YouSaid · the spoken record

Elizabeth Stone

lines on the record
85
first
2026-07-19
most recent
2026-07-19
sittings or episodes
1
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podcast

Every line below is reproduced as it was said and linked to the record it came from. Nothing here is summarised or generated. Directory · Search · Corrections

  1. “You can also watch other things. Tell us how we can be better. But I'm definitely interested in how we can be better at Netflix.”

    2026-07-19 · Lenny's Podcast · Why Netflix is betting on systems thinkers—not specialists—in the AI era | Elizabeth Stone (CPTO) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  2. “The best place to find me and some of the work we're doing or reach out is the Netflix Tech blog, actually, where we're putting a lot of things that I've been talking about up there. We're trying to do a better job communicating about the fun stuff we're working on. So that's a good first stop usually. And then how listeners can be useful? Try all the new stuff that we're putting out there. Watch the live events, play the games, have fun with the new vertical video feed that we have on mobile called Clips. Send us feedback. So we want to make it better. And a lot of these things are new zero to one efforts for us. So we're trying to get to great and excellent as quickly as possible.”

    2026-07-19 · Lenny's Podcast · Why Netflix is betting on systems thinkers—not specialists—in the AI era | Elizabeth Stone (CPTO) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  3. “And it feels like someone's a good balance and it gets me outdoors and gives me some nice perspective. So I'm looking forward to it.”

    2026-07-19 · Lenny's Podcast · Why Netflix is betting on systems thinkers—not specialists—in the AI era | Elizabeth Stone (CPTO) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  4. “And I, you know, it's not a race, but I don't want to be at the back of the pack. So I got to be comfortable enough to hold my own.”

    2026-07-19 · Lenny's Podcast · Why Netflix is betting on systems thinkers—not specialists—in the AI era | Elizabeth Stone (CPTO) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  5. “So, my husband and I are doing a trip where we ride alongside the Tour de France for the last week of the race. So the tour is three weeks. The last week has a lot of mountain stages. So we get to ride part of the route each morning and then watch the race in the afternoon. Not for the faint of heart. So I'm trying to train up so I can enjoy those rides. It's supposed to be a vacation after all.”

    2026-07-19 · Lenny's Podcast · Why Netflix is betting on systems thinkers—not specialists—in the AI era | Elizabeth Stone (CPTO) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  6. “I often go back to the things that my parents instilled in me in very early times. So the risk of repeating maybe. First, something good happens every day. Watch for it even in the most stressful times. And second, that the last 5% of effort usually makes all the difference.”

    2026-07-19 · Lenny's Podcast · Why Netflix is betting on systems thinkers—not specialists—in the AI era | Elizabeth Stone (CPTO) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  7. “The list is very long. The most recent I watched remarkably bright creatures after a recommendation from my mom. It's a tear jerker. Talk about the human part of storytelling.”

    2026-07-19 · Lenny's Podcast · Why Netflix is betting on systems thinkers—not specialists—in the AI era | Elizabeth Stone (CPTO) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  8. “That sounds great. I still like a good throwback. So, two that are coming to my mind into thin air, John Crockower and Liar Spoker, Michael Lewis. So I worked on Wall Street and I like reminding people what it was like in the way back time.”

    2026-07-19 · Lenny's Podcast · Why Netflix is betting on systems thinkers—not specialists—in the AI era | Elizabeth Stone (CPTO) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  9. “Probably came across throughout, but I would underscore that this is a really exciting time to be building products in entertainment. Everything we talked about of like, what's changing in the tech and consumers and like what is entertainment? We're at this unbelievable high velocity innovation period. So it's what keeps me at Netflix. I think it's a fun place to be. I would be missing something if I didn't reinforce that I think that's true. I also think that as an industry, we spend a lot of time sometimes talking about the pure tech or the capability. And we sort of lose the forest for the trees. We're trying to build great consumer products that people love. We're trying to make great entertainment that people love. And it's our favorite thing that I don't want that to be lost. And of course, there's amazing tech and product stuff that sits underneath. But in the end, the thing that's most inspirational is what do we bring to people?”

