WEBVTT - Ted Sarandos 0:00:02.800 --> 0:00:04.880 One of the most valuable entertainment companies in the world 0:00:04.920 --> 0:00:06.800 and one of the most popular entertainment companies in the 0:00:06.840 --> 0:00:09.680 world is Netflix. It currently has more than two hundred 0:00:09.680 --> 0:00:11.560 and seventy five million subscribers. 0:00:11.880 --> 0:00:13.520 I recently had a chance in Washington, d C. 0:00:13.880 --> 0:00:16.160 To sit down with the co CEO of that company, 0:00:16.360 --> 0:00:18.840 Ted Surrandos, and ask him how he got started this 0:00:18.880 --> 0:00:21.480 company from a very modest background, and how he now 0:00:21.560 --> 0:00:25.560 sees the future of Netflix. So, when you joined Netflix 0:00:25.600 --> 0:00:28.160 in two thousand, the company was about three years old 0:00:28.600 --> 0:00:32.360 but relatively small. Did you ever in your wildest dreams 0:00:32.760 --> 0:00:34.920 imagine the company would be one of the most valuable 0:00:34.920 --> 0:00:37.320 companies in the world and you would have today a 0:00:37.360 --> 0:00:40.080 market value of over three hundred billion dollars. 0:00:40.920 --> 0:00:43.919 The short answer to that question is no. I think 0:00:43.960 --> 0:00:46.760 when we joined we had a couple hundred people, including 0:00:46.800 --> 0:00:51.280 the people who are stuffing DVD envelopes. Back then, Blockbuster 0:00:51.560 --> 0:00:54.480 was the biggest entertainment brand in the world, with a 0:00:54.520 --> 0:00:57.640 market gap of about eight billion dollars. They were definitely 0:00:57.680 --> 0:01:01.360 the biggest in terms of global footprint. I mean, most 0:01:01.400 --> 0:01:04.720 people watch their movies renting a DVD from Blockbuster, and 0:01:04.800 --> 0:01:08.080 at eight billion, that seemed almost unattainable when we went 0:01:08.160 --> 0:01:10.280 public in two thousand and two, about two hundred and 0:01:10.280 --> 0:01:10.759 fifty million. 0:01:10.959 --> 0:01:12.720 So for people who were too young to remember, this, 0:01:12.800 --> 0:01:15.440 Blockbuster was a place where you go to buy something 0:01:15.440 --> 0:01:18.880 called a DVD, yes, and you went there, you rented them, 0:01:19.280 --> 0:01:21.440 and then you put them back on your VCR, and 0:01:21.480 --> 0:01:23.559 then you after a couple of days, like a library book, 0:01:23.600 --> 0:01:26.480 you bring it back and so forth. The novelty that 0:01:26.800 --> 0:01:29.160 Netflix had when it first started in nineteen ninety seven, 0:01:29.200 --> 0:01:31.480 as I recall, was that you didn't have to go 0:01:31.560 --> 0:01:34.720 to a Blockbuster. You could order something I guess online 0:01:34.760 --> 0:01:36.640 and then you would have it sent to you by 0:01:36.680 --> 0:01:38.880 a FedEx or equivalent kind of company. 0:01:38.560 --> 0:01:40.720 Right through the US mail okay ESPs. 0:01:40.840 --> 0:01:43.399 So who came up with the idea of saying, well, 0:01:43.480 --> 0:01:45.600 FedEx is a little old and mailing is old, and 0:01:45.640 --> 0:01:47.319 we want to go to streaming. Who was the brilliant 0:01:47.319 --> 0:01:48.520 person that came up with that idea? 0:01:49.040 --> 0:01:51.920 You know, the company was always conceived to be a 0:01:51.960 --> 0:01:55.400 digital company, read Hastings. When he came up with this idea, 0:01:55.440 --> 0:01:57.040 he was thinking about it very much. So when he 0:01:57.120 --> 0:01:59.640 named the company even he called it Netflix, not DVD Flix, 0:02:00.360 --> 0:02:03.200 and this idea. When I met Reid in nineteen ninety nine. 0:02:03.960 --> 0:02:06.760 He describes Netflix pretty much like it is right now. 0:02:07.840 --> 0:02:11.000 And this was at a time when no literally no 0:02:11.280 --> 0:02:13.680 entertainment was coming into the home on the internet, and 0:02:13.720 --> 0:02:17.320 he described a world where all home entertainment would come 0:02:17.320 --> 0:02:18.400 in on the internet. 