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ness, like our marketing organization and other parts of Netflix. This has
been interesting because other parts of the organization have a little bit of a
different mindset and approach toward decision-making and exploring ideas.
So that's been a big area for us.
A key internal thing we've really been focused on is little, nimble user inter-
faces for people to explore the output of models so that it's not a thing
that's hard to access. For instance, what would our ranking algorithm show
you of your ranking of all the titles in Netflix? Can we show you that as an
internal tool for us to help you? This type of tool helps innovation be faster,
because then everybody at Netflix can access model outputs to study and
understand them. This then feeds into their thinking about what they might
be working on. So we've been trying to really expose more of the outputs
of these complex models in ways that more people can leverage.
Gutierrez:
What does it mean to have a low level of processes, and how
does it allow you to accomplish these great products?
Smallwood:
It means that we really don't have formalities that cause you to
jump through hoops to get things done. I don't have to get approval to work
on things, nor do I have to go through some approval chain, let's say, to get
a piece of software. It's just that we're expected to use good judgment and
not waste the company's money. Every little thing like that adds up. It's every-
where. It's in purchasing, it's in travel, it's in everything.
This low level of process goes for projects as well. It's not like we plan out a
project and formally acquire a resource from the different teams that would
have to contribute to get that project done. In the strategy meetings, it's clear
if something's a great idea, and so somebody will take the lead on that initia-
tive and go to the different teams that need to be involved. We trust one
another's judgment, and therefore people figure out how and when to get it
done. This makes things very nimble.
Gutierrez:
What makes Netflix move so fast that it feels like you it many
years into one year?
Smallwood:
For us, the speed is driven by our passion for our business
and our excitement about the positives of changing the TV viewing experi-
ence and letting it be much more in the hands of the customer. Helping the
customer figure out what they want to watch, how much of it they're going
to watch, and having that be a seamless, easy experience is something we're
really excited about. We can't help ourselves.
We hire very motivated people. You just can't really move slowly when you've
got a whole company full of super-motivated people excited about what
they're doing. It's just not in your DNA. Of course, as competitors enter the
