The World of Streaming with Netflix’s Steve Dorn, BS ’11

No matter what, Steve Dorn, BS ’11, was going to end up working at Netflix. 

From his first job out of school — an ad operations role at global media company Universal McCann — he was looking for a way into the entertainment world. 

“I volunteered to pay more attention to digital video ads, and that’s what first got me working with a lot of the video publishers out there,” Dorn says. “I ended up doing a lot of work with Hulu, VEVO, and larger networks like Fox and NBC for our digital ad presence.” 

This was 2013, when Hulu was the only streaming service with an ad-supported model. Dorn was eventually tapped for a job with the company by one of the managers he worked with and became one of the first ad campaign managers in the New York office. 

His time at Hulu was a whirlwind of growth. The service began creating original content like “The Handmaid’s Tale,” branched into the live TV business and launched an ad-free tier. He took on a leadership position in 2014 and spent the next five years at the helm during the expansion of the company’s ad operations team. 

Disney acquired majority ownership of Hulu in 2019, and Dorn helped oversee the integration of two account management teams across the two companies.

“With that comes a lot of integration of large teams, and that was quite the experience — it was very rewarding to bring everyone together, but also very challenging,” he says. “We launched Disney Plus in 2022, and it was exciting to be a part of bringing a new app and a new platform to life.” 

In 2023, Dorn’s dream job came knocking. 

“I had always said that if Netflix was to build an advertising team, that would be the one place I’d really want to go,” he says.

He took the job as director of account management in the infancy of the advertising program and “essentially built the team out from scratch.” 

“This was a global role, which was new to me,” he says. “Disney operated very regionally, but at Netflix I was tasked with building the team across 12 ad-supported countries and hiring the leaders throughout each region. We scaled the team from almost zero when I started to nearly 150 in just a year and a half.” 

That fast-paced, innovative style is par for the course at Netflix, Dorn says.

“Things move incredibly fast here, and that is intentional. We’re comfortable with moving fast, tripping along the way and quickly getting better. We’re always thinking forward about how we’re going to innovate in the future.”

Dorn sees the future of streaming services as one that prioritizes choice.

“I think you’ll continue to see providers with an ad-supported tier and an ad-free tier because companies need that dual revenue stream, and it also gives users choice, and choice is really important,” he says. “You’re always going to have ad avoiders that are totally comfortable paying more each month to never see an ad, and then you’re going to have a ton of others who are ad acceptors who are comfortable seeing those ads, especially when they’re relevant to their lives.”

Alongside these developments, Dorn has seen the proliferation of AI technology impacting efficiency in the workplace. 

“Netflix is very open about embracing AI, which I think you have to be,” Dorn says. “It’s a matter of allowing your talent to spend more time on strategic activities or activities that are going to bring more value to the company. In my department, there’s a lot of backend work that we can now automate, and it’s not that we’re going to have a smaller workforce, but that they’re going to be able to contribute to the company in more exciting ways.” 

Dorn got his first job after graduation through a connection from one of his marketing professors, Kimberly K. Richmond, and has since strived to help his fellow Hawks in the same way. He recently spoke to students in the American Marketing Association (AMA) and was named the chapter’s Marketer of the Year in September. 

“I remember signing up for Dave Allen’s entertainment marketing course and being so excited to learn the ins and outs of these businesses,” he says. “So much of the foundation of how I do my job now came from these courses, and I had the best four years at St. Joe’s. When I have advice or knowledge, I’m of course happy to give that back to current students.”