    2026-07-19 · Lenny's Podcast · Why Netflix is betting on systems thinkers—not specialists—in the AI era | Elizabeth Stone (CPTO) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  10. “Oh, there's no question about that. And a lot of it could be very entertaining. I don't debate that either, but I think there's going to be a broad range. And I think Netflix needs to be at the center of shaping that and bringing that to life, which is our plan.”

    2026-07-19 · Lenny's Podcast · Why Netflix is betting on systems thinkers—not specialists—in the AI era | Elizabeth Stone (CPTO) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  11. “It's a thing going back. Since the beginning of time, that storytelling has been a key part of community and social networks and human feeling and connection. So I love the idea that technology can amplify that and can bring that to life in very new, novel, exciting ways. But to say storytelling wouldn't have that humanity at the center feels like something would be missing.”

    2026-07-19 · Lenny's Podcast · Why Netflix is betting on systems thinkers—not specialists—in the AI era | Elizabeth Stone (CPTO) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  12. “Less compelling to me in what the power of storytelling really is to see another human and to watch how they perform a role or like bring an emotion to life. That's such a human element. Will AI help to bring that to life? Will it play a material part in some of those productions or how we get them to look and feel a certain way? Yeah, definitely. But I don't see the version of it that doesn't have the human as the backbone.”

    2026-07-19 · Lenny's Podcast · Why Netflix is betting on systems thinkers—not specialists—in the AI era | Elizabeth Stone (CPTO) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  13. “A hard time picturing entertainment that doesn't have humans at the heart of it, so that's humans in the creation of the storytelling, which I think is. Scarce and valuable skill. Storytelling is one and the same with humanity. And knowing what connects with people. So I think humans will be part of the, will always be a core part or a critical part of the story. And I think watching. Watching characters on screen who don't have that humanity.”

    2026-07-19 · Lenny's Podcast · Why Netflix is betting on systems thinkers—not specialists—in the AI era | Elizabeth Stone (CPTO) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  14. “Help to bring to life, and Netflix wants to participate in that, which means we need to have a flexibility in the tools that we provide and the types of partnerships we have and to really have a creator enablement view rather than a prescriptive, we only do this one way.”

    2026-07-19 · Lenny's Podcast · Why Netflix is betting on systems thinkers—not specialists—in the AI era | Elizabeth Stone (CPTO) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  15. “No, shut it down. There's a mix. There's a very wide array. So Netflix's role in this is to enable creators with whatever tools they want to use to bring their vision to life. There are going to be some creators or filmmakers who are on the end of the spectrum that says absolutely not, no AI. That is not how I do production. It's not consistent with my vision. That's fine. We work with those creators. There's other creators, a growing number of them, I would say, who are very interested in exploring, wait, can these Gen AI tools make something possible that wasn't possible before? Can I tell a story in a new way? Can I make that story higher quality and more resonant for audiences? Can I do things that are extra creative and how I think about bringing a story to life? And we support them as well and we support all the folks who are on the in-between. I think that's a really important position for us to be in, again, because entertainment is not going to be one thing. There's not going to be one format. I think there's going to be types of film and TV that feel traditional. And then there's going to be entirely new formats that unbelievable creators.”

    2026-07-19 · Lenny's Podcast · Why Netflix is betting on systems thinkers—not specialists—in the AI era | Elizabeth Stone (CPTO) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  16. “Over time. So the future of entertainment isn't going to be one thing, and it's going to have to be more personalized, more immersive, more interactive with this sense of this is a world that I can explore and lots of different directions depending on what I'm looking for in the moment. And the challenge Netflix has is we've got to make discovery and engagement much easier than it feels today. We have tons of content, it can feel very fragmented, especially when you consider all the services or offerings out there. And I think Netflix is very well positioned to understand how to solve that problem across entertainment product and tech.”

    2026-07-19 · Lenny's Podcast · Why Netflix is betting on systems thinkers—not specialists—in the AI era | Elizabeth Stone (CPTO) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  17. “Live content podcasts working with a broader set of creators who are now on the Netflix service, all of those things create a greater breadth of what entertainment is and Netflix is able to define and expand that. And it puts a higher bar expectation on how do we make sense of that for a Netflix member. So how do we show you this very seamless journey from I listened to the Bill Simmons podcast to I watch quarterback because I love that as one of the Netflix offerings in the more you could say traditional film or TV space to I play the most recent FIFA Cloud game and I want to be able to do that on both TV and on my mobile phone because now I'm on the move and I want to be able to discover engage with the content at different moments of the day. That's already a journey that we're building into Netflix, which I think will become stronger and stronger.”