0:02:18.720 --> 0:02:22.320 So when streaming came along, the theory was that people 0:02:22.320 --> 0:02:25.600 would be willing to pay let's say a monthly subscribing rate, 0:02:25.760 --> 0:02:28.639 right and that they would see programming they couldn't otherwise 0:02:28.680 --> 0:02:32.200 easily get. But the idea of doing your own program 0:02:32.240 --> 0:02:34.600 it was relatively novel. Now you are seen as the 0:02:34.960 --> 0:02:36.880 person who came up with the idea of not just 0:02:37.040 --> 0:02:39.160 taking stuff that's already out there, the one hundred thousand 0:02:39.200 --> 0:02:42.320 things that might already be available, but producing your own 0:02:42.400 --> 0:02:43.520 programming for Netflix. 0:02:43.520 --> 0:02:45.239 So where'd you get that idea from? 0:02:45.360 --> 0:02:47.600 So in the very beginning, we didn't really think much 0:02:47.600 --> 0:02:49.920 about doing original programming because it wasn't the problem we 0:02:49.919 --> 0:02:52.960 were trying to solve. The problem was really distribution and 0:02:53.000 --> 0:02:55.760 how to you in the consumer relationship with how to 0:02:55.800 --> 0:02:58.239 watch a movie? You go to the video store, you 0:02:58.320 --> 0:03:00.239 rent it, you return it, you pay a light fee 0:03:00.240 --> 0:03:02.359 if you're late, and it was a very clunky way 0:03:02.440 --> 0:03:05.679 to distribute things in this way, the subscription revenue, the 0:03:05.800 --> 0:03:09.560 subscription model gave the people the ability not to ever 0:03:09.560 --> 0:03:11.720 have a late fee. They could kind of pick and 0:03:11.800 --> 0:03:14.079 choose that however they wanted things. So we were solving 0:03:14.120 --> 0:03:17.320 a distribution problem one and the other one was maybe 0:03:17.320 --> 0:03:21.880 a bigger problem, which was marketing. It's incredibly inefficient to 0:03:22.000 --> 0:03:25.400 market movies and TV shows to people because tastes are 0:03:25.480 --> 0:03:28.040 so diverse and so eclectic that in order for me 0:03:28.080 --> 0:03:29.600 to tell you about a movie that I think you 0:03:29.680 --> 0:03:31.880 might like, I probably have to take out an ad 0:03:31.880 --> 0:03:33.919 in the newspaper and tell the whole city about it 0:03:33.960 --> 0:03:34.960 and hope that you see it. 0:03:35.400 --> 0:03:39.119 So the industry lore is that you got this off 0:03:39.160 --> 0:03:42.040 the ground by agreeing to pay one hundred million dollars 0:03:42.440 --> 0:03:45.200 to a new show that had not actually showed. 0:03:45.400 --> 0:03:47.720 There was House of Cards, Plow. It was a lot 0:03:47.800 --> 0:03:51.280 like real estate. It's all about location, location, location. 0:03:51.600 --> 0:03:54.200 And it had not produced a single anything yet, but 0:03:54.200 --> 0:03:57.440 it was a concept. When you told read Hastings, I 0:03:57.480 --> 0:03:59.320 guess what, I just spent one hundred million dollars to 0:03:59.320 --> 0:04:00.480 buy something and exists. 0:04:00.520 --> 0:04:02.080 Yet did he say great idea? 0:04:02.560 --> 0:04:06.520 No? He was a little surprised, but when I explained 0:04:06.560 --> 0:04:08.880 it to him, he was very supportive of it immediately. 0:04:09.000 --> 0:04:12.640 You have to remember, recreated this company culture that enabled 0:04:12.640 --> 0:04:14.920 me to take a big swing like that, and for me, 0:04:15.040 --> 0:04:18.080 I looked at it as a kind of classic risk reward. Yes, 0:04:18.120 --> 0:04:21.080 this is a lot of money. If this doesn't work, 0:04:21.240 --> 0:04:24.800 we will have dramatically overpaid for a show, which we 0:04:25.000 --> 0:04:27.200 kind of at risk of doing all the time. But 0:04:27.279 --> 0:04:30.000 if it does work, we could fundamentally change the course 0:04:30.040 --> 0:04:30.560 of the business. 