The TIME100 Summit closed out with a Ted talk—that is, a talk with Ted Sarandos, co-CEO of Netflix.
When asked by TIME Editor-in-Chief Sam Jacobs whether Netflix has “destroyed Hollywood,” Sarandos, who is on TIME’s 2025 list of the world’s most influential people, argued that the streamer has actually “saved Hollywood.”
When asked by TIME Editor-in-Chief Sam Jacobs whether Netflix has “destroyed Hollywood,” Sarandos, who is on TIME’s 2025 list of the world’s most influential people, argued that the streamer has actually “saved Hollywood.”
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00:00Thank you for being here. Welcome back to the Time 100. You are one of very few leaders who have been on this list multiple times.
00:07So congratulations to you. It's an honor.
00:10But on that cheery note, things do not look so good in the entertainment industry.
00:14The box office is down, the LA film business is shaky, people are out of work, your competitors' market share is sinking, but Netflix business is thriving.
00:25Have you destroyed Hollywood?
00:27No, we're saving Hollywood.
00:29You're saving Hollywood.
00:30Yeah, look, what's the big difference of everything you just listed there is that Netflix is a very consumer-focused company.
00:37We really do care that we deliver the programming to you in a way you want to watch it, that it's a program that you love and desire,
00:44so we don't let a lot of other outside forces get in the way of that.
00:49So an example, I think, is that you mentioned the box office being down.
00:52Just by way of example, what does that say?
00:54What is the consumer trying to tell us?
00:56That they'd like to watch movies at home, thank you.
00:59And the studios and the theaters are duking it out over trying to preserve this 45-day window that is completely out of step with the consumer experience of just loving a movie.
01:09But you don't just work with consumers, you work with creators, and sometimes they want to put their films in movie theaters.
01:15Daniel Craig wants Knives Out 3 in theaters.
01:18Greta Gerwig convinced you to release her upcoming Narnia movie in theaters.
01:23When do you decide just to give in to someone?
01:25Look, we have these bespoke releases, basically, for a movie to come out that we'll try to, you know, we have to do some qualification for the Oscars,
01:34so they have to run for a little bit.
01:36It helps with the press cycle a little bit because the press likes to talk about movies in theaters, too.
01:40But, you know, I try to encourage them, every director we work with, to focus on the consumer, focus on the fans.
01:47Make a movie that they love, and they will reward you.
01:50And that's that.
01:51But in general, I also realize that we're in a period of transition.
01:55Folks grew up thinking, I want to make movies on a gigantic screen,
01:58and have strangers watch them and play in the theaters for two months,
02:02and people cry and sold-out shows.
02:05It just doesn't happen very much anymore.
02:06It's outdated.
02:07It's an outdated concept.
02:07So when someone gets up at the Oscars and says,
02:09we need to make movies for movie theaters, for the communal experience,
02:12that's just an outmoded idea.
02:14I believe it is an outmoded idea.
02:15For most people.
02:16Not for everybody.
02:17There are people, if you're fortunate enough to live in Manhattan,
02:20and you can walk to a multiplex and see a movie, that's fantastic.
02:24Most of the country cannot.
02:25You love movies.
02:26I do, and I love theaters.
02:27That's the irony of the whole thing.
02:28Would it bother you?
02:29No.
02:30It just did feel to me like what would really bother me
02:32if people stopped making great movies.
02:34And I think if we get trapped behind this way of how people,
02:38if we want people to watch them the way we want them to watch them
02:41versus how they want to watch them,
02:43then people won't be able to make movies anymore
02:44because there won't be a business for it.
02:46So like the Paris Theater here in New York,
02:48it's the last single-screen theater in Manhattan.
02:52It was about to become a Walgreens, and we saved it.
02:55And we didn't save it to save the theater business,
02:58we bought and we saved it to save the theater experience.
03:02Are Trump's economic policies good for Netflix?
03:06It all remains to be seen.
