The company confirmed the cuts to TechCrunch and said it will “continue to invest aggressively in high impact areas” while remaining on track to meet its full-year forecast. NBC News, citing a source with knowledge of the matter and a company email it reviewed, reported that the layoffs were announced internally Wednesday.
The Wall Street Journal first reported the move from an internal memo. According to NBC, co-chief executives Greg Peters and Ted Sarandos told employees that “delivering on” Netflix’s mission to entertain the world “requires us to be disciplined about where we prioritize our people and resources.”
That is the familiar corporate language around layoffs: discipline, focus, priorities. But the departments matter. Product and technology sit close to the question Netflix has been wrestling with in public — not whether people know the app exists, but whether they spend enough time there.
TechCrunch said Netflix had 16,000 full-time employees at the end of last year, citing the company’s annual filing. NBC reported that users watched more than 97 billion hours of content in the first half of 2026, up 2% from a year earlier. Growth is still growth, but it also helps explain why a company can talk about aggressive investment and staff cuts in the same breath.
TechCrunch described a broader fight for attention that now includes YouTube, TikTok, Instagram and other social apps, not just rival streaming services. It also pointed to Netflix’s recent pushes into AI-supported features, gaming, video podcasts, short-form video and a redesigned mobile app.
The cuts do not mean Netflix is retreating from those bets. The company’s own wording suggests the opposite: fewer people overall, but more insistence on concentrating money and staff where it thinks the return will be clearer.
Harvey Jr. 
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