0:04:30.760 --> 0:04:32.400 If it didn't work and you think you might be 0:04:32.440 --> 0:04:33.280 out of a job. 0:04:33.360 --> 0:04:35.840 I told I prepared my wife that it was a possibility. 0:04:37.040 --> 0:04:38.600 She said, she said, will you get fired to this? 0:04:38.640 --> 0:04:40.719 Other one guy said, well, it's fireable, it's firerable. 0:04:41.520 --> 0:04:44.080 There's another idea that you were credited with and I 0:04:44.120 --> 0:04:47.599 think correctly with coming up with, which is called binge watching. 0:04:47.680 --> 0:04:49.320 I guess I could call it. I don't know if 0:04:49.320 --> 0:04:50.280 you like that word. 0:04:50.600 --> 0:04:55.120 Didn't initially, Okay, So I understand binge watching. And this historically, 0:04:55.200 --> 0:04:57.840 when there was a TV series on, you watched a 0:04:57.960 --> 0:05:01.600 series episode one week, the next week, you watch the 0:05:01.680 --> 0:05:03.920 second one next week. So on you came up with 0:05:03.960 --> 0:05:06.520 the idea of having are the ability to watch everything 0:05:06.560 --> 0:05:08.840 right at once, more or less binge watching, as they 0:05:08.839 --> 0:05:10.880 call it. Did you come up with that idea or 0:05:10.880 --> 0:05:13.159 did it evolve some way, or how did it come about? 0:05:13.200 --> 0:05:15.359 It was pretty heavily informed by what people were doing 0:05:15.400 --> 0:05:18.640 back in the back in the earliest days on DVD, 0:05:18.640 --> 0:05:20.920 I noticed that we'd have disc that would have four 0:05:20.920 --> 0:05:23.000 episodes of a show on it, and they would turn 0:05:23.200 --> 0:05:26.039 very fast because people were churning through the show as 0:05:26.120 --> 0:05:29.039 quick as they could. And then when we started streaming, 0:05:29.080 --> 0:05:31.599 we were licensing shows that had already aired on television, 0:05:31.880 --> 0:05:33.760 so we got them a year later, but we got 0:05:33.760 --> 0:05:35.279 the whole season and we just put it all up, 0:05:35.600 --> 0:05:38.080 so we on a notice, when you're watching, some people 0:05:38.120 --> 0:05:40.120 watch two episodes at a time, some people watch three. 0:05:40.240 --> 0:05:42.960 Nobody watched one. So when we got how came to 0:05:43.000 --> 0:05:45.000 House the cards, we had to decide how to release it, 0:05:45.040 --> 0:05:47.320 and I said, well, don't we just put it like 0:05:47.480 --> 0:05:49.640 the other thousands of things on Netflix and do it 0:05:49.680 --> 0:05:51.320 all at once and see what happens. 0:05:51.640 --> 0:05:51.839 Now. 0:05:51.880 --> 0:05:54.760 Sometimes in the business world, particularly the technology world, somebody 0:05:54.839 --> 0:05:57.200 might have a great idea and they have an advance 0:05:57.240 --> 0:05:59.480 on somebody for maybe two years or so, and then 0:05:59.480 --> 0:06:01.880 everybody else figures out what they should be doing, and 0:06:01.880 --> 0:06:03.760 they catch up, and sometimes they have more resources than 0:06:03.760 --> 0:06:06.200 they beat the original person who came up with the concept. 0:06:06.440 --> 0:06:09.640 Were you worried that programmers like our companies had programming 0:06:09.720 --> 0:06:12.880 like Disney would figure out streaming and then wipe you out? 0:06:12.960 --> 0:06:14.120 Or you never were worried about that. 0:06:14.279 --> 0:06:16.920 No, always worried about that. We couldn't believe it took 0:06:16.960 --> 0:06:19.360 so long for them to catch up to it. In fact, 0:06:19.400 --> 0:06:21.360 as one of the motivators to make our own content 0:06:21.520 --> 0:06:23.880 was I was pretty sure that if we were right, 0:06:24.279 --> 0:06:26.200 that all of these people who are supplying us their 0:06:26.240 --> 0:06:27.680 old shows would never sell to us. 0:06:27.880 --> 0:06:30.760 When you started producing shows and making your own shows, 0:06:30.800 --> 0:06:34.039 did you become the most popular person in Hollywood? Because 0:06:34.120 --> 0:06:36.120 all of a sudden somebody has somebody who can green 0:06:36.200 --> 0:06:39.320 light something and so could you go out to dinner 0:06:39.680 --> 0:06:42.880 or lunch without having people descend upon you with scripts 0:06:42.880 --> 0:06:43.400 and so forth? 