03:08We're early days.
03:09I think the, not disproportionately good or bad,
03:14I think we are interested in a global and local business.
03:18So our business, our primary spending on programming,
03:21on employees, on infrastructure is in the U.S.,
03:24but we're an enormous producer of programming around the world.
03:26So $6 billion of programming in the U.K.
03:31We've got out a, we've got,
03:33we just announced a billion dollars of spending in Mexico.
03:36We just spent a million dollars restoring the Cinematech in Brazil.
03:41So we've got a very large influence on,
03:44an impact on the local economy and local cultures around the world,
03:48beyond the U.S. as well.
03:49You said earlier today that the entertainment industry
03:51gets thrown under the bus in trade deals.
03:53Was that you aligning with the president's moves on tariffs?
03:56No, what I was saying is,
03:57is that in trade deals pre-Donald Trump,
04:01we'll have a free trade agreement with the country,
04:05and then that country then has a cultural exception for entertainment,
04:10or they have a minimum investment obligation uniquely on entertainment.
04:14And what I was saying is,
04:15it's often that the entertainment industry
04:17doesn't get treated like a real business.
04:19And that's one of the examples of it.
04:21We have a free trade agreement with Australia.
04:23Australia wants to instill a minimum investment obligation
04:28and some cultural exceptions on top of that deal,
04:31after the deal's already done.
04:32And the inclination of the administrations,
04:34all administrations, is typically to say,
04:36yeah, okay, and let that go.
04:38But we're a real industry.
04:39We contributed $125 billion to the U.S. economy
04:42since between 2020 and 2024.
04:45So it is, we're 140,000 production jobs
04:49we've created in that period of time.
04:51It's a real industry,
04:52and sometimes we need some protecting, too.
04:53Do you think about,
04:54you talk about being focused on the consumer,
04:56do you think about the Trump voter as a consumer?
04:59Do you worry that Netflix is not creating enough programming
05:01to appeal to that audience?
05:03No, I think we make programming for all sensibilities.
05:06It's been a part of the success of the company as well.
05:08We try not to have a show
05:10that you would define as a Netflix show.
05:12We want it to be your favorite show.
05:14And our brand is really personalization.
05:17So we have found is that the typical watcher
05:20will watch across six different genres all the time.
05:23So no one's watching kind of one thing
05:25just because they voted for one person
05:26or have thought one thought.
05:28People want to be entertained.
05:30And it's not unusual for someone to like
05:33Bridgerton and Monday Night Raw wrestling.
05:36Sure.
05:37We just hosted a brunch for WWE in Las Vegas
05:43for Monday Night Raw,
05:44and we had a chamber group there
05:46playing chamber music from Bridgerton.
05:47Nice crossover moment.
05:49The world is fascinating.
05:51Yes, it is.
05:51Yes, it is.
05:52We are interesting creatures.
05:53Is part of your interest in video podcasts,
05:55which you mentioned recently,
05:57an effort to put people like Joe Rogan on the platform?
05:59No.
06:00What it is is I think there's just all kinds
06:02of new things that happen.
06:03Like podcasting is becoming much more video forward,
06:07and people are watching podcasts on their television
06:10on all kinds of different apps on television.
06:13So, and I think what's happened is
06:14it's accelerated the lines being blurred
06:17between what's a talk show and what's a podcast.
06:19And so, and people seem to really like them
06:21and enjoy them,
06:22and we're always looking for what is the media
06:24that people are looking for
06:25that we can bring value to,
06:27and video podcasting could be one of them.
06:29On that, you're creating an increasing amount
06:32of international content.
06:33Yep.
06:34That you create and that you license.
06:36Looks like Paramount and Warner Brothers Discovery
06:38are doing the opposite.
06:40Why are you choosing separate paths?
06:42We started early on.
06:44We've always, I met Reed Hastings,
06:46the founder of the company in 1999.
