From Video Store to Netflix Co-CEO, Ted Sarandos

22:18What did you do not just to survive, but to really scale yourself as it was all happening? Back in that middle where I worked in the distribution company at ETD, there was a guy. So my life, by the way, was kind of peppered with these inspiring, non-traditional mentors. Lucky you. And I don't even know that they knew that they were mentoring, you know what I mean? But they would say these very poignant things that were very useful always, if you listen, you have to listen. You have to listen. So Ron Eisenberg was the CEO of East Texas Distributing. What was interesting about entertainment distribution is you have basically all of your customers you sell to, and you need to have all the studios to be able to sell them.

22:57So he would always say to me, he goes, well, you've got customers on one hand and suppliers on the other. Just kiss every ass presented. That was his comment. That's amazing. Because you have to make sure that you're taking care of two constituencies all the time that have very different agendas. Right. So the idea that, you know, you can't just go to work and do one thing every day is you're trying, you have to keep these people satisfied and these people pleased all the time, which I think embedded that kind of customer first mode to me. And the difference between video distributors wasn't much.

23:29You know what I mean? It was, they bought from the company and the person that they trusted and liked. And that was that. That was that. That was that. So it was just about just trust. That's so interesting. I mean, it's so interesting to me.

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25:45So when did you start to transition in that company to like a closer model of how we see Netflix today? Like what happened? So again, the reason I think we made it is because it was always in the plan. It's called Netflix, not Mailflix or DVDflix even. And it was always in the vision that this would be a digital distribution company. Reid described Netflix to me in 1999 almost exactly like it is right now. I mean, it's unfathomable to think about. Because at that point, as you said, you weren't even using the internet as we do today. You weren't ordering things like we do. The idea that you would just like sit in your living room and scroll like that, it wasn't a thing.

26:25The TV is something we completely take for granted. Well, that, yeah. It didn't even exist. that. And so this whole notion of it, we were talking about downloading instead of streaming back then, because there was no concept even of streaming back then. Right. Of course. So when we think about that, that's the only thing that ever really connected about the plan was how are you going to manage all these files and all that kind of stuff? And then streaming goes, ah, streaming is going to solve that. So we don't even manage it. I'm interested, Ted, because you were like such an entertainment guy.

26:50The digital piece was like a learning curfew. You didn't understand that? Like how much did you get yourself involved? Understanding that was the future. You could see this blueprint that the reader kind of, you know, said, this is where we're going. Did you immediately like try to start understanding what the engineers sitting next to you were doing? Yeah, gradually. I mean, I felt like I just learned as much as I needed to get my deals done, first of all, and to get these, you know, to deliver on the things that we were promising. Because I can imagine you will be sitting there thinking, oh my goodness, there's this whole part of this company that I don't really understand or I need to learn.

27:23Otherwise I'll be left out of it. I just wonder, was there any part of that? Almost immediately. And the bigger part for me was actually understanding the tech culture. Very different culture. Very different. And at one point there was an early, early executive staff meeting. And one of the guys who was our head of product at that time said to me, I forgot what he said even, but it sounded a little loaded, you know? So afterwards I asked somebody on the way out and I said, hey, you know when he said that, what do you think he meant? And he goes, oh, no, no, no, no. He's incapable of saying anything but exactly what he means.

27:54Exactly. He means exactly what he said. He goes, oh. It's not coded. It's just a tech guy. It's just a tech guy. 100%. And I did find every once in a while with that same guy, he would say to me when sometimes I'd be asking for something and I'm trying to get his buy-in on something, and he would repeat back to me and nod a lot. And I would leave thinking. He's understood it. We got it. Yeah, no problem. He was just taking it all in. And he was acknowledging that he heard me. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. And then he'd go home and think about it for 24 hours. Wow. And he'd come back and have the most remarkable insight and question that I thought we were all settled.

28:29And every once in a while, he would unearth something that made what we just talked about impossible. That's just insane. Yeah. So it was a very, the company, the art of the company always from the beginning was kind of managing both. Yeah. And it's an art, right? Because, I mean, seemingly these two industries between tech and entertainment are very, very differently. And I think so much of the success has been how those two things have been interwoven and the understanding between the two. But what did you do in the beginning? Those early days of tech with the entertainment business, very few companies, very few tech companies have successful entertainment plays or the other way around.

29:04And I think a lot of that is because as you try to jam the culture on each other. And I knew early on that we couldn't do that. And Reid recognized it right away, too. So one of those days in the history of Netflix, I wanted everyone up there to know what happened in LA. So I've had everybody from come down from Los Gatos to LA. We toured the Warner Brothers studio and we, I rented the improv and I had Naomi Odenkirk, who's Bob's, Odenkirk's wife, who was a talent booker in those days, book 10 great comedians. And they came and saw Showbiz and they had a real, and they went back home and they talked about it for a year.

29:44And it was part of the early formations of the company. And I remember I used to really love to hear the engineers talk about the experience of having... Now that night at the improv, it was Zach Galifianakis, Sarah Silberman. Wow. It was Patton Oswalt. Unbelievable. Unbelievable. All killers. So they really had an experience that night. And was that something that worked both ways? Because you're really talking about building influence and credibility between the two teams. Did it work both ways that you You had to show the entertainment folks how to have more understanding of the digital side of the business too.

30:18Yeah, for sure. I mean, and we really had to do this. This idea was don't spend all your energy trying to figure out how to code. Figure out how to talk to the coders to get what you need and vice versa. The biggest goal for me was if you're an engineer at Netflix, you work at the greatest tech company on the planet. And if you are an entertainment executive at Netflix, you work at the greatest entertainment company on the planet. End of. And you're both right. Yeah, you're both correct. You're both true. And it turned out that you were right about that. They really did. And we really did. And they really do.

30:45Yeah. And we really did put a lot of energy behind it. And this was in the days, in the early days of the tech entertainment tension was that the tech companies would fly to LA for the day and they'd hire a legal team and an agent. And they'd go in and talk to the studios with the lawyer and an agent. And then he'd write a very big check and they'd leave. And they didn't know that the studios were laughing, you know, when they left. And I would tell Reed, I go, we're not doing that. That is not what we're doing. I'm not going to move up here. I'm going to stay here. My kids are going to go to school with their kids.

31:12And we're going to... And that's just that. Did you ever feel like an outsider? Because you don't come from the studio system or from film school. So was there a part of you that was like, I'm an outsider in this business too? For sure. But I think it's probably my personality generally. When I was growing up, the neighborhood we lived in, my two oldest sisters, Kathy and Jean, got into a thing with us, a gang of girls at school. And when my parents went to the school to try to solve the problem, And they said she should probably transfer schools. It was a violent neighborhood where we were living.