0:06:43.400 --> 0:06:44.240 How did you deal with all that? 0:06:44.320 --> 0:06:46.839 Yeah, it was heavy because we were a new buyer 0:06:46.920 --> 0:06:49.400 is very popular in town so and I would say 0:06:49.400 --> 0:06:51.359 that it was never limited just to business hours. So 0:06:51.680 --> 0:06:53.640 if you're out at a restaurant with my wife and 0:06:53.720 --> 0:06:56.080 someone would come in and start pitching away at the table. 0:06:56.240 --> 0:06:59.160 Somebody tells these people in film school, if you ever 0:06:59.200 --> 0:07:01.200 see a buyer anywhere, sell to them? 0:07:01.640 --> 0:07:03.360 Does that ever work there? But you ever never went 0:07:03.440 --> 0:07:05.800 to nobody came up and lunch. But an idea that 0:07:05.800 --> 0:07:06.599 you're actually. 0:07:06.400 --> 0:07:07.360 I can't think of one. 0:07:08.279 --> 0:07:10.480 You know, there's been a lot of consolidation in recent 0:07:10.560 --> 0:07:14.160 years in the entertainment world. You know, Time Warner was 0:07:14.200 --> 0:07:16.760 sold in effect, and then you've got Powamount. 0:07:16.360 --> 0:07:17.040 Now being sold. 0:07:17.280 --> 0:07:19.920 Is all of this good for you because there's consolidation 0:07:20.040 --> 0:07:21.440 and then you have fewer people to compete it with. 0:07:21.760 --> 0:07:23.800 Or is it not so good because you have more 0:07:23.840 --> 0:07:25.520 powerful people that can compete against you. 0:07:25.640 --> 0:07:27.720 Yeah, a little bit of both. So I think it's 0:07:27.840 --> 0:07:30.920 competition has been very good people. I usually don't talk 0:07:30.920 --> 0:07:34.000 about other people's shows publicly, but like people. As someone 0:07:34.040 --> 0:07:36.480 asked me recently, what's the show that's not on Netflix 0:07:36.480 --> 0:07:38.440 that you like? And I said The Bear. And the 0:07:38.440 --> 0:07:40.240 reason I talk about the show is because I think 0:07:40.280 --> 0:07:43.000 it raises the bar for everybody. So I think you 0:07:43.040 --> 0:07:45.280 have one competition out there to keep you push, to 0:07:45.320 --> 0:07:46.040 keep pushing you. 0:07:46.200 --> 0:07:48.640 But the consolidation won't occur by your buying one of 0:07:48.680 --> 0:07:51.320 these major studios, because that's not in your house of 0:07:51.400 --> 0:07:52.280 cards kind of thing. 0:07:52.520 --> 0:07:54.520 This is not in our DNA because they were most 0:07:54.600 --> 0:07:58.040 mostly builders. We had done a few a handful of 0:07:58.080 --> 0:08:01.800 small IP inquisitions over the years, and that may change 0:08:01.800 --> 0:08:04.480 over the next in the next few years, but for 0:08:04.560 --> 0:08:08.320 now we're trying to without the I would say a 0:08:08.320 --> 0:08:11.280 big library of IP can be a really nice benefit 0:08:11.560 --> 0:08:13.640 for us. That's really been a benefit not to have it, 0:08:13.960 --> 0:08:16.920 because it's got it's pushed us to make really original, 0:08:16.960 --> 0:08:20.520 creative things and not to stay corralled into one pool 0:08:20.560 --> 0:08:23.040 of IP. And we're spending about seventeen billion dollars on 0:08:23.040 --> 0:08:26.080 our programming and as our revenue grows, well, that number 0:08:26.080 --> 0:08:29.000 will keep growing because we do think that there's an 0:08:29.040 --> 0:08:32.560 incredible appetite for more movies and more TV shows that 0:08:32.600 --> 