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https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2023/01/16/how-much-more-netflix-can-the-world-absorb-bela-bajaria>
"Bela Bajaria, Netflix’s global head of television, follows a similar routine
whether she’s visiting Mumbai or Berlin or Seoul or Stockholm or any of the
company’s twenty-six foreign outposts. A black car brings her from the airport
to a luxury hotel, perhaps the Four Seasons. She checks in and furiously
answers e-mails from Los Angeles until it’s time for a breakfast or a dinner or
a midday meal with executives and creators. She wears her favorite “travel
blazer,” a designer jacket bejewelled on the breast pocket with the words “Art
is truth.” And, though she often stays “in country” for only a day or two at a
time, she likes to schedule a “slate meeting” so that the local development
team can fill her in on upcoming programs. On an afternoon not long ago, she
was kicking off one such meeting at the company’s Latin American headquarters,
inside one of the tallest skyscrapers in Mexico City.
“Next time, I’ll get to stay for a week, so I won’t have to eat twenty-four
tacos in twenty-four hours, like last time,” she said to the room of assembled
staff members.
Bajaria told me that the ideal Netflix show is what one of her V.P.s, Jinny
Howe, calls a “gourmet cheeseburger,” offering something “premium and
commercial at the same time.” She praised the Latin American group for its
recent track record of making slick telenovelas that draw large audiences
outside Spanish-speaking regions.
“It’s been a lot of learning for other countries to do the type of very
commercial things that this team did early on,” she said. A onetime winner of
the Miss India Universe beauty pageant, Bajaria has glossy black hair that she
often pulls into a high ponytail. Her voice, which she joked is classic “L.A.
Valley Girl,” contributes to the impression that she’s younger than her
fifty-two years. Although she is ceaselessly on the road for work, she says
that she never experiences jet lag, a claim corroborated by her invariably
peppy demeanor. “Is there anything you still think we need to do in terms of
making a bigger bet, or a fresh swing?” she asked."
Via
Garbage Day: The doomscrolling is the point
https://www.garbageday.email/p/the-doomscrolling-is-the-point
Share and enjoy,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