31:44And so we switched schools when I was in junior high school. So all my friends went to one high school and I went to a new high school and I didn't know anybody. My friends, if you look back now, all this kind of stereotype high school cliques. I had friends from all the cliques. Like I'd never, I didn't have one specific one. So I was never really an outsider, but I didn't feel like I was narrowly rooted in any one thing. So I thought Netflix suited me quite well in that way. Definitely. I feel like your story is so much about taking like unconventional bets in some ways. And I wonder how you've learned to kind of double down and really trust your instincts in your life, in your career.

32:23I don't know where it came from, but this notion of risk reward has kind of been my guiding light. Like if the prize is big enough, you should take pretty unreasonable risk. If it isn't, don't put things in jeopardy. But in the case of like original programming, it's probably the one thing that Reid didn't, he and I did not agree on or that he didn't see as part of the vision at the beginning. And for me, it was inevitability. You know, no network or no entertainment brand didn't have its own programming. Right. So at the time, I think Reid was trying to solve a different problem, which is, and he was smart.

32:56That's what, that's the problem that we needed to solve first. And then original programming was kind of the icing on the cake. And original program was your thing. That was something that you were like taking that, or you were at the helm of. Yeah. Yeah. And for me, it did not feel like a monumental bet. I really told. I mean, but it was a monumental bet, right? When you look at what you've done and like. Couldn't afford it for sure. So it was risky in that way. There's that. There's that. But I did tell Reid afterwards, cause we made the deal and I told him about it and he said, why would you, you know, that's a big risk.

33:25Why would you do this? And I said, it's a risk reward. I said, if you've got, if this does not work, we will have overspent dramatically on one show. We do it all the time. I go, if it does work, it will fundamentally change the course of the business. And he said, that totally makes sense. And we never talked about it again. I mean, I want to get into this original programming thing because it obviously has been so seismic and touched so many of our lives. But do you have any sort of beliefs or mental frameworks for when you're making those really big decisions that you go back to like time and time again.

33:57I mean, I think at the end of the day, when you, when you hear, I don't hear as many of the pitches as I used to very few actually now. Um, but it's, what I think is interesting is, is that it's the same fundamental question about every show you're going to do. Like, is this a world that people want to spend time in? Are these people that I care about what happens to them? And do I, do I want to stick around to see how it ends? You know, and you can kind of feel so simple at the end of the day. I think that's true across whatever it is. And then, you know, getting to the kind of essence of what the show is or what it's about, or who's going to be in it, all those things of course matter because it's all about execution, but it all starts with a great idea.

34:34And if you can think about how many things, how many times was something, a really bad idea, but executed so well that it worked. Very rare. No. Yeah. Doesn't happen. So I was thinking in the entertainment world, you'd think something like Avatar might be one of those things that wasn't a great idea. It was basically the Fern Gully was the same idea. Yeah, you could argue that. But the execution was so seismic. Mesmerizing, yes. But it turned out that way. As big as the budget for Titanic was, maybe that wasn't a great idea, but the execution was sort of thing. Pretty depressing story, but yes, it really worked out.

35:05We've already got a Titanic movie, yeah. Exactly, true. But I think they're rare. They're rare. So when you hear a good idea, man, you better focus on the execution of that idea because they're so rare. And if you get them both, if you get the great idea and the great execution, you've got a monster. You've got a monster. So talk to me about original programming at Netflix. How did it come around? What is your part in that? And what does that look like today? Because we all know the unbelievable success that you've had with original programming. So it was, we were buying licensing, just streaming rights for, and there was a movie.

35:37One thing we did not have was new movies. Back then the paid TV deals would lock up movies for years. So basically you couldn't license a movie that played in the theater for a service like Netflix for 10 years after it was a theater. So we were always constantly, anytime a movie was in the wild, which would happen every once in a while, we would take the meeting and try to do it. So we licensed the movie, Pan's Labyrinth. This happened to be the pay TV rights weren't tied up. La Vie en Rose was one. So this company who had the rights to Bruno, which is a Sacha Baron Cohen movie, came in to pitch it.

36:09You know, did we want to buy the rights? And then on the way out the door, they just mentioned, hey, we're making a series of the British House of Cards, but set in Washington, D.C. Do you guys want to hear the pitch? and I said, tell me more about that. Because I love the British House of Cards. So good. And he said, yeah, so it's Kevin Spacey and Robin Wright are going to star in it. David Fincher is going to direct television for the first time. So I said, so we started talking about it after they left. And I said, wow, like what is, and this is where a little bit of data you looked at and said, you know, people seem to really, people love Kevin Spacey movies.

36:45Like how do they perform on Netflix? How about David Fincher movies? about movies about politics, about all this. So you're looking at all this swirl of things thinking, if it's well done, this could have a real audience. But there was no original programming at that time at Netflix. So how did you even have the remit to Green Knight, something like that? Because I imagine it was so expensive. Well, I think it was a$100 million investment for sure. But it was one of these things for us at the time. My remit was, let's get programming on Netflix so people will watch. And the more we can grow the streaming, the more we could prove out the model, both for consumers and for the suppliers too.

37:20For me, it was like we had done some, this deal with stars programming. So we got the stars programming the same time it was on TV. It was a hack of the system. It wasn't, you know, any genius move. But this one was, well, this is a show that will be the hottest package in television this year. HBO wants it, AMC wants it, FX, everyone wanted it. And I said, so why would they sell it to us? We've never done this before. And I said, we have to figure out what is, there's a thousand reasons to say no. What's the one path to yes? What'd you come up with? It was, I give them a two-season order with no notes, but promise them no creative interference.

37:54Oh. So at that time. That's big. It was big at that time. That's big. If you're David Fincher, you're like, I'll take that. At the time, it would be very rare to even go direct to series, let alone, you know, a two-season pickup. So they knew. So an even bigger bet then. It was a big, yeah, it was very big. But I do think it was no, that was the clearing price for us. Nobody would sell good things to us that way. We might got lucky. Fair enough. Yeah. Yeah. So we had to really change the algebra here. We had to figure out what is our path in when we have really nothing but promise. And obviously, we all know how that turned out.

38:25We're incredibly, unbelievably successful. But was that the thing that then changed everything in terms of like programming at Netflix? That meant that you had the remit to go? I think what it did was unlock, again, possibility. Right. You say, well, we need more of that. We need those ones that work. And we had a great look at. I also think it's really lucky that we had such a great first set of releases. Yes. Arrested Development reboot. Crazy. House of Cards. Orange is the New Black. We did Lilyhammer, which was this kind of funky thing that turned out to be really important to the company's future growth.

