ted Sarandos 1:39:36 And I said, "Have you never met Martin Scorsese?" He goes, "No."

Nikhil Kamath 1:39:39 Mm.

Ted Sarandos 1:39:39 So I introduced them-

Nikhil Kamath 1:39:40 Mm

Ted Sarandos 1:39:40 ... and had set it up so that Bong could go to his home, and-

Nikhil Kamath 1:39:43 Mm

Ted Sarandos 1:39:43 ... they went and spent the day together, and it was really exciting.

Nikhil Kamath 1:39:46 Mm.

Ted Sarandos 1:39:46 But again, I, I think when Bong was out pr- pitching the movie, a lot of people did not know him and his work outside-

Nikhil Kamath 1:39:51 Mm

Ted Sarandos 1:39:51 ... of Korea. Um, he, he was, you know, a, an incredible, an incredibly well-known director, particularly in Korean horror. Um, so but again, you kinda, you, you gotta have some frame of reference.

Nikhil Kamath 1:40:03 Mm.

Ted Sarandos 1:40:03 So... And-

Nikhil Kamath 1:40:04 Does familiarity play a part in that? You've seen something similar which has worked, so you will greenlight something similar?

Ted Sarandos 1:40:10 I think it's just, m- Martin Scorsese said that all movies are in conversation with each other.

Nikhil Kamath 1:40:16 Mm.

Ted Sarandos 1:40:17 So you have to watch a lot of movies [laughing] -

Nikhil Kamath 1:40:19 Mm

Ted Sarandos 1:40:19 ... to understand what the connection is. You know, this is like that, but it's not really like that. You know, it's this, but it could be a little more like this. But that, that will never work in India, but it works well in Korea. You know, those kind of things.

Nikhil Kamath 1:40:31 And what does well or does not? Is it a factor of reading the room, like reading what is happening in society today, or is it about the quality of content? Like, we're in a world where, I don't know, left is going right, and the politics are changing, capitalism and h- the way we view it is changing. So much is changing.

Ted Sarandos 1:40:56 Yeah.

Nikhil Kamath 1:40:57 Youth sentiment on social media is changing. Does that define what will work or not tomorrow, or will it be the quality of content?

Ted Sarandos 1:41:05 The reason it's so hard to predict-

Nikhil Kamath 1:41:07 Mm

Ted Sarandos 1:41:07 ... is 'cause sometimes it changes because of what's happening in the culture, and sometimes the exact opposite.

Nikhil Kamath 1:41:14 Mm.

Ted Sarandos 1:41:14 Meaning that because things are so X, because things are so black-

Nikhil Kamath 1:41:19 Mm-hmm

Ted Sarandos 1:41:19 ... people really want white now. [chuckles]

Nikhil Kamath 1:41:21 Mm.

Ted Sarandos 1:41:21 Or because everything's black, everything must be black.

Nikhil Kamath 1:41:23 Mm-hmm.

Ted Sarandos 1:41:24 So I, I do think there, there's a almost impossible to predict nature of how society will react to what's happening in society, far enough in advance to get something made.

Nikhil Kamath 1:41:36 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?

Ted Sarandos 1:42:19 Well, look, we're telling stories for 700 million people around the world.

Nikhil Kamath 1:42:23 Mm-hmm.

Ted Sarandos 1:42:23 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.

Nikhil Kamath 1:42:42 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?

Ted Sarandos 1:43:15 I mean, that's the beauty of the personalization work that we've been doing since the company began-

Nikhil Kamath 1:43:18 Mm-hmm

Ted Sarandos 1:43:19 ... 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.

Nikhil Kamath 1:43:36 ... 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?

Ted Sarandos 1:43:49 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.

Nikhil Kamath 1:44:05 Is it? We don't speak the language.

Ted Sarandos 1:44:08 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-

Nikhil Kamath 1:44:27 Mm.

Ted Sarandos 1:44:27 -but m- far more adventurous as viewers than I expected.

Nikhil Kamath 1:44:31 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?

Ted Sarandos 1:44:40 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

Ted Sarandos 1:44:47 I mean? They would just hit play for a minute, then turn it off.

Nikhil Kamath 1:44:49 Mm.

Ted Sarandos 1:44:49 Uh, 'cause... But honestly, they're watching and loving content from around the world.

Nikhil Kamath 1:44:55 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.

Ted Sarandos 1:45:06 Yeah.

Nikhil Kamath 1:45:07 Explain. You might be saving Hol- [laughs]

Ted Sarandos 1:45:10 I, I can't explain why he says we're killing, but yeah. I think saving is, like, what, what we're doing.

