Ted Sarandos

Before Netflix, Sarandos spent years working in video distribution — the kind of ground-level, store-floor experience that doesn't show up on a résumé the way an MBA does, but clearly taught him something about what people actually want to watch. He joined Netflix in 2000, when the company was still a DVD-by-mail service and streaming was years away from being a household concept (Wikipedia). His title was Chief Content Officer, and for two decades that role defined the company's creative identity more than any other single position. The titles he shepherded into production read like a festival circuit highlight reel: *Okja* (Bong Joon-ho's polarizing, beautiful film about a girl and a genetically engineered super-pig), *The Siege of Jadotville*, *Crude*, and documentary work that pushed Netflix into awards conversations it had no business entering as recently as 2015. *Roma* won three Academy Awards in 2019 — Best Director, Best Cinematography, and Best Foreign Language Film — and Sarandos had backed Cuarón's vision for it when the project was far from a sure thing. That's the kind of bet that defines a career. In 2020, Netflix formally elevated Sarandos to co-CEO, a title that reflected the reality of his influence rather than changing it in any dramatic way (Wikipedia). He's now responsible for a global content slate that includes *Squid Game* — which became the most-watched non-English series in Netflix history — and *Stranger Things*, a show whose Season 4 finale drew the kind of viewership numbers that would've seemed impossible for a streaming-only release a decade earlier. The Producers Guild gave him its Milestone Award in 2019, and *Time* had already flagged him as one of the world's 100 most influential people six years before that. The industry caught up to what he was doing. It just took a while.