0:08:33.680 people love now on. 0:08:33.720 --> 0:08:36.119 A few years ago, there was a writer's strike in Hollywood, 0:08:36.400 --> 0:08:38.520 and one of the issues before it got resolved is 0:08:38.520 --> 0:08:41.920 how you deal with artificial intelligence. How do you prevent 0:08:42.240 --> 0:08:45.240 artificial intelligence from taking over what writers do, and how 0:08:45.240 --> 0:08:48.120 do you compensate them when artificial intelligence does something that 0:08:48.160 --> 0:08:51.040 adds to what they've already done. So is artificial intelligence 0:08:51.160 --> 0:08:53.120 important part of your business now? And how do you 0:08:53.200 --> 0:08:55.760 use AI and deciding what to produce and how to 0:08:55.800 --> 0:08:56.240 produce it? 0:08:57.240 --> 0:08:59.400 For me, I really mostly think of AI as a 0:08:59.480 --> 0:09:02.880 create wars tool, not a creative tool. So I think 0:09:02.880 --> 0:09:05.439 creators will use it to make to tell better stories. 0:09:05.600 --> 0:09:08.000 We're not using it to tell stories instead of them, 0:09:08.679 --> 0:09:09.959 And I don't think and I don't think we'd be 0:09:10.040 --> 0:09:12.200 very effective at it, or AI would be very effective 0:09:12.200 --> 0:09:13.920 at doing that instead of people. 0:09:14.240 --> 0:09:18.520 So when you put something on Netflix, you can analyze 0:09:18.600 --> 0:09:21.000 within an hour or so or maybe ten minutes, whether 0:09:21.040 --> 0:09:23.120 people are watching it. And do you get those kind 0:09:23.160 --> 0:09:27.080 of data algorithms that show you exactly how much people 0:09:27.240 --> 0:09:29.800 like it? And do you actually change things after you 0:09:29.840 --> 0:09:31.839 see what people like, or how do you deal with 0:09:32.200 --> 0:09:33.520 the instant feedback you get? 0:09:33.920 --> 0:09:36.199 What I'm really looking for is if they watch episode one, 0:09:36.240 --> 0:09:38.600 do they roll in episode two? And if they do two, 0:09:38.640 --> 0:09:40.400 do they get to three? And how much time are 0:09:40.400 --> 0:09:44.240 they spending. We're in a really unique place in entertainment 0:09:44.280 --> 0:09:46.800 history right now where every time you release a new 0:09:46.800 --> 0:09:49.840 movie or a new TV show, you are used to 0:09:49.840 --> 0:09:52.080 only compete with three other shows on three other networks 0:09:52.440 --> 0:09:55.559 today you compete with every single thing ever made, and 0:09:55.720 --> 0:09:57.680 one click away you could just switch to something else. 0:09:58.120 --> 0:10:00.280 So you want to watch these things? Are people? If 0:10:00.480 --> 0:10:03.400 if you push play, do you stick around? That to 0:10:03.440 --> 0:10:05.800 me is the biggest indicator of do we do it right? 0:10:05.920 --> 0:10:09.880 So let's talk about today where Netflix says today you 0:10:09.960 --> 0:10:12.200 have how many subscribers. 0:10:11.800 --> 0:10:15.840 Two hundred and seventy seven million subscribers, So you figure 0:10:16.360 --> 0:10:19.520 a couple of people per household watching, You've got about 0:10:19.520 --> 0:10:21.680 a viewership now over five hundred million people. 0:10:21.760 --> 0:10:25.199 So two hundred and seventy seven million subscribers are more 0:10:25.240 --> 0:10:26.800 than half in the United States, or. 0:10:26.960 --> 0:10:28.800 About seventy percent from outside the United. 0:10:28.600 --> 0:10:31.840 States, seventy percent outside What is the second biggest country 0:10:32.160 --> 0:10:33.120 out of the United States. 0:10:33.200 --> 0:10:38.040 Well, we report by territory, by regions, so Amia is 0:10:38.080 --> 0:10:40.400 the second largest outside of the United States, but we're 0:10:40.480 --> 0:10:42.600 very big in the UK and Brazil. 