Ted Sarandos reveals no data could have predicted success of Squid Game: ‘Twice as expensive’

Sarandos said the show was far from a safe bet financially either. “It was twice as expensive as any hour of Korean show produced. So the team believed in it deeply that it was going to be big,” he said.

He acknowledged that even the internal team that backed the show did not fully anticipate how far it would travel. “Did they think it was going to jump across boundaries? Probably not,” Sarandos said, adding, “But that’s the magic that happens at Netflix.”

What happened next, he explained, was driven not by a deliberate marketing push but by the behaviour of Netflix’s recommendation algorithm responding in real time to how audiences were watching. As viewers in one country started the show and kept watching episode after episode, the system began surfacing it to similar viewers in other countries.

“We have a billion people watching Netflix. This thing about the algorithm that people say is bad, but what is great is because when people watch a new Korean drama and stick to it and start watching episode after episode, it is constantly informing the presentation to each of the members around the world. It is seeing that people who have not been watching are now watching. A country of people watching it. So in three days, it was presented to everyone in the world, and everyone pressed play and loved it,” Sarandos said.

In hindsight, Ted Sarandos said, people assume the success was obvious. “People, now in hindsight, think it is amazing. It is scary. I hung off every cliffhanger, but the truth of it was it was twice as expensive as any hour of Korean television ever produced. So the team believed in it deeply that it was gonna be big.”

Sarandos then drew a clear line between what data can and cannot do for creative decisions. He said data is useful for evaluating execution and estimating potential, but should never be the starting point for deciding what to make.

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“We have data, and if anybody made any big creative decision based on data, that would be a fool’s call. Data can help us determine: if this show is executed as beautifully as the pitch, written as great as the idea, shot as we thought, all of these things happen, how big can it be? There is history to tell if it is niche or not. That can help us inform economics to invest,” Sarandos said.

Squid Game, created and directed by Hwang Dong-hyuk, premiered on Netflix on September 17, 2021, and became the platform’s most-watched series of all time. The show has since spawned two additional seasons, with the third and final season releasing in June 2025. The franchise has expanded beyond streaming into live experiences, gaming and merchandise, and remains one of the most significant cultural exports in the history of Korean entertainment.