    2026-07-19 · Lenny's Podcast · Why Netflix is betting on systems thinkers—not specialists—in the AI era | Elizabeth Stone (CPTO) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  18. “I think it's already changing at Netflix because entertainment is not going to be one thing in the future and it's already not one thing now. So part of the reason that we are going beyond film and TV in our offering is because there's an expectation that consumers”

    2026-07-19 · Lenny's Podcast · Why Netflix is betting on systems thinkers—not specialists—in the AI era | Elizabeth Stone (CPTO) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  19. “It feels like it's an acceleration of how much engineering has changed. But if you looked over the last 10 years or 20 years, you would say the same thing. So there's just something that's moving faster, and it's hard to wrap our heads around how quickly it's moved in the past couple of years, but it's not totally unfamiliar that engineering or data science or product would have these big shifts, just like how filmmaking works. If you will go over the last 100 years, it's unbelievably different because of technology and new tools that we've brought to it. just feels like the cycle is speeding up.”

    2026-07-19 · Lenny's Podcast · Why Netflix is betting on systems thinkers—not specialists—in the AI era | Elizabeth Stone (CPTO) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  20. “That makes me uncomfortable. Maybe that's because I'm still on that learning curve of how do we operate in that world? Like, what's the set of tests or rationalization and understanding that we need to have to get comfortable with it? But at first glance, it looks very unfamiliar and very unsettling. So I think engineering over time will evolve to be comfortable with that and have fluency in it and know how to guide new tech and agents and new capabilities to make sure that we feel really good about what the output is.”

    2026-07-19 · Lenny's Podcast · Why Netflix is betting on systems thinkers—not specialists—in the AI era | Elizabeth Stone (CPTO) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  21. “I think that's one of the things that the learning curve is very steep on right now. So looking at some of the code that some of these models or agents are writing, they're very hard to follow. It's like I know I'm getting better performance from this, but I have no idea why. And if this thing breaks, I'm going to have no idea how to fix it.”

    2026-07-19 · Lenny's Podcast · Why Netflix is betting on systems thinkers—not specialists—in the AI era | Elizabeth Stone (CPTO) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  22. “I don't know, Ida. I hope that doesn't go away because that's like a how do we make the world a better place through the stuff that we're building, I think requires some understanding of what we've built.”

    2026-07-19 · Lenny's Podcast · Why Netflix is betting on systems thinkers—not specialists—in the AI era | Elizabeth Stone (CPTO) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  23. “There's a difference between being able to write lines of code in a particular language like Python or C++ and understanding how code, computer systems, products work. And I don't think the latter is going away. Because if we trusted agents to know all the languages and write all the code, we're not going to know why is something, is it a good product? Is it a bad product? Is it working as we expected when it doesn't? Like I mentioned earlier, we take a lot of risk. We fail fast. We recover fast. That requires an understanding of how are these systems working. I might use an agent to help me understand those things, help me detect an anomaly or something that's broken faster and triage it. But I still need to have a fluency of like, what is this thing that we're building and how does it work? So I know if it's good and I know how to fix it.”

    2026-07-19 · Lenny's Podcast · Why Netflix is betting on systems thinkers—not specialists—in the AI era | Elizabeth Stone (CPTO) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  24. “A product that solves a problem that matters and in how it's designed. So I don't think that craft mastery, the importance of it is going away. Probably the way we train and grow talent has to change because they're going to use different tools. And I can guarantee you that earlier career talent is going to be teaching older folks like me many new things too. So I think it goes in both directions.”

