Tubi CEO Anjali Sud on Accelerating Growth, Embracing Diverse Stories, and Leadership

Accelerating Growth at Tubi

• 🚀 Anjali Sud discusses her role in accelerating growth at Tubi, a free ad-supported streaming platform, aiming to platform more stories and embrace diverse audience tastes.
• 🎯 Tubi has grown to over 97 million monthly active users, with over half of its audience identifying as multicultural and being younger.
• 💡 Sud believes the future of entertainment is free for consumers and that Tubi is democratizing entertainment by helping every story find its audience.

Strategic Decision-Making and Competition

• 🧠 Sud emphasizes knowing your strengths and having the right to win, rather than directly competing with giants like Netflix or YouTube.
• 🧭 Tubi focuses on serving creators and businesses needing video tools, recognizing the shift to a video-first world.
• 🗣️ She advises that strategy should be rooted in understanding customer needs, not driven by competition, using competition as a mirror to identify strengths and differentiation.

Leadership Lessons from Amazon and Barry Diller

• 💡 Sud brought core Amazon values to Vimeo and Tubi, including putting the customer first, starting with a press release, and using the "five whys" for problem-solving.
• 🤝 The "disagree and commit" principle is highlighted as crucial for fostering a culture where dissenting views are encouraged to find the right answer.
• 🏊‍♀️ Working with Barry Diller was like being thrown into the deep end, emphasizing a philosophy of betting on talent and giving opportunities, coupled with being impatient on execution and patient on vision.

Embracing Challenges and Authenticity

• 🌟 Sud has always experienced imposter syndrome but reframes it as a catalyst for fearlessness, encouraging others not to limit themselves.
• 💪 Early life failures, like a difficult year at 14, built grit and resilience, teaching her to run towards challenges rather than away from them.
• 🎭 Authenticity is key; Sud learned to be herself as CEO, realizing that leaders gain trust by being real with their teams.

Fostering Innovation and Entrepreneurship

• 💡 Tubi fosters an entrepreneurial environment through fast decision-making and a clear vision, even within a large corporation like Fox.
• 🤝 The value of "swinging big" is celebrated at Tubi, acknowledging that failure is a part of innovation and providing opportunities to learn from setbacks.
• 💬 Distilling complex ecosystems, like the video creator space, comes from talking to people, listening to customers, and understanding their needs, which clarifies strategy and communication.

The Future of Streaming and Creator Economy

• 📈 Tubi's strategy includes leveraging the creator economy, with initiatives like the "fan-fueled studio" in partnership with Issa Rae, to help creators transition to Hollywood.
• 🌟 Sud sees Tubi's impact in democratizing storytelling and helping underestimated audiences feel seen, a value derived from social media listening.
• 😴 A key life hack for preventing burnout is prioritizing 8-9 hours of sleep, viewing it as essential for maintaining passion and energy to enable the best in oneself and others.