Past & Present Netflix Execs Feeling Angst Over Streamer’s Direction

Bela Bajaria and 1,000 Netflix staffers have been let go, and Peter Rice has parachuted in as the streamer’s content chief. But, the real change at the streamer may still be to come, as Deadline has learned. As a coterie of mostly former and some current Netflix executives have banded together in opposition to co-CEO Ted Sarandos‘ strategy for the company..

Meeting on WhatsApp chains, Griffith Park hikes, and the Godfrey Hotel Hollywood, the disenchanted Netflix senior staffers past and present essentially break down into two camps. One group is terrified by the double digit declining stock, both for the company and their own bank accounts. The other is troubled by what they see as a fundamental move away from the original form of Netflix’s notorious kill-or-be-killed culture.

Along with the group’s lack of a unifying high-profile leader, that split focus is the heart of the inertia that’s so far stifling the dissenters in the weeks since the latest purge. But the culture conflict appears to be a stronger sore point than the stock slide among the ex-VP crowd, sources say.

With repeated assertions that “Ted has gone Hollywood,” the former and current executives say they believe Netflix has “lost its mojo” in the past few years. Specifically, they assert the streamer has stumbled in moving from being a harsh workplace based on performance to “just another studio” where politics are the “key” factor for success. Those politics primarily are said to play out via proximity to Sarandos, and being on board with his love of prestige programming, big names, and Old Hollywood.

Still, the stock slide is no small concern. Netflix shares are down more than 45% compared with a year ago. At the close of the market October 30, Netflix’s shares were at $62.10, their lowest level since August 2024. They ended Tuesday’s trading at $63.26.

“The stock slipping below $60, plus a weak awards season could be fatal,” an ex-Netflix VP told Deadline of a scenario that may see Sarandos’ leadership openly questioned. “Ted’s not the Pope, the job’s not for life.”

Still, in a year that has seen Netflix come up short against David Ellison and Paramount for control of Warner Bros and subscriber engagement dip amid a lack of a breakout hit, the company is humming along financially. It has almost no debt, 31% operating margins and industry-leading scale and churn rates.

Still, as veteran media analyst Rich Greenfield of Lightshed Partners noted in an October 19 blog post: “Given Ted’s longstanding role in shaping Netflix’s content strategy/philosophy, why should investors believe the problem was Bela and Dan’s execution rather than the broader strategy set by Ted?”

A well-placed individual told Deadline that the leadership and structural changes of last month were never intended to move the stock upward, but instead to steady the business.

While the dissenters have yet to make a direct move against Sarandos, they are circling in hopes that events — or “an intervention,” as one insider termed it — will force Sarandos to “shift his priorities significantly.” The onetime Cassettes West store manager has been at Netflix for 26 years, six of them as co-CEO with company co-founder Reed Hastings, and now co-CEO with Greg Peters.

For now, most of the dissent and backlash is directed at Sarandos, rather than Peters, who is viewed very much as the tech guy to Sarando’s content guy. Still, while Sarandos is the first among equals between the duo, Peters, who was not entirely in sync with Sarandos on the WBD acquisition bid, has had some less than stellar results of his own out of Netflix’s investment in video games and the recent tech fail with advertising.

To that, the discussion (early discussion, it should be stated) among numerous dissenters would see a “heavy hitter” go to company co-founder Hastings and persuade him that Netflix needs a blood transfusion at the top. The Hail Mary hope is that Hastings, who stepped away from the streamer as executive chairman officially in June, would then go to the Jay Hoag-led board and recommend a leadership change.

That’s a lot of moving parts to a plan that is still very much in a preliminary stage.

While the white collar grassroots angst is considerable, but it hasn’t yet become a full-scale corporate governance issue. In most situations when a CEO faces scrutiny, there are two scenarios: an activist investor buying up shares and waging a proxy war, or the board of directors hitting the “eject” button and brings in a new leader.

In terms of a messenger for the would-be heretics, various big shot old skool Netflix names have been being floated. In those discussions, the three names that keep coming up are now ex-Paramount+ head Cindy Holland, former Head of Project Todd Yellin, and ex-documentary and indie flicks boss Lisa Nishimura.

“It has to be someone Reed respects, someone he will hear out,” a former Netflix executive tells Deadline.

It’s no surprise the trio of Netflix OGs received outreach from old colleagues when the streamer axed Bajaria, film boss Dan Lin and 6% of its workforce last month. Yet, there is no indication so far that Holland (who left being Netflix’s Original Content VP in 2020), Yellin (who segued from the C-Suite in 2022 to being a producer on the likes of the upcoming 52nd State) and Nishimura (who exited the streamer after 16 years in 2023 and is an independent docu producer now) offered anything more than words of comfort and condolence.

Though some of the three are said to be receptive to the opposition to the current Netflix regime, none of them are formally part of the dissenters, I’m also told.

Reading the perceived smoke signals rising from that podcast appearance, a number of ex-Netflix execs that Deadline spoke since indicated if there was anyone who could get Hastings’ direct attention on the concerns they have, it would be Todd Yellin. Having worked together at the streamer starting in 2006, Hastings and Yellin are still close personally and professionally In fact, the ex-co-CEO and board chair became a producer on the Yellin co-written and directed thriller 52nd State in July 2025, his first foray into such a credit.

The desire for Hastings’ direct involvement increased even more among the dissenters after the defensive Sarandos and Peter earnings call of October 20, that saw the stock dip in after-hours trading. Interestingly, soon after that, Hastings showed up on Kara Swisher’s podcast. In the October 25 episode, Hastings told the former CNN regular that while he’d “like to be in the fray helping,” he felt “competent people” were running Netflix and “they’ll figure it out.”

Hastings did not respond to a request for comment from Deadline on concerns about Netflix’s direction. Contacted by Deadline, Netflix had no comment on the concerns about the state of the streamer.

A source close to the company says Sarandos, Peters and Hastings maintain a strong relationship. The same source also insisted there are no plans for Hastings to return to Netflix.