I think that we've got a huge head start on things that are not easy to do: progressive streaming, to be able to stream in very high quality, even in an environment of highly variable bit rate, and to work on a big variety of devices seamlessly.
What if you could radically alter the way stories get told? What if the way people wanted to consume content actually changed what you could make?
We try to guide with a light touch. Sometimes we can be helpful, and my goal with my team, both on the series side and on the film side, is that the collaboration should always be invited. In other words, we're not looking to impose our view on the filmmaker; we hire a storyteller because we love the story, and we love their ability to tell it.
When we show you all these various pieces of content on the site, how frequently do you take the one that we present? And of the one you took, how frequently do you completely watch the whole series? And do you rate it, one to five stars? So if we presented it to you, and you watched it, and you rated it, that's a big win.
Our value proposition to consumers is so much more about completeness than freshness. Having the complete season is so much more valuable, in our business model, than having last night's episode.
There's not a lot of really great, deep, serialized television, and we can see from the data that that's what people want.
If you want to go out and see a movie and sit in a dark room with strangers, it's not an experience you can replicate at home.
I have a deep respect for the fundamentals of television, the traditions of it, even, but I don't have any reverence for it.
Being able to compete for consumers' attention and dollars over the preciousness of access is a thing of the past. Everyone is using the Internet to globally market a product.
The two things that got everyone's attention about the 'House of Cards' deal was the two-season commitment and David Fincher. After David Fincher directs a series for Netflix, no one else can say, 'Well, I'm not going to direct a series for the Internet.'
David Fincher's work has all been incredibly well-received on Netflix, and Kevin Spacey's films have all worked on Netflix.
What I didn't want to do is get into a ratings race with television because really, for them, it matters. For me, it doesn't.
The Disney deal for us, we are very excited to be their Pay 1 partner, where we are a big licensing partner of Disney all over the world in all different windows.
I think we can launch - successfully, high quality - around 20 original scripted shows a year, which means every 2 1/2 to three weeks you're launching a new season or a new show on Netflix meant to be for really diverse tastes all around the world.
Theater owners are exerting a lot of power over the studios to withhold access to content that people want to see. That's bad for consumers, that's bad for studios, and ultimately, I think it will be bad for theaters.
It's a massive consumer frustration around the world about how long they have to wait after the U.S. to see television shows and movies. In the U.S., there's the frustration of having to wait a year to watch a movie in the format that you choose.
I feel like if we can use the combination of basically data-driven hunches and bet on really first-class talent to deliver the shows, that I think we could do as well as the networks do, who basically have a 75 to 80 percent failure rate for new shows anyway - even after all that development and pilot work.
I really loved the 'Sopranos' but didn't have HBO. So someone would send me tapes of the show with three or four episodes. I would watch one episode and go: 'Oh my God, I've got to watch one more.' I'd watch the whole tape and champ at the bit for the next one.
The major international appeal for 'House of Cards' was kind of a surprise because it's a very American show. What we learned is that American politics is very American, but greed and corruption and all of that is very global.
When we started looking at the bigger television ecosystem, you see that there's not that many serialized TV shows being made for TV. The economics are lousy: They don't sell into syndication well; they're expensive to produce.
