The Netflix Fix - NYTimes.com With deep pockets and a keen eye, Ted Sarandos is fusing Hollywood and Silicon Valley into a new TV paradigm. You can pinpoint the day that the self-described TV nerd Ted Sarandos joined Hollywood's top tier of People Who Write Checks. Actually, you can pinpoint the minute. It was March 15, 2011, and the man running the Los Angeles office of Netflix was putting the final touches on a deal for "House of Cards," a drama of political intrigue directed by David Fincher, of "The Social Network" and "Seven" fame, and starring Kevin Spacey. Discussions with Fincher and a production company, Media Rights Capital, had gone on for weeks, but through careful strategizing, not a single agent was involved in the negotiations. "The last piece of it was that Kevin Spacey had to approve the deal," says Sarandos, recounting the tale in his house in Beverly Hills one recent evening. And I was told as soon as agents were involved, everyone in town would know. He timed it. The Spacey call was made at 1:30 p.m., lobbing the news squarely into the chattiest layer of the entertainment industry ecosystem. A post about the deal hit Deadline Hollywood, the city's go-to Web site, four minutes later. Then came the flood - countless calls and dozens of pitches. Overnight, Sarandos, the company's chief content officer, went from a guy best known for licensing arrangements with studios and networks to a man shopping for new shows with a pair of very deep pockets. Netflix had already waded into the original programming waters with "Lilyhammer," a crime and comedy drama starring Steven Van Zandt, but "Cards" was a cannonball into the deep end. The company committed to an unprecedented two years of the show, at a cost estimated at roughly $100 million. "Before 'House of Cards,' if I said I was interested in hearing some pitches, everyone would bring their recycled stuff," says Sarandos. After the deal, "Mel Brooks called and said, 'I don't know who you are, but people tell me I should talk to you." A youthful-looking 48 years old, Sarandos radiates both a fanboy's delight and unflappable poise. Those attributes will come in handy as he navigates Netflix through what might be the trickiest phase of its topsy-turvy trajectory. His is a risky plan: to create an essentially new kind of media company - both a subscription service and a fledgling network, a little bit iTunes and a little bit HBO - and in so doing change the way we consume TV and movies. Having all but killed the video rental store business with DVDs-by-mail, Sarandos and the Netflix co-founder and C.E.O. Reed Hastings have decided that Netflix's $7.99 a month, all-you-can-stream buffet, which has 33 million subscribers around the world, should include new programs that it underwrites and that aren't available anywhere else - and that can be watched any time, anywhere. With a slate of new shows - including "Hemlock Grove," a terrifically creepy looking horror-thriller, executive produced by Eli Roth, as well as "Orange Is the New Black," a comedy set in a woman's prison, created by Jenji Kohan (of "Weeds" fame) - Netflix will compete as a unique hybrid in one of the most fiercely contested and heavily financed melees of our age. Rivals in this cluttered field include Apple, premium cable channels, broadcast networks, video game makers, other streaming video services and any company vying for mind share in the home entertainment market. To do so, Hastings has given Sarandos nearly carte blanche to build this library of original programming. The two are said to work closely, but with a clear separation of labor. Hastings is the geek-slash-executive who handles coding and marketing; Sarandos glad-hands and cuts deals with Hollywood. The combination worked superbly for years, as the company's streaming service helped drive its share price to a peak of $300 in July of 2011. Then a spectacular stumble came when Netflix announced in September of that year that its 12 million joint streaming/DVD customers would be forced to create a separate account with a new, streaming-only entity called Qwikster. There were howls of protest and, in the months that followed, a net loss of 800,000 subscribers. Qwikster was soon scrapped, and shares of the company were trading in the $60 range by December of that year. Since that debacle, a chastened Netflix has rebounded, adding 10 million subscribers last year alone. But challenges remain: the old mail-and-disc part of the business is actually far more profitable than the streaming end, and its licensing deals restrict it from streaming many top releases from the major movie studios, who still favor pay-per-view channels over Netflix. That problem hints at one of Sarandos's main tasks, and one of his skills: Those who work with him say he's particularly adept at winning over people who are inclined to find him, or, more specifically, the company he works for, menacing. Part of it is that Netflix is both a customer and competitor of the cable and broadcast networks; it buys their shows and then uses them to woo viewers. The potential threat