0:10:43.320 --> 0:10:46.480 So for twenty plus years or so, your subscriber numbers 0:10:46.520 --> 0:10:49.240 went up every month, it seems, without fail. And then 0:10:49.280 --> 0:10:51.679 one month, I think you announced in a quarterly earnings 0:10:51.720 --> 0:10:54.760 that actually subscribers went down a little bit. All of 0:10:54.800 --> 0:10:56.640 a sudden, the world took a large part of your 0:10:56.640 --> 0:10:59.600 market capitalization away. Were you shocked that people were so 0:10:59.640 --> 0:11:02.040 upset about the fact that you lost a few subscribers 0:11:02.040 --> 0:11:03.280 compared to where they thought you should be. 0:11:03.400 --> 0:11:06.080 Probably the magnitude of it was shocking, because we knew 0:11:06.080 --> 0:11:09.439 the fundamentals of the business were intact and fine. It 0:11:09.600 --> 0:11:12.960 just you had a whip saw effect from covid. There 0:11:12.960 --> 0:11:14.480 are a lot of things that were happening that we're 0:11:14.520 --> 0:11:16.520 still trying to figure out. But it was a kind 0:11:16.520 --> 0:11:18.920 of a temporary blip, but it was it was. It 0:11:18.960 --> 0:11:19.840 was a hard thud. 0:11:20.360 --> 0:11:22.760 But your market cap has come way back and higher 0:11:22.760 --> 0:11:26.280 than it's ever been right currently, and so that blip 0:11:26.440 --> 0:11:28.439 was not a big problem, I guess. But one of 0:11:28.480 --> 0:11:30.920 the things you did that also upset people for a 0:11:30.920 --> 0:11:34.960 while was you said you can't use your past code 0:11:35.679 --> 0:11:37.440 to give it to somebody else, and not historically, as 0:11:37.480 --> 0:11:40.640 I understand it, somebody could say to his friend, I 0:11:40.880 --> 0:11:42.960 have a pass code for Netflix, why don't you use it? 0:11:43.280 --> 0:11:45.080 And I assume I was taking revenue away from you. 0:11:45.160 --> 0:11:47.640 And how did you figure out how big that problem was, 0:11:47.679 --> 0:11:49.640 and how did you have the courage to say, you 0:11:49.760 --> 0:11:51.600 know more of that and not worry that people were 0:11:51.600 --> 0:11:53.520 going to get rid of their Netflix subscription. 0:11:53.800 --> 0:11:56.280 Well, we had it was a couple of times. One 0:11:56.320 --> 0:11:58.960 was revenue, but the other part of it was this 0:11:59.040 --> 0:12:02.840 personalization helping you find something to watch works better if 0:12:02.840 --> 0:12:05.120 you don't have five or six different people using your account. 0:12:05.240 --> 0:12:07.240 So for us, it was a really a way to 0:12:07.320 --> 0:12:10.600 really hone in with the personalization technology, but also a 0:12:10.640 --> 0:12:13.079 way to kind of test the value proposition. If you've 0:12:13.120 --> 0:12:15.920 got our average members are watching about two hours in 0:12:15.920 --> 0:12:19.240 Netflix every day. So basically when you go back out 0:12:19.240 --> 0:12:20.760 to people and say, hey, you know that thing that 0:12:20.800 --> 0:12:22.960 you're using for two hours a day and not paying for, 0:12:23.160 --> 0:12:25.400 we'd like you to get your own account. And what's 0:12:25.400 --> 0:12:27.360 turned out nicely about that is most people say, yeah, 0:12:27.400 --> 0:12:28.679 that's well worth it for me to do that. 0:12:29.000 --> 0:12:30.920 Now, when I had my company and I was the 0:12:30.960 --> 0:12:33.160 co CEO of it, I had a co co who 0:12:33.160 --> 0:12:35.000 I started the company with, so we got along well, 0:12:35.040 --> 0:12:37.600 we had different responsibilities and it worked out reasonably. Well, 0:12:38.080 --> 0:12:41.360 you have a co CEO, let me talk about initially 0:12:41.440 --> 0:12:43.640 you are the company was started by Reid Hastings and 0:12:43.679 --> 0:12:45.160 he asked you to be the co co Were you 0:12:45.240 --> 0:12:47.840 surprised that a founder of a company took somebody who 0:12:47.920 --> 0:12:50.200 had been employee and