Nikhil Kamath 1:45:15 Mm.

Ted Sarandos 1:45:15 I mean, we're continuing to be able to create an environment where we can get s- films made and TV shows made.

Nikhil Kamath 1:45:20 Mm.

Ted Sarandos 1:45:20 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.

Nikhil Kamath 1:45:27 Mm.

Ted Sarandos 1:45:27 And, and for us, it's like we're, we're obsessed about on the audience-

Nikhil Kamath 1:45:30 Mm

Ted Sarandos 1:45:30 ... 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.

Nikhil Kamath 1:45:42 Mm-hmm.

Ted Sarandos 1:45:43 Um, and so I think we're onto the right track by listening to customers, like, listening to the, to the audience.

Nikhil Kamath 1:45:49 What do you think happens next in the podcasting world, the independent content creators who d- are not, not sitting behind any organization?

Ted Sarandos 1:45:58 Yeah.

Nikhil Kamath 1:46:00 How does that world evolve? Does Netflix start competing there?

Ted Sarandos 1:46:04 Look, I think the more podcasts become forward, uh, video-forward-

Nikhil Kamath 1:46:09 Mm-hmm

Ted Sarandos 1:46:09 ... um, and people are watching on TV-

Nikhil Kamath 1:46:12 Mm-hmm

Ted Sarandos 1:46:12 ... 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-

Nikhil Kamath 1:46:25 Mm

Ted Sarandos 1:46:25 ... 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.

Nikhil Kamath 1:46:51 Are they eating up a lot of the mindshare that used to go to fiction?

Ted Sarandos 1:46:55 N- um, I don't know what they're trading off for.

Nikhil Kamath 1:46:58 Mm.

Ted Sarandos 1:46:58 So, like, our... We're not dropping, and they're growing.

Nikhil Kamath 1:47:01 Mm-hmm.

Ted Sarandos 1:47:02 Um, it could be that they're just accelerating the decline of linear television-

Nikhil Kamath 1:47:05 Mm-hmm

Ted Sarandos 1:47:06 ... uh, which it wouldn't be a bad thing for us.

Nikhil Kamath 1:47:07 Mm-hmm.

Ted Sarandos 1:47:08 Um, so, uh, but I do think what people are using the TV for-

Nikhil Kamath 1:47:11 Mm

Ted Sarandos 1:47:11 ... is very interesting, how it's, how evolved it just in the last couple of years.

Nikhil Kamath 1:47:16 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-

Ted Sarandos 1:47:38 [laughs]

Nikhil Kamath 1:47:38 ... 15 or 20 hours.

Ted Sarandos 1:47:39 Yeah, I-

Nikhil Kamath 1:47:40 So who's right?

Ted Sarandos 1:47:40 I, I, I have not given up on the attention span of youth, that when Squid Game drops-

Nikhil Kamath 1:47:46 Mm

Ted Sarandos 1:47:46 ... they're gonna stop everything they're doing and watch Squid Game in two days.

Nikhil Kamath 1:47:50 Yeah.

Ted Sarandos 1:47:50 Yeah.

Nikhil Kamath 1:47:51 So is it increasing or decreasing?

Ted Sarandos 1:47:53 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.

Nikhil Kamath 1:48:01 Dead scrolling is like short-term spurts of dopamine, right?

Ted Sarandos 1:48:05 Yeah.

Nikhil Kamath 1:48:05 What chemical is Netflix catering to when you're watching a 10-hour show?

Ted Sarandos 1:48:08 I, like, I think if our common references as a culture are memes-

Nikhil Kamath 1:48:12 Yeah

Ted Sarandos 1:48:12 ... that's depressing. To me, they're throwa- 'cause they're throwaway.

Nikhil Kamath 1:48:15 Mm.

Ted Sarandos 1:48:16 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.

Nikhil Kamath 1:48:21 Mm.

Ted Sarandos 1:48:21 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.

Nikhil Kamath 1:48:41 Mm.

Ted Sarandos 1:48:41 And that's what we're, we're trying to- we're tapping into that.

Nikhil Kamath 1:48:44 You have a interesting marketing strategy where you, where you produce content to market content. Does that work?

Ted Sarandos 1:48:52 What do you... Oh, you mean producing, like, a podcast to promote a, a show? Yeah, definitely. Definitely.

Nikhil Kamath 1:48:56 Yeah?

Ted Sarandos 1:48:57 Yeah.

