Entertainment luminary Shonda Rhimes is leaving Disney Company's ABC Studios to join Netflix. Ms. Rhimes and her team launched popular programs "Scandal" and "Grey's Anatomy" and "How to Get Away with Murder." She was paid a handsome $10 million yearly to be under Disney's tent. For that paycheck Ms. Rhimes more than delivered - her team and their popular programming brought in more than an estimated $2 billion in advertising and syndication and licensing fees.
This announcement reiterated that creativity is king (or queen) in any endeavor. Netflix has no qualms taking on Goliath Disney in the race for streaming to eyeballs. Blockbuster looked at buying Netflix many years ago but passed insisting that customers wanted to come into Blockbuster's physical stores to purchase their entertainment. Now the no longer small Netflix is hiring away top talent from the top studios.
Disney acted more than fairly in the transaction by letting Ms. Rhimes out of her contract with the studio one year early.
Persistence paid off for Netflix's Chief Content Officer Ted Sarandos. Mr. Sarandos stayed in touch with Rhimes over the past years asking her for her opinions on some of Netflix's original shows. In one report Ms. Rhimes complimented Mr. Sarandos on having personally dropped off a DVD to Ms. Rhimes that he wanted her to watch.
All of us wonder if we should make one more call or write one more note to our prospects - follow your intuition, make the call or write the note. Who knows how it might pay off.