38:59Right. Which was a show that was made in Norway. I didn't see that one. So basically, it really was the first launch of an original show on Netflix. After we did that deal for House of Cards, people in town heard about it. And I got a call from an agent said, Stevie Van Zandt would like to talk to you. And I said, oh my God, I love the East Street Band. It's going to be great. So I take the call from Stevie. He's so funny and so cool. And he said, I'm in Norway. I came over to produce an album and these people brought me a script. And it's this really crazy show called Lillehammer about a mobster who's in witness relocation in Lillehammer, Norway.

39:35And he basically mobs up this little town in Norway. And he's a lot like the character he played in The Sopranos. So I just, I go, well, can you send me a script or something? He goes, I'll send you the whole show. We already shot it. He goes, I just need to make some money so I can put some music in the show. So you got to see the whole show. So I got to see the whole show. And it was a slam dunk. We bought it on site. So that was our first launch. And it was now one of those things that has become a bit of a superpower for us. Being able to produce local language content, you know, and find a global audience for it.

40:03And we got their first taste of it. And then it's also because we had the whole show done, we put it all up at once. So it started the kind of all at once. It started the mixed language, international production for the US, all of these different things that are so important to our business today. No, and so important to your business. And it seems to me like you have this wonderful ability to be both like a friend and a supporter to the creative, but also have this executive language and the executive prowess. How have you been able to walk that line? Who taught you that? That's a really big thing.

40:37And I think it's something that a lot of people really struggle with? Usually you're like one or the other. I love the talent. I really love, and I totally respect what they do. I totally respect how difficult it is. Back to my Phoenix days, the drinking age in Arizona was 19. Oh. And which means that you could get away with it when you're about 17. I always forget that it's 21 in America. I come from a place where it's 16. So I'm like, 19? What? So I didn't like, so my friends, you know, they all like to go into the bars and that kind of stuff. And I didn't like, I didn't dance. So I'd go to the comedy club.

41:09And in the 80s in Phoenix, there was like a comedy boom and all this great, incredible talent would come to Phoenix. So that gave me kind of an early touch into kind of that culture. I got to know some of them and I would hear them tell the stories about how they did a pilot. And they would get these notes on their pilot about like not whether or not the joke was funny or not, but whether I should be wearing a blue shirt or a red shirt. All these kind of arbitrary things. And I figured that early on that very creative people need protectors. They need someone to help them clear the deck of all that noise so that they can do the best work of their life.

41:46And you think Netflix has taken that on as like a corporate disposition, like we will be the friend of the creator? Yeah, and not to the point that it's bad business. But I think there's ways to make sure that you're meeting the needs of everybody all the time. So we had this kind of advantage in this creative interference model, which was I didn't have any people. So I had no one to interfere with you. There's that. But it gave us the ability to say, if you give people, the right people, the tools they need to do the best work of their life, they want to please. They want to please the audience.

42:18They want to please you. They want to do the best work of their life. So how do you decipher who's the right people? Who do you bet on? Some of it's intuition. Right. A lot of it's track record. You know, people mistake track record and data. Like data is a bad thing and track record is a great thing. But track record and data are the exact same thing. So you've got somebody who, you know, it shouldn't be a big deal to take a risk about Martin Scorsese making a great mob movie. So we made The Irishman. It didn't feel like a big swing at all. It was expensive. It's sometimes like the most obvious things.

42:50I read something the other day where it was like Warren Buffett and Charlie Munger. and it was like their ability to hire the best CEOs for their companies over and over again. And somebody asked them at one shareholder's meeting, like, how'd you do that? And they said, you know, we just look for somebody who has done the exact same job somewhere else similar and had an incredible result. And I was like, yeah, it's so obvious, but yeah, that'll do it. But that's essentially what you were doing. You were backing the best in class talent and you were getting out of their way. Getting out of their way.

43:20And that was the thing that won them over. That's the only thing that was standing in the way. Because at the time I couldn't deliver, I could deliver, I could compete with the money, but I couldn't deliver the audience yet. Which I think is ultimately the most important part is you have to be able to deliver the audience. So how did you do that? But how did you do that in the early days? And how did you know? Because again, we're talking about seismic shifts in the way people consume entertainment, the way we use technology. How have you been able to stay clear headed and focused in a time where so much was changing?

43:51Well, I think the discipline function is you have to spend proportionally to how people watch. Now, do it wisely. You could do it all day. You make too many bad bets and you're out of the business. So the goal here is to do it in a way that we can keep doing it all day. So to do that, you have to make these very wise decisions. And sometimes you have to have the discipline to say no, even if you love it, even if you love the person, because there just is not a business solution to it. So I think there's always this idea that art and commerce are somehow in conflict with each other. And I actually don't think they are at all.

44:28I think they enable each other. They give each other a reason. So for me, it's like I can read a script and say, this is a beautiful piece of art. It's just not a piece of business. And I don't want to see this movie. I just don't want to fund it. Fair. You're like, that's just not for me. You've said that great storytelling isn't built by algorithms, but by passion and risk. And so So I guess for somebody, not just in this field, but for any, in any field, how do you learn to trust your instincts in a data-driven world? Well, first I think data-informed intuition is a real, is a winning formula.

45:03Data-informed intuition. Yeah. So you have intuition, but, and you can back it up or you can challenge it with data all day long. How do you make sure that the two, like that one doesn't impede on the other? Do you, do you let yourself like feel what you think about something and then look at the data or Or are you letting the data inform how you feel? As animals, we have this confirmation bias we have to be very careful of. Not looking for the data to confirm our intuition, but just saying, actually the opposite. You know, it's kind of one of our core culture things at Netflix is farming for dissent.

45:32What does that mean? Go out and look for people to disagree with you. Oh, I love that. Yeah, so farm for dissent. And in this case - That's an amazing way to say it, farming for dissent. And I think when you're looking for data, don't look for data to back up your intuition. look for data to challenge your intuition. And then you feel much better about the decision when you're done. If you've really done that honestly with yourself. It's so hard for people to do. And I thought, I heard a great thing. I think it was Jeff Bezos said it one time. He said, right, if your intuition and the data don't match, you might be asking the wrong question.

46:04So it's not that the, yeah, don't question the intuition or the data. Question the question. Question the question. And it's so true after I read that. Yeah, that's really true. You're asking the wrong thing. Yeah.