made him the co CO was 0:12:50.200 --> 0:12:51.160 out a surprise to you. 0:12:51.240 --> 0:12:53.080 It was a surprise. It would be a shock if 0:12:53.080 --> 0:12:55.000 I didn't know Read that well at the time, because 0:12:55.040 --> 0:12:57.240 I back to my first time I met Read in 0:12:57.320 --> 0:13:00.760 ninety nine. He did talk about this desire to build 0:13:00.800 --> 0:13:03.880 a company that would be around decades and centuries after him, 0:13:04.320 --> 0:13:09.160 so he foresaw some kind of succession already. So I 0:13:09.280 --> 0:13:11.679 believe that Reid saw this succession that we just went 0:13:11.720 --> 0:13:15.200 through recently fifteen years ago, and started acting on it 0:13:15.240 --> 0:13:18.040 twelve years ago, and which is very unusual. I think 0:13:18.320 --> 0:13:20.200 your point, as you point out, for a founder, but 0:13:20.280 --> 0:13:22.520 for somebody who really is thinking about the company first 0:13:22.559 --> 0:13:25.360 and the longevity of a company first. He's been amazing 0:13:25.360 --> 0:13:25.720 about that. 0:13:25.800 --> 0:13:28.480 So he stepped back. He's executive chairman now, not involved 0:13:28.559 --> 0:13:30.880 day to day. But when he stepped back, did you say, well, 0:13:30.920 --> 0:13:34.040 now I should be the sole CEO, or did you 0:13:34.080 --> 0:13:36.360 say I want to co CEO? In addition to what 0:13:36.480 --> 0:13:38.040 you know my own responsibile I. 0:13:38.000 --> 0:13:42.000 Think in classic Read fashion, he modeled something that really worked, 0:13:42.040 --> 0:13:44.679 and we did it together for a few years, so 0:13:44.720 --> 0:13:46.680 I really got the sense of how well it works. 0:13:47.120 --> 0:13:49.400 I think Greg Greg and I read and I worked 0:13:49.400 --> 0:13:51.280 together for more than twenty years, and Greg and I 0:13:51.360 --> 0:13:53.720 worked together for about fifteen years. So we had the same, 0:13:53.880 --> 0:13:57.480 very similar shorthand we had complimentary skill sets, I believe, 0:13:57.520 --> 0:14:00.719 and we push each other in a healthy way. And 0:14:00.840 --> 0:14:03.760 what's cool about having a co ceo? You know, there's 0:14:04.320 --> 0:14:07.160 saying you know, usually sayings are rooted in reality, it's 0:14:07.200 --> 0:14:09.640 lonely at the top. I think there's something to that. 0:14:09.720 --> 0:14:12.079 And having somebody to be able to kick around hard 0:14:12.120 --> 0:14:15.240 problems with that isn't an employee or a board member 0:14:16.160 --> 0:14:17.720 is really helpful. 0:14:17.760 --> 0:14:19.480 Tell us about your background. Where were you born. 0:14:19.720 --> 0:14:24.320 I was born in Long Branch, New Jersey. Was there 0:14:24.400 --> 0:14:26.600 for a few years and my family moved to Phoenix, Arizona. 0:14:26.640 --> 0:14:27.560 I was raised in Phoenix. 0:14:27.960 --> 0:14:30.040 That's what in those days was out on usual ago 0:14:30.080 --> 0:14:32.440 from New Jersey to Arizona. Why do they move to Arizona. 0:14:33.120 --> 0:14:36.680 It's a great story. My grandfather, who was a Greek immigrant, 0:14:37.720 --> 0:14:41.560 grew up reading cowboy novels. When he actually when he 0:14:41.600 --> 0:14:44.240 came to America, he came to be a trail cook. 0:14:44.280 --> 0:14:46.800 He thought that was a real job in America, and 0:14:46.840 --> 0:14:50.040 he ended up being a cook cook. But he loved 0:14:50.480 --> 0:14:52.360 the American West and he always talked about it. And 0:14:52.400 --> 0:14:54.520 he took one vacation in his life and it was 0:14:54.560 --> 0:14:56.880 to Arizona, and he saw a rodeo and he wore 0:14:56.920 --> 0:14:58.840 a bolo tie every day till the day he died, 0:14:59.120 --> 0:15:02.040 and talked about roode on Arizona. So when he passed away, 0:15:02.520 --> 0:15:04.080 all eight of his kids moved to Arizona. 