Szefowa technologii w Netflix ujawnia strategiczną współpracę z Polską! | Elizabeth Stone

There were many reasons to build this hub right here, and I'll emphasize, it's the only place outside the United States where Netflix has a technology hub. We chose Warsaw because of the reputation of the local technical talent and the recognized education system. We knew we would find many great people here, now colleagues working in this office. Warsaw and Poland are a place for us where we can grow for many years to come.

The core of Netflix's culture is really the pursuit of the highest quality in everything we do. It's about how to offer the best entertainment to our viewers and great results for the creators we work with. An enormously important part of this strategy is who we hire at Netflix, because it's through them that we achieve these results. The Keeper Test is a practice, a way of thinking. Do I have the strongest possible team? Do I have the competencies needed to succeed? It means a very high bar for the quality of work and a readiness to make changes if you don't have the team you truly need. And this partly ties back to your first question about why we chose Warsaw to build the tech hub. It was with the conviction that the strength of the local talent would meet these high standards we set for ourselves, and that continues to be confirmed. Today, over 300 engineers work in Warsaw, and we are impressed by the innovation, creativity, and agency of this team. So it fits very well into the entire Netflix culture.

As this place has grown, several areas within Netflix have emerged that the local teams are truly responsible for. We don't want them to be just an extension or an add-on to teams in other parts of the world or in the USA. We aim for the teams in Warsaw to have full ownership. For example, there's a lot of technology here behind the films and series that everyone knows. I mean the tools that help manage very complex film and TV productions. The tools for these productions around the world are created by the Warsaw team.

Many of our teams use AI. This also applies to some of the tools we build for film and series creators. There are also teams here working on key experiences for our viewers, for example, on the engineering and data work behind the personalization of recommendations. That's another example. The teams in Warsaw receive and help manage billions of daily signals from our viewers' preferences to improve recommendations. Such a team also operates in Warsaw. And yet another great example is the team supporting our gaming organization. Our gaming team has a developer platform that allows studios to integrate their games with Netflix's offering. The team that creates the production tools and developer platform tools for games also works in Warsaw. So we already have a really broad cross-section of teams from different areas of Netflix's business, and each of them creates products and technologies used globally. Whether it's for creating entertainment worldwide, for our global product directed at users, or for collaborating with creators around the world.

Today, it feels like the choice of entertainment in the world is infinite, so one of the biggest challenges is to make discovery—finding a film, series, or game you'll love—smooth and easy. That's why Netflix has been using machine learning and artificial intelligence for almost two decades to better understand how to build more accurate recommendations for users across the entire catalog. The new opportunity we have today is essentially twofold. First, entertainment itself is expanding. It's no longer just one format. It's not just long-form films and series. It's also games, live content, podcasts, and other shorter formats. This makes the discovery problem harder. That's why we're starting to use solutions like our new TV platform, designed to be more flexible and responsive to real-time signals. So we can adapt to what the user is doing when they browse and search. Second, we are using generative technologies and AI that allow users to search for what they want in natural language. We tested a solution on mobile devices called Conversational Search. You can type, 'I'm looking for something funny with Brad Pitt from the 90s, but not that funny, kind of scary.' And we should be able to react and help find the right title. And now we're testing a voice interface, the ability to speak to the remote and the Netflix app to search the catalog. All these changes in the TV, mobile, and conversational experiences are a combination of great technology working behind the scenes. It's about elements like background technologies, the personalization layer we put on top, the user interface designed to feel completely seamless, and technologies like AI. But the true measure of success is exactly what you're asking: are we helping users more easily find something they will truly love? So we hope that all this complex machinery remains invisible, and the effect is simply maximally simple and natural.