that Sarandos represents has deep roots. Since joining Netflix in 2000, he has been trying to bridge two wealthy fiefs that remain suspicious of each other: Hollywood and Silicon Valley, where the company is based. Hollywood thinks that Silicon Valley is trying to usurp it, and Silicon Valley thinks that Hollywood wants to slow it down. Part of Sarandos's job is to convince the entertainment industry that Netflix comes in peace, or better yet, can make it richer. His charm offensive is aided by Nicole Avant, his wife of three and a half years. Sarandos has two teenage children, Tony and Sarah, from his first marriage. Avant served for two years as the United States ambassador to the Bahamas, a post she assumed in October of 2009 - six weeks after the couple were married - and that she earned by raising money for Obama's senate election campaign. "He was comfortable in his own skin," says Avant, referring to the night they met, after an Obama fund-raiser. I admired that because so many people in this town aren't. Sarandos was raised in Arizona, along with three older sisters and a younger brother, by an electrician father and a mother who liked to keep the TV on all day. His parents, both high school dropouts, did not make education a priority. "With five kids in the house, it was pretty chaotic," he recalls. So I took comfort from what I watched on TV. The structure of TV was the structure of my life. I scheduled myself around when shows were on, because I didn't have any other kind of scheduling. During his first year at community college, he ventured into Arizona Video Cassettes West, one of the first video stores in the state, and asked for a job. He started as a clerk, then managed the place, and then pushed the store owner to open additional stores. Ultimately, there were eight of them, all of which Sarandos ran. For Sarandos, it was a hands-on version of business school, one that offered a minor in film. Day after day, he and managers at other stores would simultaneously pop the same movie into VCRs and critique it over the phone. He watched hundreds of films that way. Years before Netflix started recommending movies based on previous rentals, Sarandos was advising customers of Arizona Video about what to watch next. "I was the original algorithm," he says with a laugh. For the new Netflix model to succeed, the original shows have to be must-sees. At minimum, Sarandos hopes, they'll bring to the company the halo effect that "The Sopranos" delivered to HBO and "Homeland" did to Showtime. Perhaps his savviest move has been to post every episode of each new show on the day it's unveiled. Farewell, "tune in next week." Hello, binge viewing. "We did it with 'Lilyhammer,' and Steven was really opposed to the idea," Sarandos says, "He said, 'Ted, we worked for months and months, writing and shooting and editing this show, and you're just going to throw it out there in one day?' And I said, 'Yeah, just like a Bruce Springsteen album. The whole album. That clicked immediately. Sarandos recalls this conversation one sunny January afternoon in a suite at the Langham Huntington Hotel in Pasadena, Calif., sipping drinks and getting ready for Netflix's first appearance at the Television Critics Association press tour, a twice-a-year confab where new shows are introduced and hyped. Among those preparing to speak during Netflix's presentation is Ricky Gervais, who is sitting on a back porch chair, wearing dark sunglasses and a hoodie. He has come to plug his newest show, "Derek," a comedy set in a retirement home. Mitchell Hurwitz, the creator of "Arrested Development," which is being revived for a Netflix-only audience, is here, too. Both men seem eager to discuss Sarandos. "He's never touched me inappropriately," Gervais deadpans. He's never given me drugs. "So he doesn't really understand talent," Hurwitz says. Gervais then switches into his earnest mode. "Ted, I e-mailed you directly about 'Derek,' didn't I?" he asks Sarandos, who is standing nearby, in a blue Brunello Cucinelli suit. "It was riddled with profanity," Sarandos quips. I remember I wrote, 'Dear Ted, I think Netflix is the future. I'd like to do a show on it. Can I speak to you?'  "It was pretty much that straightforward," Sarandos says, more seriously. I thought, 'I like the tone of this e-mail.'  For now the question remains whether the shows are good enough. But at the Langham in January, the admittedly partisan crowd is bullish, sounding like a sales team that had just been given a pep talk and a three-shot latte. Before heading into the hotel for the company's presentation, the group is herded into the living room for a psych-up session, featuring a "sizzle reel" of the new shows. Some of the cast of "Arrested" is sitting on a sofa, including Will Arnett, Jason Bateman and Portia de Rossi. Snippets of "Derek" are seen, along with "Hemlock Grove," "House of Cards" and "Orange Is the New Black." The montage is slick and stirring, and when the video is finished, the cast of "Arrested" erupts in approval. What's the stock at? Arnett asks. And Bateman shouts, "Buy! Buy!