    2026-07-19 · Lenny's Podcast · Why Netflix is betting on systems thinkers—not specialists—in the AI era | Elizabeth Stone (CPTO) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  25. “The team member, I am responsible for the quality of code that I am submitting for production. I'm responsible for the quality of products that I'm building, how they are designed, what that user, consumer experience is. None of that is going away. So if I think about more junior or earlier career talent on the teams, we need to be investing just as much in the mentorship of this is what good looks like. This is how you use these tools, but you still take accountability for what the outcomes are, what the quality of the output is. And I think I mentioned this earlier. I find that mastery and that craft excellence scarce still. So we want to make sure we're teaching that. I think it's a valid concern of like, how do I get that if I'm not as hands-on as I would have had to be, but you still carry responsibility for reviewing code, testing code, being able to diagnose problems, knowing what a good product looks like. Like I think that's a very scarce skill to say, this is excellence.”

    2026-07-19 · Lenny's Podcast · Why Netflix is betting on systems thinkers—not specialists—in the AI era | Elizabeth Stone (CPTO) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  26. “From my experience, younger folks are more open minded. They tend to be more native in some of these new ways of working. For a company like Netflix, they're also very fluent in how entertainment is changing, how consumer behaviors are changing, how product and tech is influencing that in the products that they're using. That's really important to have on our team. So there's the part of the persona, which is who are you as a new grad who's an engineer? But there's also who are you as someone who's in their early 20s and has a perspective on the world that is highly valuable and a comfort with the way the world is changing? So that's why I say it's a critical part of our talent strategy to the, okay, so you step into the role and you have AI tools that didn't exist five or ten years ago. I would say mastery of the craft is still very important. So going back to”

    2026-07-19 · Lenny's Podcast · Why Netflix is betting on systems thinkers—not specialists—in the AI era | Elizabeth Stone (CPTO) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  27. “We are still hiring junior people, and they're really important to our talent strategy. So we still have an intern program, we still have a new grad program, which was new for us as of a few years ago. So prior to a few years ago, we were only hiring more experienced talent across all the functions. Now we do hire people straight from undergrad and graduate programs, and we'll continue to do that. So even in a world today where some things are easier, we were talking earlier about Mindset, AI fluency”

    2026-07-19 · Lenny's Podcast · Why Netflix is betting on systems thinkers—not specialists—in the AI era | Elizabeth Stone (CPTO) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  28. “Excited about the applications of the technology and see the connection to that to things that they love and use every day, like Netflix. And so that gets me up in the morning. And I think it gets a lot of the team members up. And we have this conversation about like, that's something special that only talent at Netflix can do or fill in the blank for another industry that's deep in the application of it. I think that's inspiring.”

    2026-07-19 · Lenny's Podcast · Why Netflix is betting on systems thinkers—not specialists—in the AI era | Elizabeth Stone (CPTO) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  29. “So, people at Netflix have to be passionate about the application of technology and the application or building products to solve a certain set of problems. You have to love entertainment. You have to love consumer products at scale. You have to love the global nature of that. There are a lot of incredibly talented people who love that sweet spot. I am one of them between tech end product and entertainment and how do you make those things come together in a way that's remarkable. And you use AI to do it. You use other technologies and products to do it. But that has to be something that drives you to be really excited about a lot of the roles that Netflix. If instead you're inspired by some of the foundational work that the Frontier Model companies are doing, which is exciting in its own way, it's a different persona. It's a different, like here's the problem space that I want to work in, but I don't think there's a shortage of people who get really”

    2026-07-19 · Lenny's Podcast · Why Netflix is betting on systems thinkers—not specialists—in the AI era | Elizabeth Stone (CPTO) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  30. “We've always had a lot of competition for talent. It might feel more pronounced right now, but we have great talent on the team. Maybe that goes without saying, but I feel like I should say it out loud because I believe it. We have incredible talent in Netflix, recent hires, long tenured people. I'm always impressed by the work that the team is doing. So I don't feel like we've suffered or like other companies are vacuuming up all the good people because so many of them I do thanks did at Netflix. It does feel like we have to be more. More explicit about the types of people in talent that tend to thrive at Netflix versus other companies like some of the frontier labs.”

