The Pulse #121: Netflix’s remarkable turnaround
In two years, the streaming giant’s valuation increased by 4x. Also: learnings from a managed database service losing customer data, and more.
The Pulse is a series covering insights, patterns, and trends within Big Tech and startups. Notice an interesting event or trend? Send me a message.
Today, we cover:
Industry pulse. TikTok’s gamble pays off, Stripe and Meta do 4-5% layoffs, Reflections on a month of using Devin, Hundreds of billions in AI infra investments, Amazon’s AI models fail to impress, Google allows malware Homebrew install links as sponsored Search results, and more.
Netflix’s remarkable turnaround. In two years, Netflix went from growth stalling – and the company’s valuation in freefall – to all-time-high user numbers and valuation. The standout stock price growth means that Netflix employees who opted to take a part of their compensation as stock options most certainly did better than those opting for all-cash packages.
Managed database service loses customer data. Database-as-a-service Turso lost customer data thanks to no backups running on beta service offerings. There are learnings not just for the startup – launching a service without backups running doesn’t feel like a responsible move – but also for all engineering teams. Don’t assume your vendor does backups: validate that they do.