06:47He described Netflix almost exactly
06:50like it is right now.
06:51Now, not the original programming part,
06:54but the global part.
06:55And that the internet would mean
06:56that there wasn't any limitations
06:58of a cable wire or satellite dimensions,
07:02and that the internet would enable
07:03truly global distribution,
07:05and Netflix would be a truly global company.
07:07So, for us, we always looked at that and said,
07:09okay, well, we're about 5% of the world's population,
07:13and about 80% of what's getting watched
07:14around the world is from America.
07:15Is that natural?
07:18Is that just a taste thing?
07:19Are we better at this than everybody else?
07:21And then when you get into these markets,
07:23you understand that most of the watching
07:25is very local, hyper-local, actually.
07:27But sometimes the markets are small,
07:29so there's not enough production scale
07:31to tell great stories,
07:32even in their own markets.
07:35So, for us, we've been able to bring global scale
07:37to those operations so that when a show really works,
07:41and it uniquely only works
07:43when it's authentically local.
07:45So you can't reverse-engineer a global anything
07:47from anywhere.
07:49But if you tell a really great local story,
07:51it will travel around the world.
07:52People will see something in it
07:53that's familiar to them
07:55that is very unintuitive on the surface,
07:58that Squid Game would be the most-watched show
08:00in the world,
08:01and the most-watched show in Netflix history.
08:03A very Korean show.
08:05The Koreanness is not compromised in any way
08:07for that to happen.
08:09What country outside the United States
08:10is the most important one for you?
08:12I mean, it's based on size of television markets.
08:16Is there one you're going to prioritize?
08:18No, we have teams around the world
08:20focused in those markets,
08:21and to them, that is the most important market.
08:24How many of you here subscribe to Netflix?
08:28There we go.
08:29You stopped counting the number of subscribers.
08:33You stopped putting out subscription numbers.
08:35Yes.
08:36If subscriber numbers are no longer
08:38the most important metric,
08:39although by a show of hands,
08:40you're doing fine,
08:41what is the most important number for you?
08:45Engagement, revenue, profit.
08:46So basically, they all are tied to
08:49what we internally call the four Cs.
08:52So basically, we have a pretty complicated business.
08:55The technical deliverable
08:57of putting content around the world
08:59on the internet
08:59on thousands of different devices,
09:01in places that have varying degrees of internet speed,
09:05all these things.
09:05It's very technically difficult.
09:08It's very creatively difficult
09:09to serve taste in every culture and every language.
09:12And so when you're in a complicated world,
09:15you want to try to make things simple for the folks doing it.
09:17And for us, it was boiling it down to four Cs.
09:21And it was content, first and foremost,
09:23which is we have to make the shows that people really love.
09:27Choosing, which is in a world of thousands and thousands of choices,
09:30how to find something becomes really valued.
09:33So the technology that goes into helping people find things,
09:36the recommendation engine,
09:38the merchandising that puts the most logical thing
09:40next to the most logical thing is really important.
09:44Conversation, which is kind of marketing and publicity
09:47and getting the world talking about the shows that they're watching,
09:50getting them so excited that they want to talk about it.
09:52And then the fourth is that we added later was commerce,
09:56which is if you do all three of these well,
09:58then the commerce part comes.
09:59You have to make sure you're priced accordingly.
10:01So for me, it's like taking something very, very complex
10:04and boiling it down and putting the customer at the center of it.
10:08Part of the evolution.
10:09And by the way, that's back to what I was saying.
10:11It was an engagement, revenue, profit.
10:12That all comes by pleasing people.
10:14You have to please.
10:15And we're one-click cancel, by the way.
10:17So all of these folks who raised their hand,
10:20as soon as they were unhappy,
10:21they could have just clicked one time and left.
10:24A new group that you're trying to please is advertisers.
10:26That's an evolution in your business.
10:28You've moved to be a player in the advertising space
10:30when the economy is not good.