    2026-07-19 · Lenny's Podcast · Why Netflix is betting on systems thinkers—not specialists—in the AI era | Elizabeth Stone (CPTO) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  31. “Yeah, it's the keeper test is one, maintaining talent, entity, context, not control among leaders. We talk about being highly aligned but loosely coupled, which is where light process, you know, the minimum to make sure we're clear on the priorities and we can execute them is what we're solving for. All of these things are not things that human beings or organizations at scale. Tend to do. So it's constant diligence to try to maintain the thing that's made Netflix a special place. Because in the end, it's the work and the culture that attracts people and retains people. And we need that to be a successful business.”

    2026-07-19 · Lenny's Podcast · Why Netflix is betting on systems thinkers—not specialists—in the AI era | Elizabeth Stone (CPTO) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  32. “Yeah, and the way it can, it's sort of a corollary to that if that person came to me today to say they were leaving, would I fight to keep them or not? Or would I say, if my sense is relief of, oh yeah, I probably would be better to have someone else in this role. I should have taken action and having that conversation sooner.”

    2026-07-19 · Lenny's Podcast · Why Netflix is betting on systems thinkers—not specialists—in the AI era | Elizabeth Stone (CPTO) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  33. “In on how things are going and forcing a tough conversation sometimes instead of shying away from it, or to keep great talent, you do need to say you're doing great. Like that, that's an important part of making people feel recognized and valued. So I don't want it to come across that we just have this very negative view of it. I think there's this positive side of the coin as well.”

    2026-07-19 · Lenny's Podcast · Why Netflix is betting on systems thinkers—not specialists—in the AI era | Elizabeth Stone (CPTO) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  34. “And the lion's share of the time, my response is I would fight so hard to keep you. Let me go through a set of things that I think you're doing such a great job at, what your strengths are, where you're having a lot of impact. Here's how you could be even better. So it's an entry into a conversation that is very positive and uplifting for people. But the framing is, do I pass the keeper test? And then, of course, there's the harder situations where I'm evaluating does someone pass the keeper test or they're asking me. And it's this is the toughest thing to say, to be honest, you're not passing that right now. I think you could get there in some cases, and that comes with feedback and what are those milestones, or in some cases you're saying, we've really tried and I don't see the path to success. It's an anchor and an entry point for a conversation that can go lots of different directions. And the thing I like about it is it's good hygiene on feedback and check.”

    2026-07-19 · Lenny's Podcast · Why Netflix is betting on systems thinkers—not specialists—in the AI era | Elizabeth Stone (CPTO) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  35. “It's often cited in a way where you think of keeper's test as that moment where you decide to let someone go, that they're not the right fit for the role and the conversation about that. But it's equally commonly used to have a conversation about how extraordinary someone is, how well they're doing in a role. Because the entry point is for me to say to one of my direct reports or for them to say to me, how am I doing on your keeper test?”

    2026-07-19 · Lenny's Podcast · Why Netflix is betting on systems thinkers—not specialists—in the AI era | Elizabeth Stone (CPTO) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  36. “No, I think the best people want to know there's going to be a blameless retro and they're going to feel so individually responsible that they're going to say, how do I make sure this doesn't happen again, not with process, but with like, how could I share these learnings? How could I do work differently to make sure that I get to a better outcome next time? When you are trusting people to take those reflections and learn and grow, I think you get much better outcomes over time and you get a much stronger team, which I think is part of our role as leaders of like you're trying to grow a team that is resilient and durable and knows how to have great impact. You're not trying to control everything.”

    2026-07-19 · Lenny's Podcast · Why Netflix is betting on systems thinkers—not specialists—in the AI era | Elizabeth Stone (CPTO) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  37. “So if something I've learned over the past few years, that when planning is difficult, I've never heard someone say like, oh, we figured out the perfect way to plan or the perfect way to go through feedback and leveling and compensation. But every time we saw that and we added more process, we spent more time without getting better outcomes And so it's another unnatural thing that I think everyone's inclination when things are hard and complicated is you think you're simplifying the problem by putting a lot of constraints around it, but it actually goes against the like, is there a more creative way to plan or to make people decisions or to make prioritization decisions that actually get us to better outcomes? And so it's a resistance to do the thing that a lot of bigger companies would do and to feel comfortable in that discomfort very.”