I think it's the creator's choice. In storytelling and film art, we've had many technological innovations. Netflix's role is to ensure that creators have the tools they want to use to realize their visions. Sometimes these are more traditional film techniques. Increasingly, they are AI tools. So we see them as a creator's tool. Some filmmakers will be thrilled to experiment in this direction. They are excited about what becomes possible. Others prefer to stay away from AI, and that's fine too. We want to support that entire spectrum. I see it this way. For some filmmakers, it will be a big change, but ultimately, it's still about humans telling stories for humans. It's about what tools they use to give those stories form. Some believe it's more than just a simple tool used in a single classic application, that it's a new sphere of human existence. I think humanity is the foundation of storytelling. It has been for a very long time. I think it will remain so. I understand where the anxiety comes from, because we are dealing with a truly step-change in what technology is capable of. But we've already seen many examples where filmmakers were able to realize their vision with a quality, care, and impact that would have been impossible without these tools. The second thing is that it lowers the barrier to entry for a creator or filmmaker, so more people can tell their stories. Of course, this comes with the fact that, in some areas, the future looks uncertain. We are still learning where this technology is most useful, but I don't see a change in the human dimension of storytelling, or in how creators find their audience. And that is the core of what Netflix tries to do: help a creator bring their story to life, and then help that story find an audience around the world. Nothing has changed in that mission. Another thing worth mentioning in the context of AI is that we recently acquired Interpositive, an AI technology company founded by Ben Affleck, who as a director and actor knows this perspective very well.

Exactly. It's a very inspiring way of thinking about how to build such technology, by filmmakers and for filmmakers, with a deep understanding of what the creative process entails, what challenges arise every day on set, and how AI can be genuinely useful there. It's a very deep, contextually grounded approach that perfectly complements Netflix's approach.

I am certain that filmmakers and creators will emerge who, thanks to new technology, will create things we couldn't have imagined before. I also think new forms of entertainment will appear. As I said earlier, I believe the spectrum of entertainment will continue to expand, and technology will make the choice even greater. There will be filmmakers, game creators, series creators, and podcasters who will do something no one has done before, partly due to their own vision and partly due to what technology enables.

No, I don't think so. When I think about personalization, it's not about breaking up the shared experience. It's more about helping a film or series find its audience, no matter where that audience is. If I think about some extremely successful titles from Poland, like 'Wielka Woda' or '1670', which is very local, a huge success, right? And it really turned out to be a huge success. These were titles that became cultural events. They found an audience, built a community around them, and evoked real emotions. Personalization helped that audience find them, but a shared cultural moment still formed around them. We see this not only with Polish titles but also with non-English language productions from other parts of the world, like 'Squid Game' or 'Money Heist', which built huge fan communities worldwide. This is where, in my opinion, personalization is often confused with a 'just for you' approach, when it's actually about something else: finding the people who will love a given title, and then building a fan community around it.

It's no exaggeration to say that practically everything you experience comes to you through my team. Let's give examples. The tools for production—how a given film or series was made, how media files were sent so creators could give their feedback no matter where they are in the world—all of that is created by the team in Warsaw. Then we have what we would call localization, subtitles or dubbing, which allow a title to travel the world regardless of the language you speak. That's technology developed by my team together with many partners. Then there's the personalization and recommendations you experience, as well as which title appears on your main banner and what you see on the homepage. Some of those Polish titles like '1670' or 'Wielka Woda'—I forgot to mention 'Znachor', which really tugs at the heartstrings—and the recommendations related to them also come to you thanks to members of my team. So really, from start to finish, it's an experience that, if it works as it should, remains invisible, but along the way it consists of many steps that ultimately deliver a great impression.

I expect that over time, what Netflix offers will become more personalized, more immersive, and more interactive. This doesn't mean a complete change in the types of content we have, but it means we will respond to the fact that entertainment is no longer one thing. We will have games, live content, podcasts, and other shorter forms of entertainment alongside films and series. The experience itself should, in my opinion, allow the user to discover all these different types of content in one place. Things like live voting, where you can really influence the outcome, or mobile and TV games you can participate in, are a new version of interactive entertainment, and Netflix is definitely committed to it.

I don't think so. For it to narrow down to thinking it's more a game than a film... I think about how seamlessly consumers, or rather Netflix users, will move between different types of entertainment. Today's Netflix user sometimes just wants to sit down, relax, and watch something on a screen. Sometimes they want to fill a moment on their phone during a commute. Sometimes they want to participate in content, for example, play a game. Sometimes they want to really co-shape the content, and then live voting or strong engagement in a live event comes into play. It's not a transition from one type of content to another. It's about the entertainment experience needing to be much broader, yet coherent and easy, so that people can experience all these different types of content within a single service. And that's what we're trying to achieve at Netflix.

