Netflix CTO Elizabeth Stone on Streamer’s New AI Project, Gearing Up for Live NFL Games, Evolving the Culture and More

variety.com:

Todd Spangler NY Digital Editor Elizabeth Stone is Netflix’s chief technology officer, overseeing a global team of about 3,000 at the streaming giant.

The technology group touches every part of Netflix — spanning not just the core product experience, but also advertising, games, livestreaming content and studio production organizations. “The greatest complexity comes from the fact that our team supports all areas of the business,” she says in the latest episode of Variety’s “Strictly Business” podcast. “And it means we’ve got partnerships across all of Netflix.” Listen to the podcast here: Stone first joined the company in 2020 and became VP of data and insights, before she was named CTO in October 2023, becoming the first Netflix exec to hold that title.

She has a background in economics with a PhD from Stanford (and she once worked as a trader at Merrill Lynch), which is very unusual for a top-level tech exec. “I feel like I use my economics background on almost a daily basis,” says Stone.

As she notes, “We don’t have endless resources. So we want to spend our time and energy and dollars on things that are going to be most impactful for Netflix.” Netflix has long used machine learning and artificial intelligence, which have powered the core of its personalized recommendations.