Netflix Cuts About 1,000 Jobs and Reshuffles Its Top Team
Netflix laid off about 1,000 workers in October 2026, roughly 6% of its staff. Co-founder Reed Hastings said he found out by reading about it, not from the company beforehand.
The cuts came alongside an executive overhaul. Deadline reported that Netflix replaced content chief Bela Bajaria with Peter Rice. The streamer also ousted Dan Lin, its film head. Ted Sarandos and Greg Peters lead the company now, following Hastings' departure.
Hastings left Netflix in June 2026, ending a relationship with the business he helped start in 1997 as a DVD-by-mail rental service. He still spoke about the company's direction on the podcast On with Kara Swisher. Deadline reported his comments there.
His summary of the strategy was short. Netflix, he said, is aiming for more and better television shows and more and better movies. He described the brand's core as being thrilling. An entertainment brand, he argued, can be distrusted or disliked, but it can never be boring.
Hastings also pointed to YouTube. He said the video platform has 3 million paid creators competing for viewers' attention. In an earlier interview, reported by Variety in March 2026, he named Netflix's biggest risk. That risk is free, AI-generated content on YouTube leading people to stop paying for subscriptions.
For the money side, Deadline also reported that Paramount paid Netflix a $2.8 billion breakup fee. The payment was part of Paramount's $110 billion purchase of Warner Bros. Discovery, which formed Skydance.
What does this mean for people watching? Netflix has not said which shows or films will be affected by the cuts, and the company has not linked the layoffs to any particular title. For subscribers, the immediate change is at the top. The people who decide what gets made have new names.
For the workers, the picture is less abstract. Roughly 1,000 people lost jobs in a single month, and many of them learned it on a day when their employer's future was already the subject of headlines. Hastings' own surprise is a small window into how quickly the news moved.
Netflix's new content leadership will now decide which series get the next green light and which projects stay in development. Those decisions will shape the streamer's slate for the year ahead.