Many great things. For example, what we talked about earlier: more conversational ways of discovering content. You'll be able to explore the Netflix catalog almost as if you were talking to a family member or a friend and asking, 'What should I watch?' And if I like this type of content, where should I go next? What new things can I discover? I think everything will feel more personalized, as if we understand even better what you're looking for and make discovering content even easier. This will apply to both TVs and mobile devices. We recently launched a new mobile app that we're rolling out globally, which also includes clips—a vertical video feed—allowing you to discover many titles in that format and giving you a different way to see how broad the catalog is, or to think about what you want to watch next. So we will continue to develop the new TV platform and the new mobile experience towards more interactive and immersive things, both in terms of discovery and engagement with the content itself. As we said, we will have an even broader entertainment offering, so of course traditional films and series, but also games, live podcasts, and many others. So I think in the coming months and in the coming year, you will see us experimenting with many new types of content and the experiences designed to support them.

Currently in Warsaw we have about 350 engineers and dedicated specialists working on the core infrastructure, production tools, gaming platform needs, and the recommendation engine and personalization itself. All these people, around 350, are working on these very problems, and we are still hiring and growing. The team will continue to develop this year and next. This is a great moment to tell your audience that if you're interested in working at Netflix, check out our careers page. We have many exciting roles, and I hope our presence in Warsaw will continue to grow.

I've always thought of Netflix as a superpower resulting from the combination of an entertainment company, a product company, and a technology company all in one. We have an incredible ambition to bring entertainment to the entire world. Today, we create an offering for nearly a billion people around the world. These are very different tastes and preferences, which of course change. They are not static. So as an entertainment company, we have enormous scale and enormous ambition, but we can only do this well if we are also an outstanding product and technology company, because entertainment is no longer one format. Netflix must be a streaming service capable of navigating between many types of content, making discovery easy even when we offer a huge amount of material, and giving that experience a high level of personalization, interactivity, and even immersion in worlds you can be a part of. That's what Netflix is trying to do, and we have this superpower that few, if any, other companies have: this combination of competencies.

How could I not answer? Yes. We reach stories to nearly a billion people around the world. And storytelling, listening to stories, and sharing them is one of the foundations of the human experience. The fact that a technology-based service can deliver that gives it enormous influence. Of course, there are other companies doing similar things or operating on a large scale, but I think what Netflix has built is unique precisely because of the combination of storytelling and technology.

The thing I will remember for the rest of my life is building the technology for delivering live content at Netflix. It stays with me because I'm not sure many companies of this scale and maturity would feel comfortable with the level of risk we were taking then. And I remember how proud I was that we were ready to make really bold moves with events like the Jake Paul vs. Mike Tyson fight or entering American football broadcasting, the NFL games, with very little time to do it well. That level of innovation, smart risk-taking, and trust in the teams that they can act quickly and make it possible really stuck with me. I was enormously proud of the work done by the teams. At the same time, I was very nervous about the scale of the risk we were taking. We had a very real feeling that we could fail at this. And in a relatively mature company that usually leans towards caution, such an experience is rare. I'm glad we haven't lost that over time.

I don't know if AI is specifically behind the changes in preferences or expectations. Our sensitivity... I think entertainment itself is changing. In some cases, perhaps it's driven by the technology that enables it. If you look at today's creators, what they create is very different from the entertainment we would have thought about 10, 20, or 30 years ago. It's a bit of a chicken-and-egg situation. Did creators start telling different stories and developing different visions? Or did we all start having different preferences and demanding different content? I don't know the answer to that question, but I think creators respond to what audiences are looking for, and technology enables that. However, I don't know if this is specific to AI. I think it's been the case for a long time that technology allows stories to come to life, and it's not limited to film or television. It's also games, other types of entertainment. So I think this spectrum will continue to expand.

Just one mystery?

What keeps me up at night the most is the feeling of the vastness of the universe and the cosmos. The question of who we are in all of this, and how difficult it is for the human mind to grasp everything that exists and everything that is possible. Although I am enormously excited by our daily work, in the face of everything else that exists, it seems like just a drop in the ocean.

Thank you. It was a pleasure.