Nikhil Kamath 1:48:58 Why does that work, versus, say, a billboard or a hoarding or-

Ted Sarandos 1:49:02 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.

Nikhil Kamath 1:49:26 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-

Ted Sarandos 1:49:43 Yeah.

Nikhil Kamath 1:49:43 -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.

Ted Sarandos 1:49:51 Yeah.

Nikhil Kamath 1:49:52 Where would I go? Like, would it be-

Ted Sarandos 1:49:53 Well, luckily, you have a great following of entrepreneurs, right?

Nikhil Kamath 1:49:56 Yeah.

Ted Sarandos 1:49:56 So if, if you make a show like that-

Nikhil Kamath 1:49:58 Yeah

Ted Sarandos 1:49:58 ... and it doesn't appeal to your base-

Nikhil Kamath 1:50:00 Yeah

Ted Sarandos 1:50:00 ... it's doomed.

Nikhil Kamath 1:50:02 Yeah. [chuckles]

Ted Sarandos 1:50:02 So you, you can go out-

Nikhil Kamath 1:50:03 No, I mean, I mean, not for me specifically, but-

Ted Sarandos 1:50:05 No, I'm saying you, someone like you, you go out to your base.

Nikhil Kamath 1:50:08 Yeah.

Ted Sarandos 1:50:08 If it's huge or if it's s- even small-

Nikhil Kamath 1:50:10 Yeah

Ted Sarandos 1:50:11 ... uh, and then the, have the, have that echo, and it can get larger and larger.

Nikhil Kamath 1:50:15 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?

Ted Sarandos 1:50:32 Yeah, they all have... These things all have life cycles.

Nikhil Kamath 1:50:34 Yeah.

Ted Sarandos 1:50:34 You know? Rem- remember Myspace? [laughing]

Nikhil Kamath 1:50:37 Yeah. Any that you think is nearing the end of their life cycle?

Ted Sarandos 1:50:42 That, that I can't call. That I can't call.

Nikhil Kamath 1:50:44 No?

Ted Sarandos 1:50:44 The, the, the critic- the global cl- critical mass that exists today for, for, uh, for TikTok, for Instagram, for YouTube, is pretty tough, pretty tough to knock, to challenge.

Nikhil Kamath 1:50:54 Gaming, we didn't speak about this.

Ted Sarandos 1:50:56 Yeah.

Nikhil Kamath 1:50:56 You're planning to set- you're planning to bring in a lot of gaming in OTT?

Ted Sarandos 1:50:59 Uh-huh.

Nikhil Kamath 1:51:00 Yeah. Can you elaborate, how will that work?

Ted Sarandos 1:51:02 Yeah.

Nikhil Kamath 1:51:02 Because a TV remote is a very inconvenient way to play a game.

Ted Sarandos 1:51:05 Yeah, so there's a lot of it, um, was coming in, where you just play, play on your mobile-

Nikhil Kamath 1:51:09 Right

Ted Sarandos 1:51:09 ... uh, as part of your subscription. Uh, and then now we're optimizing some of the games for TV as well, including, uh, multi- multiplayer party games and those kind of things, too. So it's basically meant to be, like you've asked earlier, about does games compete with Netflix? Sometimes. And it competes for time and energy and screen time.

Nikhil Kamath 1:51:26 Mm-hmm.

Ted Sarandos 1:51:26 So when we, we wanna have, be part of that with, uh, with those people who love gaming.

Nikhil Kamath 1:51:31 And this wouldn't be large AAA games, they would be, like, the light...

Ted Sarandos 1:51:35 A little bit of both. I mean, we've, you know, we've licensed a lot of large AAA games that are in the program now.

Nikhil Kamath 1:51:39 Mm-hmm.

Ted Sarandos 1:51:39 Uh, Grand Thie- the Grand Theft Auto games, by way of example, they do very, very well. Uh, and then these other g- there's other, like, mostly, like, games for younger people-

Nikhil Kamath 1:51:48 Mm-hmm

Ted Sarandos 1:51:48 ... puzzle games-

Nikhil Kamath 1:51:49 Mm

Ted Sarandos 1:51:49 ... all kinds of games.

Nikhil Kamath 1:51:50 Yeah.

Ted Sarandos 1:51:50 Just like Netflix itself, with the way-

Nikhil Kamath 1:51:52 Yeah

Ted Sarandos 1:51:52 ... we have documentary and film and television-

Nikhil Kamath 1:51:54 Right

Ted Sarandos 1:51:55 ... and foreign language.