    2026-07-19 · Lenny's Podcast · Why Netflix is betting on systems thinkers—not specialists—in the AI era | Elizabeth Stone (CPTO) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  38. “When they're not all going to be the right decisions and they're going to learn something tough from it, I felt that myself from my boss and my peers saying, this is your decision. You know, I can provide input. I can help you brainstorm. It's yours in the end. And it just doesn't come naturally when the stakes are high, when I feel responsible for what the org's doing to let people lean into risk can be uncomfortable. And I think that also means in cases where things are not going well, as another example, to not assume that process is going to fix it.”

    2026-07-19 · Lenny's Podcast · Why Netflix is betting on systems thinkers—not specialists—in the AI era | Elizabeth Stone (CPTO) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  39. “And then the other thing I would say is some of the things that are really unnatural for humans to do. So I could give a couple examples of things to get comfortable with, which is there are certainly days where I see decisions happening. And I think I would make a different decision. Like, is that really going to be the best thing? But my job, especially in the Netflix culture, is not to step in in every one of those cases and overrule or a veto or question someone, especially if it's not material. It's not going to burn the place down. Let people make that decision and learn from it. How did it go? Maybe I was wrong. Maybe the decision was a great one, but that it's related to the risk-taking and the like help people learn how to feel comfortable making their own decisions, especially.”

    2026-07-19 · Lenny's Podcast · Why Netflix is betting on systems thinkers—not specialists—in the AI era | Elizabeth Stone (CPTO) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  40. “That are the best outcomes for the business, you have to be very clear that what you're doing is driving outcomes for consumers and Netflix. So Netflix matters, Netflix members matter. It's not about my own personal success or what I prefer. So there's a selflessness that is part of this excellence operating system.”

    2026-07-19 · Lenny's Podcast · Why Netflix is betting on systems thinkers—not specialists—in the AI era | Elizabeth Stone (CPTO) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  41. “The talent density is the non negotiable. You have to start with that. If you don't have that, you can't get to a place where you have confidence in decision making at all levels of the organization allowing people to take risks and innovate quickly. That's a big part of excellence in the Netflix culture, which is being very comfortable with risk taking. We don't try to avoid failures. We try to recover quickly when we have them. I think there's been great examples of that. Our Foray into Live was a wonderful example of being comfortable taking a ton of risk, knowing it would be imperfect, knowing we would learn fast and we would be better for it. I've never been prouder of the team seeing how we worked through that. So you have to be talent density, comfortable that people are going to take the context that you give them, strong judgment, and risk-taking and fight for the thing.”

    2026-07-19 · Lenny's Podcast · Why Netflix is betting on systems thinkers—not specialists—in the AI era | Elizabeth Stone (CPTO) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  42. “And so there's something that feels very intuitive about Netflix's culture has always been aiming at excellence. And when you have great talent and you give them the ability to do their best work without micromanaging it or drowning it in process, you actually get much better outcomes. And so I do think that the newer era companies are picking up on something that is feeling very familiar to us. And it's not something that comes easily. So having culture is not a static thing. Culture needs to grow and evolve as the company gets bigger. The types of problems you're solving change. But the notion that we're going for excellence and trusting that exceptional talent needs to be able to do their best work. That's unchanged. And something that I think continues to be a special sauce for us.”

    2026-07-19 · Lenny's Podcast · Why Netflix is betting on systems thinkers—not specialists—in the AI era | Elizabeth Stone (CPTO) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  43. “It was instead a very strongly held opinion that you get to excellence by giving people a lot of agency and accountability, by pushing decisions as deep in the organization as possible, hiring great people who can be trusted to have good judgment and make good decisions. And that ends up driving incredible outcomes, plus a lot more motivation and sense of responsibility. It means every person on the team can feel like I'm being given a lot of keys and a lot of accountability for what happens here. And I myself feel like when you know you're carrying that level of trust and accountability, you want to do your best work.”

    2026-07-19 · Lenny's Podcast · Why Netflix is betting on systems thinkers—not specialists—in the AI era | Elizabeth Stone (CPTO) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  44. “Yeah, it's a little prescient in understanding what makes talent incredible. I've thought about all those aspects of the culture at Netflix as this is going to sound a little bit nerdy, but excellence as an operating system. So the goal of all of those cultural elements wasn't the end bone themselves. It wasn't, let's just make sure people have as much responsibility as possible or let's, you know, we don't like process. So let's make sure that we don't have any of that.”

