Netflix veteran Todd Yellin, who has led the streamer’s product teams spanning functions from user interface to pricing, is leaving the company.
Yellin, who has worked at the company for almost 17 years, will stay on at Netflix through September to help recruit his successor. The operator is credited with a variety of innovations, including spearheading the creation of Netflix’s trademark sonic “tudum” and promoting the company’s personalized content recommendations.
Yellin said he plans to pursue potential film and television projects starting in the fall. Before joining Netflix, he wrote and directed the independent family drama feature “Brother’s Shadow” (available to stream on Netflix) and the short film “The Eternal Pitch”. He also worked as a documentarian, filming political unrest in places like Tibet and Myanmar.
“When I joined Netflix almost 17 years ago, I had just released my first feature film and planned to wait a few years to straighten out my finances before embarking on another film project,” Yellin said in a statement given to Variety. “Year after year, it became impossible to walk away from the allure of revolutionizing how movies and TV shows are discovered and consumed, not to mention having the opportunity to evolve video storytelling. It was a hell of a decision but life is short and I want to go back to my filmmaking roots.”
Yellin’s departure was announced in an internal memo to Netflix staff on Thursday. He joined Netflix in January 2006 – before it launched its first streaming service – as director of product management for personalization.
Since being named VP of product in 2014, he has overseen the Netflix teams responsible for end-to-end customer experience including growth, pricing, payments, programmatic acquisition marketing, content discovery algorithms, and user interfaces across a wide variety of devices.
“Todd has been at the heart of our product strategy for nearly 17 years – helping to develop major innovations like our personalized recommendations and our brand-defining ‘tumblr audio,'” said Greg Peters, Netflix CEO and chief product officer, in a statement. “He is consistently one of the most exuberant people I have ever worked with – a true champion of our customers, product, content and culture. We wish him all the best for the future.”
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