Netflix co-CEO Greg Peters said the giant streamer’s move to cut 1,000 jobs last week reflects a fast-changing media landscape that requires hard questions about “where we can trim or redirect how we’re investing.”
“We do not take these decisions lightly, but we also believe we have a responsibility to make hard trade-offs in service of our members, our partners, our employees, our investors, and ultimately our long-term growth,” he told investors Tuesday during a video conference after the streamer reported quarterly earnings.
“We’ve got a big and ambitious mission. We aspire to entertain literally the whole world. Now, fulfilling on that big mission requires us to be incredibly disciplined about where we focus, where we invest, how our people work, where our resources go. And when you’ve driven considerable top line growth, as we have over the last several years, and you’re in a highly dynamic market that’s constantly changing, I don’t think it’s unusual then to find that there are some areas that we built quickly and we ended up over-invested in, or there are opportunities to adjust how we are operating to best drive the business through the next stage of growth,” he added.
“We prefer to make these adjustments organically and iteratively. That’s the best way to do it. We think it’s our mission basically to constantly be trying to tune and adjust. But sometimes the team needs a forcing function. The company needs a mandate that requires the whole organization to ask hard questions about where can we be more efficient, where can we make tough decisions about where we can trim or redirect how we’re investing … And that was the simple thinking behind it and what motivated these recent changes.”
The layoffs of about 6% of the company’s workforce were followed in short order by the ouster of content chief Bela Bajaria and film boss Dan Lin. Netflix tapped former Disney and Fox executive Peter Rice to replace Bajaria.