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48:48Do you have, I just wonder like you as in Ted, the businessman, do you have non-negotiables in the way that you think about like your business, your life, your rituals? Are there things that you think this enables me to do what I do and be good at what I do? I don't know that in life today that you can have non-negotiables. I mean, I think you have to figure out how to meet people where they are and what chances are you willing to take and which ones are you not. I think it's important, but I also think that it can narrow your choices a lot. And sometimes the biggest cost in business you have is lack of choice.

49:26So for me, it's like before you have a non-negotiable, you should have exhausted every other path to get there. You better have exhausted. And that's a beautiful thing because the more successful you are, the more choices you have. Yeah. I mean, that's... You've got a lot of choices now, Ted. And interestingly, I think when companies get big, people get scared and they try to protect... When you're in the best shape of your life, that's when you should be able to try the hard thing. So how do you keep... Typically, I think that's when people try to avoid... No, of course it is. But in a massive company like you are, how do you keep the spirit of where you started and leading with, you know, intuition?

50:02Like if you've got all of these people, how do you ingrain that in everyone around you? You have to celebrate wins and you have to demystify losses. Like you can't have this like mythological fear of losing. Talk about when things wipe out, like talk about them really open and candidly. Even jab people a little bit, like, what were you thinking? Can you do that to yourself? You can. Yeah, for sure. And I do it myself, like, what was I thinking? I say that all the time. So, but I do think it's one of those things where again, it's back to risk reward. Like there's things in your business that if they're catastrophic, you should absolutely be very careful all the time.

50:41And don't, you know, take very calculated moves only. If it's catastrophic, if the outcome is catastrophic. Yes. Most decisions are not. And we, I think we tend to think of almost every decision as a catastrophic, you know, outcome when most of them really aren't. So understanding the difference is really, really important. And like I said, demystifying, celebrate when people took a big bet and missed. Didn't wipe out anybody. It didn't change the outcome of the business much. We learned something. Let's not, you know, let's not make the same mistake a thousand times, but go ahead and make a thousand mistakes over your life, you know.

51:14And obviously I feel like Netflix's biggest gambles have really paid off, but is there one risk that still really haunts you? That haunting is not a good example. I never want to, I don't feel haunted by it, but I never want to forget. There was a, when we did the split of streaming and DVD by mail, it's called Quickster, we formed a new company. And the ultimate thing was the decision was totally sound. Like we had to do that. It was a, it was existential if we didn't at some point monetize streaming. So it was definitely the right thing to do. we had a miscalculation in the consumer reaction.

51:50Right. For a company that is very focused on the consumer, we missed the idea that people who were not directly impacted by a change would be upset by it. You mean like people that weren't even your customers? No, somebody... So basically, if you were only taking DVDs, you were only streaming, you actually got a price decrease in one case and nothing in the other. But if you were doing both, you got basically a gigantic price increase. Got it. And so if your next door neighbor got a big price increase and you didn't, they were still mad at you. You were pissed. Yeah. They were still pissed. Yeah, fair.

52:22So, and that was a big, that was a miss. That's how we miscalculated, you know, the churn impact from that. But I look back at that and think, you know, again, the haunting is don't forget about all the different aspects of consumer satisfaction. Yeah, and that's really hard to do when you're in it, like you guys are in it, because you were trying to make a big, your big change, which ultimately paid off. And if we had just had known the number, I think we might have ultimately done exactly the same thing. You would have just digested it differently. Come a hundred percent. A hundred percent. And prepared people for it differently.

52:50Yes. Yes, exactly. Do you think about Netflix as something that saved Hollywood or ruined it? Well, look, that self-serving answer. I think it's saving. Because here's what I do. Here's what I do. A lot of people get wrapped up in the idea of how things used to be. Yeah. And there's something to that. There's something great about it. What inspired me to do what I'm doing now is that stuff that I watched when I was young. Yes. So are we making things like that anymore? You know, those kind of things. So there's something to it for sure. But old habits. And arguably, I mean, like you really are.

53:18Like I look at Stranger Things that my son, who's 11, just showed me. I never watched it the first time around. I'm like in season three watching it with my 11-year-old. And it's like watching my childhood. I feel like I'm watching E.T. or something like so nostalgic and so beautiful. And I feel like that's the difference. Because at Netflix, the stuff is like so, like it's so much quality to it. This is what we try. I mean, I tried to, like I said, that thing that inspired me, are we doing that for people today? And the big part of that is, have you developed a model that ensures that movies get made and that movies get watched?

53:53Yeah. That's what matters. So for me, it's like the art form is above the distribution platform or above the business model. But the art form to me, there is no business model without the art form and vice versa. So for me, it's like, yeah, if people now would like to stay home and watch movies on Friday night instead of going to the theater, let's meet the customer where they are and make great movies for them. And that to me, then when you say say we're ruined, you know, people who very, very narrowly people say, you know, my movie theater didn't, you know, may have closed down. It wasn't because of Netflix, because people like.

54:24Behavior changed. Behavior changed. Behavior just changed. It was inevitable. Yeah, and we have uncovered and discovered and honed a business model that ensures a long-lasting life for filmmakers and for film lovers. That's great news. That's great news. Do you think, I mean, does streaming just survive now? And if it doesn't, what is next? Well, I don't know that there's an internet-level disruption coming in distribution over the next decade. I mean, the internet, it was a pretty seismic shift in things. There'll be changes in creativity, I think, and how things get made, I think will be, which will be very interesting.

55:02You know, AI certainly being part of it, but also, you know, how AI creates the tools that we use to tell stories even better. Like all those things, there'll be a lot of that kind of disruption that'll go on over the next couple of years. But I don't see a internet level disruption in the kind of distribution business. You don't, because you don't think that AI is coming to completely like do something that we don't even understand just yet. No, no, I think it's creating tools for filmmakers that empower them to tell stories they never could tell before. And there's nothing in those tools that concerns you that we get rid of, like, you know, because, again, I'm watching, you know, the battle with various different, you know, entertainers with their name, image, and likeness, and the worries around things like that.

55:43Is that something that is worrying to you, or you just think it's all about progress? No, I think, Reid and I used to have this argument about whether or not I thought that, in some ways, the world was better when Walter Cronkite was the source of truth.

56:01Because I think having a source of truth was a good thing. It was very helpful for all of us. Even if it was wrong. Even if it was wrong, it was wrong. No, no, no. But, you know, there were great things about it. And then, you know, then you think of all the things that have progressed because we traded that in for the internet and for lots of sources of truth. You figure out the truth, that kind of thing. And so there's an underlying piece to any kind of progress. People, if you're riding your horse around, you probably didn't want the cars to scare your horse on the road. Fair enough. There's all those kinds of things that happen.

