Late at night, Netflix’s shiny new headquarters in Los Gatos, California, is largely silent. The huge open-space offices are quiet, the sprawling communal areas with their abundance of snack, meal, and drink choices deserted. But one room is crawling with people gathered around a conference-type set-up, where employees hunch over lit laptop and phone screens while journalists from all over the world loom over them.
Everything is meant to convey that Netflix is now close to a global entertainment provider.
A timer projected on the far wall counts down to midnight. That’s when the second season of Daredevil, Netflix’s original TV show developed with Marvel Studios, will go live all over the world. A hashtag on a screen reads, “#daredevileverywhere,” reminiscent of the “#netflixeverywhere” hashtag when the service launched in 130 new countries in a single day at the start of the year.
As the timer reaches zero and the season’s episodes are released into the ether, the screen on the wall shows the ensuing spike in traffic. A team leader barks out questions (“How are we on iOS?”, “Android?”) and people shout back confirmations. It feels like a NASA control room during a rocket launch, just with moodier lighting and a celebrity actor present (Charlie Cox, who plays Daredevil’s titular character). Given that Netflix is in the entertainment business, all the drama is probably not accidental.
Everything about this elaborate staging is meant to convey one thing; Netflix is now close to a global entertainment provider, and the simultaneous release of its properties worldwide is a huge part of its mojo. “We want to be producing and sharing global content all over the world,” co-founder and CEO Reed Hastings tells a roomful of journalists a few hours prior to the launch.
The Netflix approach to conquering the world boils down to three key things, as Netflix sees it: data, continuously improving technology, and grabbing the cultural mindshare.
The devil is in the data
Any startup worth its series A these days knows that data is invaluable. Netflix hoards it like an overzealous dragon gathering gold in his lair. Unlike him, though, it doesn’t just sit on it all day.
The data that matters isn’t necessarily what you think. “Where you’re from, your age, your gender, these things don’t really matter so much,” says Todd Yellin, VP of product innovation at Netflix. His role involves making sure users have a good experience on the service, one that’s consistent across different formats, from smart TVs to Android phones.
Todd Yellin, Netflix VP of product innovation.
What does the data tell him and his team? One example is that the average Netflix user looks at 40 to 50 titles during a given browsing session, looking at each one for an average of a second and a half. The challenge, he says, is in floating the right options toward the viewer, based on their preferences, interests, and watching history, so that no second and a half of that browsing is wasted.
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