12 Facts About Ted Sarandos

Ted Sarandos was promoted to store manager of the Arizona Video Cassettes West chain in 1983 and managed eight retail video stores until 1988.

In 1988, Sarandos became Western Regional Director of Sales and Operations for one of the largest video distributors in the United States, East Texas Distributors.

Ted Sarandos was responsible for initiating the first round of original programming at Netflix, starting with Lilyhammer, and then continuing with the breakout David Fincher series starring Kevin Spacey, House of Cards.

Ted Sarandos sees the focus as being on subscriber growth as a reflection of revenue health over ratings.

Ted Sarandos uses algorithms at Netflix to predict what programs viewers will want to watch prior to producing them.

Ted Sarandos said that the preference is for a show to run for multiple seasons and build a fan base.

Ted Sarandos believes the model allows the viewer to be in control, and to watch only the content they enjoy.

Ted Sarandos said Netflix aggregates audiences over a very long period of time, where Netflix can tell if a show will be successful by using a regression model that tells Netflix, based on the first hour of viewing, how successful the show will be over the life of its license.

Ted Sarandos has been outspoken about discarding or not holding important traditional network models.

Ted Sarandos said he sees the new model as a way to prioritize the needs and desires of the consumer.

Ted Sarandos has said that he sees Netflix as a digital product, where the balance between distributing physical bits of content versus streaming digital content would be cheaper as both broadband and Netflix grew.

In 2009, Sarandos married former United States Ambassador to the Bahamas Nicole Avant, the daughter of former Motown Chairman Clarence Avant.