56:28You have to make those trade-offs all the time, but don't let it stand in the way. Don't let the possibility of a downside take away the probability of an upside. You know, and that's what I think is happening with the cost of production is getting so high that you look at some of these films, you know, like, is it ever good business to make a$300 million or$400 million movie if the monetization model isn't moving faster? And these tools can do a very similar thing for a more controllable price. Yeah. I mean, and seemingly, I think it's really interesting because we talk about, you know, Netflix's competition as being other streamers or studios.

57:00But, you know, I think about YouTube, for example, right? YouTube is where if you're my 11-year-old and my eight-year-old, they're glued to YouTube for as long as I will allow them to be there, which is not very long. But, you know, when you think about what's happening on a platform like that, where it's user-generated content that is actually costing absolutely nothing and kind of this endless, unlimited watch time. How are you thinking about that part of the business? Think about every innovation since you and I were born. Television, pay television, VCRs, DVD players, the internet, the smartphone, the iPad.

57:36Through all of those changes, professional storytelling has been a remarkably resilient business. You know, the X, right? I mean, the actual hours of consumption of television are pretty flat. They're pretty. Are they? Oh, yeah, for sure. Wow. You'd think they would crater, right? Yeah. Through all this, but they actually maintain. And I feel like there's the positive that comes from all that activity on YouTube, which is it's a promotional vehicle for a lot of long-form storytelling that people like to have. And then there's this other place where it kind of meets in the middle, where creators have a lot more opportunity and access to break through because the cost of production is literally in your pocket right now.

58:14Literally. And distribution is possible too, right? You never even leave your house. So that's a very, it's unbelievable for creators to be discovered and figure out, you know, then how do they go on to tell the stories that we talk about 50 years from now? Exactly. And so I think it's a great area of opportunity. And I think the YouTube is a complementary in many ways. Competitive in some ways, of course, because it's TV time. But for the most part, it's a great vehicle for discovering new talent, for promoting existing stories. And on the side, it's also created its own form of entertainment.

58:48So what do you think that Netflix has that YouTube doesn't then the other way around? Well, one is that for a creator, we can do the monetization and share in the financial risk to delve more ambitious stories. So in that way, it's all basically you bring the project and we'll share in the rewards. for us, it's like we can share in some of the financial risk and enable more, perhaps more aspirational, more ambitious storytelling. Yeah. Well, I feel like you're doing so many different things. We spoke a bit earlier about the exploration with video podcasts. I'm very lucky that I know all about Miss Rachel because I have two, three-year-olds.

59:24So that's a part of my life every day. But also, you know, I had Megan, Duchess of Sussex on this podcast, and she spoke a lot about the type of partnership that you've done with her, which is like outside of the, outside of the show, the as ever brand. So is that the type of, I'm just trying to think about the mix and the various different parts of the business. Is that more of the direction that you'll go in that will set you apart from the other platforms? Yeah, look, I think what we have is cultural relevance. YouTube does too, but I would say that we have cultural relevance in a way that most outlets do not.

59:55That when you go to a dinner party and someone says, oh my God, did you see? The chances are they have Netflix and they can go home and play and watch it. Yeah. That's a very big thing. And in fact, I think one thing we learned early with Megan, she has a remarkable influence. Remarkable. Remarkable. So when we did the documentary on her and Harry, when we ran the trailer announcing it, people, hundreds of people broke down every frame of the trailer. And we know it. We're seeing this on a micro level right now. And the$20 shoes that she got from a village that was making these shoes sold out all over the world.

1:00:35And the$1 ,500 blanket that was on the chair sold out all over the world. That's some power. That's some influence. She has incredible power and influence she could put. And I think that, so that for me, it's like, okay, well, how do we enable this to be a more holistic thing? Yes. So that's what that really is. But I mean, the consumer products business is a very different thing, right? For you guys to go from having the data and understanding that a trailer with those two can do those type of numbers and then have the commercial impact to actually starting a brand, a physical consumer product.

1:01:04And the documentary itself was also one of the most watched documentaries we've ever read. Wow. So it was successful by every measure. Now, I don't think that you can have a consumer business, a consumer products business, if you don't have a great entertainment business. So that's got to come first. It's got to come first. It's one of the funny things. I don't think much about legacy. You don't? No, no, no, for sure not. For the company and for yourself or just for yourself? Company for sure. Yeah, but for yourself. Yeah, so company 100%. That's so interesting for someone like you. Well, you know what?

1:01:36I read a lot about the history of our business. There's a guy, William Paley from CBS, who very few people know who he is or what he did. And he changed everything about television. He took CBS from radio to television, from syndication to owner-operated channels, to creating content for the channels out there, understanding that we can't sell advertising unless people are watching our shows. We have to make great shows. Created the format of color television, basically, that became pale that you probably used outside of the U.S. But that was all started. I'll start by William Paley. So anyone who thinks that anyone's going to—if they don't remember who William Paley is, they're not going to remember who I am.

1:02:18So you're realistic. Fair enough. I'm realistic. Don't think about things like on those terms, but think about things like, how do you enable things to go to the next level? If you're thinking about legacy, you probably get more nervous about risk and you definitely probably get your eye off the prize, which is again, back to the end user. Yes. These people, they've got to be entertained. They've got to love what they're watching. They won't watch ads if they're not. They won't buy products if they're not. They won't stay a subscriber if they're not. So at the end of the day, the whole thing is how do you bring incredible entertainment to people at scale when we have 700 million people who watch Netflix all the time.

1:02:57It's just wild. Everyone's taste is so remarkably different. Everyone's taste is so different. That's why we have so much stuff. Yeah. And so, yeah. But it's interesting to me because I heard that you kind of set your sights on this$1 trillion valuation, which is by 2030. Am I right in that? That's not the goal. Okay. a possible outcome if we do everything else really well. That's the idea is I think when we think about how do we continue to grow the business on the trajectory we've been growing on. And we're so underpenetrated around the world, it's very possible that we continue to grow on that as long as we execute.

1:03:29So what are the key strategic moves, but also what are the like leadership principles that are going to get Netflix to the next? Because you're a huge, huge part of that. So how do you think about getting to the next milestone for the business? Well, the core thing is, is that, you know, at our current size and our current membership base and our current engagement, we're about 5 % of consumer spending on the things that we do. We're about 10 % of TV time in our most mature markets. So we've got, as long as we can kind of win those moments of truth, we have the movie that you're dying to see, the TV show you can't.