10:32We tend to worry about advertising.
10:33How concerned are you about advertising
10:35for your business this year and also for global media?
10:38Well, we are primarily a subscription service,
10:41and our advertising basically enables us
10:44to offer a cheaper product for folks who may want that
10:47or folks who may need that.
10:48For the longest time, we counter-positivity
10:51against advertising because it was an interesting way
10:54to come in against TV, which was,
10:56if you don't like ads, we don't have no ads.
10:58If you don't want to wait until next week for an episode,
11:00we drop all of our shows at once.
11:01So it was all a classic kind of counter-position.
11:04We also always fancied ourselves a choice company.
11:07So giving consumers as much choice as they can,
11:10how and what they want to watch.
11:12And then we realized later that we were not giving this choice,
11:14which was, if you want a lower price
11:16and you don't mind ads, then here's that option.
11:18So we opened that up.
11:19And I'd say, you know, we will be, you know,
11:21for the long haul, we'll be primarily a subscription revenue service.
11:26You've been at Netflix for 25 years.
11:28That's too long to be at any one company.
11:32You're bringing out the big check now?
11:34Good night, everybody.
11:34It's funny, we're doing very well in time,
11:38but we can't afford Ted.
11:40But two places it could.
11:42So in your next job,
11:43would you rather run Saturday Night Live or Disney?
11:46Oh, Saturday Night Live for sure.
11:49Okay, well then who should replace Bob Iger?
11:52I have no idea.
11:53I have no idea.
11:56Famously, when Streaving arrived at Netflix,
11:58you stopped inviting the DVD employees to meetings.
12:01Yeah, that was mean.
12:02Apologies to them.
12:03What is the next team at Netflix
12:06that will not be invited to the meetings?
12:11You must know.
12:12I mean...
12:13Well, look, I'll put it...
12:14Let me tell you, though, to be honest with you,
12:16when we started this,
12:17we looked at the DVD as a bridge to streaming.
12:22Streaming was too...
12:22The internet was too expensive and too slow
12:24to deliver content at the time we started the business.
12:27And the cheapest, fastest way to move bits
12:30from one part of the country to another part of the country
12:32was to put them on a disc and mail them.
12:35So we always looked at that as a bridge
12:37so that at some day...
12:38Now, of course, it got so big and popular
12:40that we said, when we started streaming,
12:42don't mess with the DVD business.
12:43It's all the profit and all the revenue.
12:45And then as soon as the streaming started to catch fire,
12:48we said, that is holding us back
12:50from getting to the promised land,
12:51which was streaming.
12:52So don't worry about the DVD business.
12:55In fact, you had to keep deprioritizing
12:58until we got all the way to the point
12:59where we said the DVD employees
13:00can't come to the company meeting anymore.
13:02But that was seen from the beginning.
13:06There's nobody right now who's doing anything on Netflix
13:07that I see that right now.
13:09Okay.
13:10Trust you.
13:13The headline here that I'm hearing,
13:16that Tina Fey, Seth Meyers, Jimmy Fallon
13:18have competition when it comes to the next showrunner for SNL.
13:21They will rest easy tonight.
13:25They will rest easy tonight.
13:25Okay.
13:28Last question.
13:29We're sitting in a building
13:30that was once called the Time Warner Center.
13:32In 2010, Jeff Bukas, the CEO of Time Warner,
13:35dismissed the possible dominance of Netflix,
13:38saying it's a bit like,
13:39is the Albanian army going to take over the world?
13:43What would you say to Jeff Bukas today?
13:45I would say it in Albanian if I could.
13:47I would say it in Albanian if I could.
13:51But if Jeff knew what a motivator that comment was,
13:58he wouldn't have said it.
14:00But the very first meeting after that,
14:02we had berets and dog tags
14:04and we were in the Albanian army.
14:06Well, we know how that story ended.
14:08Ted Sarandos, thank you so much for being here.
14:11Thanks.