How Netflix builds a culture of excellence | Elizabeth Stone (CTO)

**Elizabeth Stone** (0:00)
We can't really have any of the other aspects of the culture, including candor, learning, seeking excellence and improvement, freedom and responsibility, if you don't start with high talent density. And in some ways, it's very reflective of Reed Hastings as founder of Netflix. So when he founded Netflix and grew the company over time, it was with a belief that there could be a different approach to building a company that would make it a place that people thrived in and loved being and would feel different than other places, both in the quality of that talent density, but even more importantly, like the excellence and the outcomes, and that that's where people would derive a lot of sense of fulfillment. So it's very deeply seated at Netflix from its original days.
And in order to do that, you have to really hold yourself to a lot of stuff that doesn't feel like natural, human behavior.

**Lenny Rachitsky** (1:06)
Today, my guest is Elizabeth Stone. Elizabeth is Chief Technology Officer at Netflix, and as far as I can tell, the first economist to ever be named CTO at a Fortune 500 company. Prior to this role, Elizabeth was Vice President of Data and Insights.
Before Netflix, she was Vice President of Science at Lyft, COO at Nuna, a Trader at Merrill Lynch, and an Economist at Analyst Group. In our conversation, we cover a lot of ground. We talk about how an economics background has helped Elizabeth in her career and why she expects to see more economists rise in the ranks of tech companies. She shares some of her secret sauce for rising so quickly at so many companies so consistently. We delve into Netflix's very unique culture of high talent density, radical candor, and freedom and responsibility. We also talk about the structure that Netflix has for their data and user research teams, which she believes is a part of Netflix's secret to success. We also get into what biking and triathlons have taught Elizabeth about life and how she brings that into her work. And so much more, a huge thank you to Ali Rauh for introducing me to Elizabeth. If you enjoy this podcast, don't forget to subscribe and follow this podcast in your favorite podcasting app or YouTube. This helps tremendously and I really appreciate it.
With that, I bring you Elizabeth Stone after a short word from our sponsors.
This episode is brought to you by Vanta. When it comes to ensuring your company has top-notch security practices, things get complicated fast. Now you can assess risk, secure the trust of your customers and automate compliance for SOC 2, ISO 27001, HIPAA and more with a single platform, Vanta. Vanta's market-leading trust management platform helps you continuously monitor compliance alongside reporting and tracking risk. Plus, you can save hours by completing security questionnaires with Vanta AI. Join thousands of global companies that use Vanta to automate evidence collection, unify risk management and streamline security reviews. Get $1,000 off Vanta when you go to vanta.com/lenny. That's vanta.com/lenny.
Let me tell you about our product called Sendbird, the all-in-one communications API platform designed for both web and mobile apps. In a world saturated with multi-channel communication, product teams are discovering the effectiveness of in-app communication. With Sendbird, businesses can elevate their in-app experience with decluttered and branded communication featuring AI-powered chatbots, one-way messages, chat, video calls and live stream capabilities, all tailored for commerce, marketing and top-tier support. Forward-thinking companies such as Hinge, Patreon, Yahoo, Accolade and more, use Sendbird to build in-app communication experiences that drive engagement, conversion and retention. In-app communication has the highest conversion, highest engagement and highest satisfaction of any communication channel. And when it comes to investing in this channel, trust Sendbird to take your in-app communication experience to the next level. Start today with Sendbird's free plan and as a listener of Lenny's Podcast, you'll get an additional two months of unlimited usage and access to all premium features, including creating your very own generative AI chat bot. Visit sendbird.com/lenny to begin your free journey. That's sendbird.com/lenny.
Elizabeth, thank you so much for being here and welcome to the podcast.

**Elizabeth Stone** (4:40)
Thank you. Thank you for having me.

**Lenny Rachitsky** (4:42)
So when we booked this conversation, you were VP of Data and Netflix. And since then, you got a promotion. You're now the CTO of Netflix, which feels significantly more fancy.
Question for you, what is life like now that you're CTO versus VP of Data? How is it most different? I'm imagining more meetings.

**Elizabeth Stone** (5:01)
I would say the biggest thing that changed is probably the amount of context switching and the degree to which I feel behind or I have a lot to learn. And I felt like I had a lot to learn in the VP of Data and Insights role that I was in before. In part because we cover a lot of different areas of the business and there's always people to learn from, but the engineering organization just takes that to 100 basically. So more people to get to know, more problem spaces, aspects of technical expertise that I'm just not as deeply familiar with.