1:04:04You have to stay up one more hour, watch one more episode before you go to bed. But as long as we continue to do that at the rate that we're doing and just constantly improve on it, we've got so much room to grow that. I mean, imagine when we said double, double the base or double the revenue, double the engagement. You're talking about you're still in the kind of low double digits in terms of market share. This is a very big market. We're very good at it, but we have to keep being very good at it to keep ahead of everybody else. And how do you kind of beat yourself? Yeah, and how do you beat yourself?

1:04:36We focus on that all the time. How did we be better than Netflix from last year? You know, Reed used to always tell us, you know, we suck today compared to what we're going to be tomorrow. So, yeah, so you keep perspective.

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1:06:47What do you think that it takes, and this is more of a personal question, to lead a company from like a DVD mailer company, which is what Netflix was, to the kind of trillion dollar dream of the future? So I'll tell you, this is back to that early 1999 meeting with Reed. He said something that now in hindsight was very telling, which was that I'm going to build a company that's going to be around way after me. So what he said in that explicitly was there was going to be a succession. This company was going to be around longer than Reed. So he started thinking about succession a long time before he actually moved on.

1:07:24and he brought me on as a co-CEO, which is unheard of for a founder to bring in a co-CEO. And what he was doing back then was, I think, trying to prove to himself and to the board and to me that this was a good model. And a company that he and I had this kind of unofficial way of separating the entertainment and the tech side of the business and focusing on those two things. That was never really written in a JavaScript or anything, but that this was a great way to do this and have a successful succession, which would be required if I'm going to have a company that's going to be around after me.

1:08:02Right. So, I mean, he's a genius in that way and he's incredibly generous. The fact that I exist makes no sense really in a way that you'd have to have a CEO with a lack of ego to have, you know, the voice and the face of the company so often be someone other than the founding CEO. He was 100 % totally committed to the success of the business. And he understood Newman nature enough to know that it would take proving. So he set off on this plan to have a succession and to create this co-CEO model. And I don't think the co-CEO model is for everybody. But for our business, it works really well. And Greg and I have this relationship similar to what Reid and I had in that our focus is on our deep expertise and our deep passion.

1:08:46Yes. And we defer to each other in those things that are, what are the things that you know more than I do and you're more passionate about it than I am? But that solves all the jump balls, which was my biggest concern about co-CEOs down the road would be, well, what do you do when you disagree? Totally. What do you do when you disagree? Well, that's it. You defer to each other in the areas of expertise and passion. And then you support each, and you support each other. No matter what. No matter what. And I think that that's been so important. And you say, how do you keep doing this? Yes. I think it's a great example.

1:09:15Like last week, I was in Madrid at our 10th anniversary event with all of our talent and the media and the government in Spain. And Greg was in the UK at the Wall Street Journal conference. So somehow the CEO of Netflix was in two places at once. It makes it impossible. Kind of amazing. It brings a whole new meaning to divide and conquer. If you're good to try it. Yeah. You have to have two people who respect each other. Yes. Who like each other, who compliment, whose skill sets compliment each other. I would say this with complete confidence that I don't want Greg to go away so I can be the CEO and he doesn't want me to go away so he can be the CEO.

1:09:49I never wanted Reed to go anywhere. So you have to have people like that who mostly are concerned with the success of the business and the welfare of the business over their own title or position or career trajectory. And what happens with Reed now? Do you still speak to him? Because obviously he's such a visionary and such an incredible guy. All the time. You still have that connectivity around the business. It's a great, like for us, it's a great safety net. It's a great thing. Hey, we're thinking about this. What do you think about this? I mean, we'd all take a little conversation with Reid about anything, wouldn't we?

1:10:21100%. The idea that you get to do it about his baby is, yeah. It's a real inspiration. Who else have you had in your career, like a mentor or somebody that's been important to you as you've kind of been in this unbelievable career that you've had for the last 30 years? The thing you said about people who've done it before and people, I mean, it's a real feat to have achieved some of the things that I, one of the great luxuries of my job is I've had the opportunity to meet, in some cases really get to know all my heroes. Like there's, I don't know, I don't think of anybody really that I haven't met yet that I really want to, or that I feel like, oh my God, I can't.

1:10:58How lucky. And I've taken something from all of those relationships over the years. And, you know, they're by definition, they're older than I am, which was at some point I realized to myself, wow, these, my heroes, I'm going to lose them. So when, when Norman Lear passed, for me, this was like a source of great inspiration, creative inspiration, perfect business inspiration, understood storytelling, understood the audience. And also was just like a spiritually centered person, you know, and he would make you think bigger than yourself and make you, and whatever challenges you might be having right now, we'd sit down to dinner and almost every single time he would say the same thing.

1:11:36imagine how many things had to happen for you and I to be sitting right here right now every single time yeah and so and I knew I was we're gonna lose Norman at some point he was you know he's 100 years old but I was but for me it was um one of the one of my great mentors and heroes uh that I got incredible experience of spending time with recently I met Dick Van Dyke oh my goodness you did yeah and the reason why the way I'm such a huge Dick Van Dyke fan I can't even tell so when But I told you my parents would let me stay up all night watching TV. What did I watch? Well, you had the Dick Van Dyke show.

1:12:10Jack Benny, Burns and Allen. I love Lucy. And so I've seen every episode of Dick Van Dyke 100 times. I never got the chance to meet him. And I went out to see him in Malibu. You did? I sat for a couple of hours. Is he in Malibu? He's amazing, yes. You might find me walking around trying to find him. I mean, I cannot tell you how many times I've watched Mary Poppins just because of Dick Van Dyke. I mean, I was just obsessed. I was obsessed with his body movements and the way he had this terrible accident. He has the lifestyle of Mary Poppins from Disneyland that they were going to, when they did a remodel or something, he wanted to do.

1:12:42Insane. It's in his living room. That's a lot to live with. That's a real lot to live with. And then on the business side, Bob Daly, who worked for Bill Paley, that's all I know so much about Bill Paley, is from Bob Daly. You know, to understand, here's the guy who basically, why there's a movie of the week. Like that, to me, it's like, that's, you know, the guy who put movies on television. So how have you, what did you do to cultivate those relationships? Because again, you were operating in a totally different time in a totally different, you know, like Netflix was doing stuff that nobody else had done before.

1:13:12So how did you speak to those guys and make it make sense for where you were? I think early on, I mean, I'm a fan at the core of a fan. I think they're used to talking to a fan. And so that was a big part of it. And I think, again, I, I have this mixed memories of my parents because young and chaotic and all those things are all true, but also they created these amazing opportunities that shaped who I am. Yes. When I was like 10 years old, my parents would go to Las Vegas for Labor Day weekend. And I would get dropped off at the Sands Hotel for the Jerry Lewis telethon. And I would go and watch the show live and then go back and get in line and you go back through for 24 hours, 10 years old, alone in Las Vegas, going to this thing.