Ted Sarandos 1:51:56 Yeah.

Nikhil Kamath 1:51:57 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-

Ted Sarandos 1:52:04 Yeah

Nikhil Kamath 1:52:04 ... 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?

Ted Sarandos 1:52:17 I, I think that young people, you said they're, a, a short attention span. I do think they're impatient.

Nikhil Kamath 1:52:23 Mm.

Ted Sarandos 1:52:23 Um, and I do think that a lot of these, a lot of media jobs particularly-

Nikhil Kamath 1:52:27 Mm-hmm

Ted Sarandos 1:52:27 ... 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-

Nikhil Kamath 1:52:41 Mm

Ted Sarandos 1:52:41 ... be a production assistant on a, on a film, go get coffee for a writer's room-

Nikhil Kamath 1:52:45 Mm

Ted Sarandos 1:52:46 ... do all those kind of things that you didn't think you wanted to do.

Nikhil Kamath 1:52:48 Yeah.

Ted Sarandos 1:52:48 But if you wanna do a run- if you wanna run a business in this part-

Nikhil Kamath 1:52:51 Mm

Ted Sarandos 1:52:51 ... you're gonna have to learn how, how all those things operate and how all those people work-

Nikhil Kamath 1:52:56 Mm

Ted Sarandos 1:52:56 ... 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-

Nikhil Kamath 1:53:09 Mm

Ted Sarandos 1:53:10 ... the avenue that you've really been looking for all the, all along-

Nikhil Kamath 1:53:12 Mm-hmm

Ted Sarandos 1:53:13 ... uh, by spending that time in the writer's room or on set or in post-production or the VFX house-

Nikhil Kamath 1:53:19 Mm-hmm

Ted Sarandos 1:53:19 ... uh, as an assistant, where you have opportunity to learn and be mentored. So, uh, I would say don't be impatient.

Nikhil Kamath 1:53:25 Mm-hmm.

Ted Sarandos 1:53:26 Uh, take your time, learn the roles, learn the jobs, learn the people who do those jobs-

Nikhil Kamath 1:53:30 Mm-hmm

Ted Sarandos 1:53:30 ... and see if that's really what you wanna do. That's so true.

Nikhil Kamath 1:53:33 Any fleeting words for India, in your very short visit here?

Ted Sarandos 1:53:37 Every time... I, I'd say for 10 years, uh, I've heard that India is two years away.

Nikhil Kamath 1:53:45 Yeah.

Ted Sarandos 1:53:45 And I feel like it's never been more true right now. I mean, it just feels like the India's on a precipice of something very big. Uh, and this is, uh, probably the, the most exciting time, uh, that I've been aware of in India's history. Yeah.

Nikhil Kamath 1:53:59 Done. [upbeat music]

Ted Sarandos 1:53:59 All right.

Nikhil Kamath 1:54:00 Thank you.

Ted Sarandos 1:54:00 Good time.

Nikhil Kamath 1:54:01 Thanks, everyone. [chuckles]

Ted Sarandos 1:54:03 Thanks.

Nikhil Kamath 1:54:03 Did you have fun?

Ted Sarandos 1:54:04 Yeah, very much.

Nikhil Kamath 1:54:05 Yeah? [upbeat music] Shah Rukh direct- directs movies as well? Oh, you're talking about The Son.

Ted Sarandos 1:54:14 The Son.

Nikhil Kamath 1:54:15 Oh, you guys bought the show?

Ted Sarandos 1:54:17 Yeah, yeah.

Nikhil Kamath 1:54:17 You're producing it, aren't you?

Ted Sarandos 1:54:18 Bad Bollywood. Yeah.

Nikhil Kamath 1:54:19 Yeah. How is it?

Ted Sarandos 1:54:19 It's very fun. I've watched the first two s-

Nikhil Kamath 1:54:22 Have you watched it?

Ted Sarandos 1:54:22 I watched the first two episodes so far. Yeah.

Nikhil Kamath 1:54:23 What do you think of it?

Ted Sarandos 1:54:24 It's very funny.

Nikhil Kamath 1:54:25 Yeah.

Ted Sarandos 1:54:25 It's kind of like, you know, um, people... I think people in India and people outside of India know nothing about the inner workings of Bollywood, so it's a really fun world.

Nikhil Kamath 1:54:34 Yeah, and a sweet guy, really like-

Ted Sarandos 1:54:35 He's a good director. He's a very good director.

Nikhil Kamath 1:54:37 Yeah?

Ted Sarandos 1:54:37 Yeah. [upbeat music]