Ted Sarandos is set for a nice pay raise in 2022. In an SEC filing on Tuesday, Netflix set Sarandos’ compensation at $40 million and his co-CEO Reed Hastings (who also happens to be the company’s founder) is expected to receive $34.6 million.
For Hastings, that would keep him in line with prior years, while Sarandos would get a $6 million bump.
Hastings’ pay is made up of $34 million in stock options and $650,000 in base salary, while Sarandos will take a $20 million base salary and $20 million in stock options. This year, they were each due $34.65 million. Because of the value of the stock can change, the final compensation won’t be known until April.
In 2020, Hastings’ total compensation was $43.2 million and Sarandos took home $39.3 million.
Netflix has reached 213.53 million global paid subscribers through the third quarter of 2021 (it will report full year results early next year).
The smash hit of Netflix’s year, no doubt, has been “Squid Game.” The Korean series only debuted in mid-September with about two weeks left in the quarter, and it took that time to become a word-of-mouth breakout. Expect to see a heavy portion of the “Squid Game” effect in Q4 numbers.
Netflix is surely banking on “Squid Game” to bring in new subscribers: The streaming service is forecasting to top 222 million subscribers when it reports its fourth quarter earnings early next year, which would be an addition of 8.5 million subs.
The second season of “The Witcher,” which premiered last weekend, has already topped 142 million viewed and well on its way to becoming one Netflix’s most-watched shows (the service ranks each season individually)