1:13:58Now, because of that, I saw John Carson. I saw George Burns. I saw all these people who had such an enormous influence on my life and what I wanted to do and that encouraged, that built my passion for entertainment in so many ways that because of my parents being kind of reckless, it exposed me to things that I wouldn't have otherwise ever had the opportunity to see and know. So when I talked to, I'm a bit of an old soul in that way. So when I talked to him, I could talk to him about, I have a deep knowledge of not just their work, but what was going on in the world when they were doing that work.

1:14:29So to me, that's the most valuable thing you can have is a mentor and people who've gone ahead of you and have done it at a level that you can only dream of. That you can only dream of. I want to talk to you a little bit about family because you have a wonderful wife who I know very well and you've got kids. and obviously you've built this career. How do you think about your family and what you've been able to do and put all of those things together? What does that look like for you? It's interesting, Nicole, our coming together was so... Now you look at it and go, of course these two came together.

1:15:05You know, at the time, it didn't make any... It seems so obvious to me. It didn't make any sense at the time, but boy, it does now. And I just remember when I first met her, I couldn't take my eyes off her. And both because she's beautiful, but also this energy that she had. But also, I mean, to be quite honest, for a guy like you from where you were from, you kind of married like a Hollywood princess or something. I don't know how to describe it, but she's like Hollywood royalty. 100%. And the fact that I didn't even know who she was at the time. You didn't know who she was? When we met, I did not know who she was.

1:15:36I did not know her family. So I know the story because I've asked Nicole, you met at an Obama fundraiser. You were very late. I was very late. You got told you were late. The first words to me were, you are late. That seems just like Nicole. I watched her work play this room that she put together, coordinating people. You go there, you go there. If you want to meet the senator, he's not coming to your table. He's going to that table. And I'm like, who is this? Who is this woman? Yeah. That night after the event, we had dinner. We spoke for three straight hours. And we were married eight months later.

1:16:07That's crazy. That's crazy. And I'm pretty sure you must have been quite close to her family too. Very. and loved her father and her mother and her brother Alex. I mean, and for those that don't know, just to talk about Nicole's father just for a second. Clarence Avon is one of the most important people in the history of show business. And people think they boil it down to say, you know, the godfather of black music. It wasn't just music, it was everything. I mean, he got Muhammad Ali a TV special on ABC and negotiated, which changed the whole trajectory of his personality. Yeah, and Nicole grew up around that.

1:16:43I mean, she grew up right at the... These people who I dreamed about meeting when I was a kid, they were at Nicole's house every day. Yes, yes. And for her, it was almost like, well, like she couldn't understand why people were so excited that Harry was at their house when it was Harry Belafonte. She's like, oh him. Yeah, and every kid has Muhammad Ali doing magic tricks at their birthday party, don't they? So, but what was really great about it for me at the time too was meeting, getting to know Clarence and getting to know more about him and someone who understood what I was doing. Yes. My parents, unfortunately, did not really understand my business.

1:17:16And listen, nobody can, but somebody like that must have been incredibly - Incredibly important. I guess, important to you. A hundred percent. I mean, a real, I mean, this guy was like the consummate dealmaker. Yes. And he would, and I would, making complex deals, like very complex deals. And we'd walk through something he did in the 60s or the 70s or the 80s that had incredible similarities. In fact, I think it was a big inspiration for me around why you take care of talent. Because they need to. They need to be able to focus on creation. And they can't do that if they're worried about getting crushed on a deal.

1:17:48And they've got to have people have to have their back. So all these things, I think, is why he was so respected and so loved. I didn't know his story, which at the end, it was ridiculous. I didn't know his story. Yeah. No, it's like more, I mean, again, I watched the documentary and like - Nicole made this great documentary called The Black Ops. I mean, it's so, it was such a great documentary. But again, I don't think I knew, I don't know, an eighth of anything that was in there. It was really surprising. We're a product of our parents. Yes, we are. For better or worse. And for Nicole, she got the better of both of her parents, which is amazing.

1:18:19I think growing up in that house prepared for the life that we live in so many ways. No doubt. And I told you, her mother, Jacqueline, not only was just a role model of elegance, but also when she got into something, she got in deep. Just like Nicole. And you may have, I'm sure you've heard the story, But the spinoff from Bridgerton, Queen Charlotte, you know, Nicole's mother, Jacqueline, was an enormous history buff. And we thought it was very important to make sure her kids understood Black history. So Queen Charlotte, obviously, Black royalty. She told me one day, you should have a, someone should make a movie about Queen Charlotte.

1:18:58And I go, no, we did. It's on, she's a character on Bridgerton. And she goes, no, no, the real Queen Charlotte. So she goes, disappears down the hall. she comes back with a stack of books and two handwritten letters that Queen Charlotte herself had written that she bought at auction years ago. Are you kidding? And she goes, get educated on Queen Charlotte. And hands me the stack. And you're like, okay, I will. I went home and did what I should do. I read those books. I read those letters and I called Shonda Rhimes and I said, Shonda, this character, now that you've introduced her to the world, someone's going to make this movie.

1:19:30Yes. You should do it. It needs to be you. She goes, let me talk. Send me what she said. I sent it to her. She's called me the next day. She says, we're doing this. Obsessed. So that's why Shonda dedicated the first episode to Jackie. As she should. Yeah. So beautiful. I love that. All right. So my one last question before I move you to rapid fire, I just want to understand in terms of your kids, what do you think, given everything you know, what are you teaching your own children about their careers, about business, about what's important? And like, what are the lessons that you've learned that you really want to pass on?

1:20:06So my daughter, Sarah, is a producer who's just had her first film as a producer into the Tribeca and South by South by South. Are you very proud, Ted? Very proud. Very proud. My son is an editor. He's very talented. He knew at 12 years old he wanted to be an editor. He and his buddies had a YouTube channel and used to cut videos. And my daughter wasn't sure. She kind of fell into it a little bit. She moved to New York. her first job in New York was a PA on Uncut Gems for A24. You know, so basically with two brilliant indie directors, the Safdie brothers, making an indie film in New York in October.