0:15:05.560 --> 0:15:08.560 Really yeah, So how old were you when you moved 0:15:08.600 --> 0:15:09.040 to Arizona? 0:15:09.120 --> 0:15:10.000 I think six years old. 0:15:10.640 --> 0:15:12.920 And did you say we're going to watch the cowboys, 0:15:13.000 --> 0:15:14.600 We're going to be living at the cowboys or what 0:15:15.280 --> 0:15:15.920 you think about that? 0:15:16.000 --> 0:15:17.840 Yeah? I didn't. We didn't see any cowboys and we 0:15:17.880 --> 0:15:19.360 got there either. It's an I was pretty developed. It 0:15:19.360 --> 0:15:21.240 was a pretty small town back then, Arizona. 0:15:21.480 --> 0:15:22.840 What did your family, your parents do? 0:15:23.600 --> 0:15:26.040 My father passed away recently, but he is He was 0:15:26.040 --> 0:15:29.320 a union electrician and my mom was to stay home mom. 0:15:29.400 --> 0:15:32.160 She took care of myself and I had three older 0:15:32.200 --> 0:15:35.200 sisters and a younger brother who I just recently lost him. 0:15:35.880 --> 0:15:38.200 So when you were a boy, what were you interested? 0:15:38.280 --> 0:15:39.680 You want to be an athlete? Did you want to 0:15:39.680 --> 0:15:41.480 be an artist or what did you want to be? 0:15:41.560 --> 0:15:44.240 I wanted to be from the earliest I remember actually 0:15:44.240 --> 0:15:45.880 thinking about what I wanted to do. I wanted to 0:15:45.880 --> 0:15:49.920 be a journalist from probably ten years old or so, 0:15:50.640 --> 0:15:54.880 but loved movies and television. I we had my parents 0:15:54.920 --> 0:15:58.080 were young, We were you know, with the couse was 0:15:58.080 --> 0:16:01.120 pretty chaotic. I kind of like order, and I kind 0:16:01.120 --> 0:16:03.520 of liked the order that I saw on television, Like 0:16:03.600 --> 0:16:06.280 those families that sat down for dinner on TV. We 0:16:06.280 --> 0:16:10.040 did not do that my growing up. And the schedule 0:16:10.080 --> 0:16:12.840 of television, I found it to be very appealing. But 0:16:12.880 --> 0:16:14.880 I really fell in love with movies and television at 0:16:14.920 --> 0:16:17.840 a pretty young age, and through that saw a journalist 0:16:17.880 --> 0:16:20.080 as heroes and I just wanted to be a journalist. 0:16:20.320 --> 0:16:22.160 So you graduate from high school, then what did you do? 0:16:22.880 --> 0:16:25.520 I did. I was the editor of the school newspaper 0:16:25.520 --> 0:16:27.720 in high school, and I went to community college because 0:16:27.760 --> 0:16:32.080 I couldn't afford a university at the time, and was 0:16:32.400 --> 0:16:36.400 editing the college paper, the community college newspaper, Glendale Community College. 0:16:37.640 --> 0:16:42.400 There I met a lot of really incredible people. Probably 0:16:42.400 --> 0:16:45.400 one of the more influential ones was Ed Asner, who 0:16:45.480 --> 0:16:48.640 kind of made this connection for me between entertainment and 0:16:48.680 --> 0:16:54.680 politics and just opened my mind to a different world 0:16:54.720 --> 0:16:57.200 to do now. I also had an epiphanade about that 0:16:57.240 --> 0:16:59.720 time that I wasn't a very good writer, so likely 0:16:59.760 --> 0:17:01.560 I was not going to be a professional journalist. 0:17:01.880 --> 0:17:04.959 So okay, So eventually you got a job at a 0:17:05.040 --> 0:17:05.720 video store. 0:17:05.880 --> 0:17:07.360 That's what I was. That was my part time job 0:17:07.359 --> 0:17:10.320 when I was going to Glendall Community College, and then 0:17:10.560 --> 0:17:13.480 when I realized I wasn't going to pursue that degree, 0:17:13.520 --> 0:17:15.639 I kind of dropped out and it was meant to 0:17:15.640 --> 0:17:17.399 be a year, but it turned out to be a 0:17:17.440 --> 0:17:18.479 permanent move to business. 0:17:18.560 --> 0:17:21.639 So I understand that you became so knowledgeable about videos 0:17:21.640 --> 0:17:23.440