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The entertainment industry doesn’t get enough credit for the amount of money that it contributes to the US economy, said Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos at Semafor’s World Economy Summit on Wednesday.
Since 2020, the streaming giant has contributed some $125 billion in value, created more than 100,000 jobs, and produced content in all 50 US states, Sarandos told Semafor’s Ben Smith. Entertainment “gets overlooked as an industry,” Sarandos said, adding that it gets “kind of thrown under the bus in trade deals occasionally.”
Netflix remains optimistic about its long-term ambition of becoming a trillion-dollar company, and there is room to grow in its main streaming business, Sarandos said. But it is also expanding into the fandom around its properties, he added. The streaming giant has been developing entertainment experiences and consumer products related to its shows, including a Broadway variation of its Stranger Things franchise.
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Aside from non-streaming initiatives, Netflix is also looking to drive growth by venturing further into live content, including sports and video podcasts. It’s an effort that appears to be working.
Last week, the maker of hit shows such as Adolescence and Squid Game reported record profit for the first three months of the year, and forecast stronger revenue growth for the second quarter. Those results make Netflix appear somewhat of an anomaly at a time when issues like high inflation and tariffs are giving many other businesses grief.
On the company’s earnings call, Sarandos said that, historically, home entertainment value has been important to consumer households in tougher economies. And last month he told Semafor that movie theaters are never coming back in vogue, a prediction that would likely benefit companies like Netflix.
The Semafor View
The boundaryless pools of money that defined finance in the last 20 years are retreating, and capital is becoming a national resource to be protected. Public and private markets seem set to converge: Where they meet — and which firms stake out territory — could determine finance’s winners over the next decade.