1:20:42This is hard work. I said, if you come through that and you still want to do this, you've found something. And she came out of it on fire. And so she's been working her way through networking. And, you know, she's someone who can solve almost any problem on a set. She's very impressive that way. and Tony like I said is a very gifted editor he went to Chapman for film school he went a very different route Sarah did it kind of on the job Tony went to school and networked that way the one thing I try to impress on both of them even though they're taking very different approaches is to be dependable probably the most important thing in any job in any role is that you can be dependent on show up when you're supposed to show up be the one that people can count on to do whatever it is.

1:21:28And that you'll do that to get to the next place all the time. So being dependable is so important. It's probably a lost art in some ways because I think there's a certain entitlement to younger generations that get lost in that thing. Like you owe it to the world to show up. You owe it to the world to show up. You owe it to yourself. Yeah. You know, I mean, that's what people really, really forget. I love that. It's so funny. that's not an answer that people give. Be dependable. Yeah. Pretty simple. It'll get you pretty far. It'll get you into rooms that you probably wouldn't have gotten into before.

1:22:06And I think you'll be high on the list when people are thinking about the next one. Yeah, it's a really true one. Thank you for that. I love it. All right, onto the rapid fire. We'll go quick. So first thing you do when you wake up in the morning and the last thing at night? I'm watching something just before I go to bed. I mean, I watch a lot of movies and television, not just Netflix, but all the competition too. So I'm, I'm sure at the end of the night, I mostly want, but the literal unsexy thing I do is take my dogs out to go to the bathroom. That'll do. And then, and then I wake up and feed them.

1:22:38I'm having to know that to you. Cause I can't, I can't see Nicole in whatever caftanage she's like wearing, doing the dogs. She is doing, she is very elegantly doing the dogs. I am begrudgingly doing the dogs. Fair. Okay. There you go. And what do you currently aspiring for in your business life? I think it's amazing to me that 26, you know, I'm into the 26 year at Netflix. I still get out of bed like it's day one. It's so exciting for me still. And the challenges of the business are big and evolving. There's not, I don't, I haven't had two years of net in the 25 that ever, that have felt the same.

1:23:14So. It's so lucky. Yeah. And I just want to keep pushing the business to keep the spirit of that alive and pushing into the next thing all the time. So that hardcore contrarian bet that we are, are we still doing that? Are we still doing that? And what are you aspiring for in your personal life? I don't know. I just, I turned 60 this year. Congratulations. Thank you for getting there, I guess. Yeah. And I really don't, I don't have regrets, you know, but I, and my goal is that I maintain that. I don't want to have regrets. I did tell the kids, I go back to advice for the kids. I told both Tony and Sarah, my only regret really as a young man was that I didn't spend a couple of years in New York in my 20s.

1:23:57I mean, New York in your 20s, that's a vibe. Yeah. And they said, they didn't really understand it. You're like, you guys go do it. And I said, yeah, because I go by time. Go do that. You will tolerate how crazy, it'll be an adventure in your 20s. It may not be in your 30s and 40s when you have other responsibilities. No, but New York, London, like a proper city like that in your 20s, nothing can beat it. And Sarah just turned 30 and she's been living in New York. Now she's been there for years. She loves it. She's a New Yorker. There you go. If it wasn't for Tony, Tony decided not to take me up on that.

1:24:27Listen, one out of two is not bad. I would be happy. I'd be happy with that. But I think about my path. That's the one thing I wish I'd have done. Yeah. That's not a bad regret to have. That would be all right. You can go and spend, you know, your seven days in New York. It's always that day. It's also an adventure. It's also an adventure. Your seven days. What is a book that changed your life? There's a book that Joe Franklin, who was a local New York television guy, wrote called The History of Comedy. And it was, I stole it from the school library in high school. And it was, because I couldn't stop reading.

1:25:01I read it over and over again. And it's all about comedy and comedians and the evolution from Rodville to radio, to television, to film. And I'm sure I have the book still. It still has the Alhambra High School stamp on the inside. It probably does. I wonder what the link is. You're a real comedy person, aren't you? I mean, one of my favorite things that happens in LA is like the Netflix comedy. What do you call it? Netflix is a joke. Netflix is a joke. I mean, I literally, that's my week. I just go to a show every single night and think it's one of the best things that happens in the city. It's the most fun.

1:25:30Yeah, so yeah, comedy has been the root of a lot of this stuff because to me, that's always been a challenge business environment for comedians. And then the idea that, you know, think about somebody like Lauren Michaels, who I think has been the most influential person in the history of comedy. No doubt. And I don't think anyone will ever be more influential than him. I mean, probably not. How do you do that? That body of work and that legacy and those. The number of careers, the number of hours of television and film. And so I think about all those things that, again, back to rooted in comedy.

1:26:00His book right now is phenomenal, Lauren. I'd like to read that book. It's a great book. I mean, yeah, he's so incredible. What is something that you valued when you were starting out that you no longer value? Hmm, that's a great good. I would say I really valued sleep, but more than I do now. It seems backwards. It does seem backwards, but I love that. You know what it was? Because I didn't sleep a lot. I never was. I was always like a five-hour sleeper. So every once in a while, you'd get like an eight-hour stretch of sleep. You're like, oh my God, that was the best. But I feel like I'm a little backwards on that now.

1:26:34That'll work. And what is something that you value now that you didn't back then? Time. Time. No doubt. Yeah, I think it's finite, you know? And it just, well, this time has been amazing. Thank you so much, Dave. Thank you. Love speaking to you. This was great. Thanks.

1:26:57If you're loving this podcast, be sure to click follow on your favorite listening platform. While you're there, give us a review and a five-star rating and share an episode you loved with a friend. We'll be so grateful. Aspire with Emma Greed is presented by Odyssey. I'm your host, Emma Greed. Our executive producers are Corrine Gilead-Fisher, Derek Brown, and me. Our executive producers from Odyssey are Maddie Sprung-Kaiser, Leah Reece-Dennis, Asha Saluja, and Jenna Weiss-Berman. Stephen Key is our senior producer. Sound design and engineering by Bill Shultz. Angela Peluso is our booker. Original music by Charles Black.

1:27:33Video production by Evan Cox, Kurt Courtney, Andrew Steele, Carlos Delgado, and Arnie Agassi. Social media by Olivia Holman. Special thanks to Brittany Smith, Sydney Ford, my teams at The Lead Company and WME. Maura Curran, Josephina Francis, Hilary Schuff, Eric Donnelly, Kate Hutchinson-Rose, Tim Mecole, Sean Cherry and Lauren Vieira. If you have questions for me, you can DM me at Aspire with Emma Greed. Greed is spelled G-R-E-D-E. That's Aspire, A-S-P-I-R-E with Emma Greed. or you can submit a question to me on my website emagreed.me.

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