    2026-07-19 · Lenny's Podcast · Why Netflix is betting on systems thinkers—not specialists—in the AI era | Elizabeth Stone (CPTO) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  45. “And there's a lot of AI use cases that are not generative use cases. So we could go down. Creative outlets for consumer products, for infrastructure. We have all of those problems, and AI is at the center of them. And it's good not to forget that that's true even if Netflix isn't branded as an AI company. AI is a tool that we're very comfortable using to get these great entertainment and technology outcomes.”

    2026-07-19 · Lenny's Podcast · Why Netflix is betting on systems thinkers—not specialists—in the AI era | Elizabeth Stone (CPTO) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  46. “Then all of a sudden. So I tried, you know, it depends the thing that is of the moment to describe. So I think we bucket all of it as AI now.”

    2026-07-19 · Lenny's Podcast · Why Netflix is betting on systems thinkers—not specialists—in the AI era | Elizabeth Stone (CPTO) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  47. “Solve this problem because the tech is even more powerful, but it gives us a running head start in being clear about the problem to solve how important it is that Netflix solved that for our members. And then the same is true, as I was mentioning on the creative side of the house. AI and ML have been in things like visual effects or in localizing language for a long time. Now we say, what's the next era of that when the tech is more powerful? And in both cases, it ends up taking a strength that Netflix has, which is marrying entertainment and technology and making sure we stay ahead of the game to deliver things that are even better. So I love that it's part of our history. It still continues to be a strength and it's going to have to be a strength given the size of the challenges we're facing around the breadth of entertainment while keeping a great experience.”

    2026-07-19 · Lenny's Podcast · Why Netflix is betting on systems thinkers—not specialists—in the AI era | Elizabeth Stone (CPTO) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  48. “I mean, you said it on my behalf. Often when there's questions about how Netflix is thinking about AI, it's great to remind people of exactly that point, that this is not new to us, that especially for personalization, it's been central to delivering a great experience to members. It's impossible to take the breadth of content that we have. There's ever more content. That's one of the challenges we face and make discovery easier and easier and easier, which is one of the challenges that Netflix has. And using AI and ML has been a way to do that. You want to personalize right title for the right person at the right moment. That problem gets harder. The more exciting our catalog gets, the greater breadth of content we have, not just film and TV, but games and live and podcasts, personalization becomes even more important and what that experience is. So we can take a lot of that history and say, okay, well, now how do we?”

    2026-07-19 · Lenny's Podcast · Why Netflix is betting on systems thinkers—not specialists—in the AI era | Elizabeth Stone (CPTO) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  49. “Images, artwork at scale, that then we can use to help make sure that titles find their audiences around the world. Those all are huge levers when we think about the AI impact. So that, again, goes well beyond prototyping or coding to some of the creative use cases. And you can imagine that just like they work for studio productions for film and TV, they work for advertising. They work for marketing, off-service campaigns. And so those are all areas that we're exploring.”

    2026-07-19 · Lenny's Podcast · Why Netflix is betting on systems thinkers—not specialists—in the AI era | Elizabeth Stone (CPTO) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  50. “To life before you even get into the you bring people to a set and start to actually go through the production itself. There's lots of use cases in post-production. So we recently acquired a company Interpositive that was started by Ben Affleck that built a set of models and capabilities that allow you after you've shot something to relight, reframe, reshoot, change dialogue in ways that are very impactful to get higher quality content are still led by the filmmaker creator saying, you know what, I would like to try something else to bring this vision to life. But that impact is extremely promising and we're seeing lots of productions leverage different tools. Some of them built in-house, some of them that we enable through other vendors for those content creation use cases. And then as we think about how content comes to the product, I mentioned localization, subtitles, and dubs, but also how we create high quality trailers.”

    2026-07-19 · Lenny's Podcast · Why Netflix is betting on systems thinkers—not specialists—in the AI era | Elizabeth Stone (CPTO) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source