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Netflix's Annual Reports (10-Ks) used to be a work of art. What happened?

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Re: Netflix's Annual Reports (10-Ks) used to be a work of art. What happened?

#11

Post by breput »

ilaksh wrote: post #6

I think it's the difference between paying the word processing department (if those still exist) to edit last year's document and paying for what amounts to an expensive marketing campaign that few people are going to see.

More than a few EU companies are outsourcing the design of their 20-F/40-F documents to design companies.

It is mostly a style/taste thing, although I know that some US companies are also interested in improving the presentations of their filings.

There are a lot of limitations and constraints involved when you're filing HTML that needs to look decent against all browsers and operating systems. Some filers will make a highly designed report and file it as a PDF alongside the official HTML version.

Re: Netflix's Annual Reports (10-Ks) used to be a work of art. What happened?

#13

Post by H8crilA »

I understand the point of the article, but if you're serious about reading company statements you (at least at first) skip all promo material / preso-looking pages and skip to the part looks the most boring. Literally, don't even look at them (at first). Or even better you can do it the Buffett way, read from the end to the beginning.

Re: Netflix's Annual Reports (10-Ks) used to be a work of art. What happened?

#14

Post by breput »

breput wrote: post #12

I don't know where this blog is getting their data from, but Netflix's 10-K filings have never been highly designed. https://www.sec.gov/cgi-bin/browse-edgar?action=getcompany&C...

I assume they are pulling these from Netflix's Investor Relations site. That is a very different question than what is officially filed, which is very different from what this blog presents.

Re: Netflix's Annual Reports (10-Ks) used to be a work of art. What happened?

#15

Post by bluedays »

ntdef wrote: post #7

What happened was Barry McCarthy, who was CFO at Netflix till 2010, left Netflix. Barry was an exceedingly creative and forward thinking CFO. He was the CFO responsible for taking Spotify public via direct listing in 2018, which was an incredibly bold move at the time. Definitely creative as far as CFOs go.

I was just thinking it was probably the work one one guy who doesn’t work at the company anymore

Re: Netflix's Annual Reports (10-Ks) used to be a work of art. What happened?

#16

Post by carls »

breput wrote: post #12

I don't know where this blog is getting their data from, but Netflix's 10-K filings have never been highly designed. https://www.sec.gov/cgi-bin/browse-edgar?action=getcompany&C...

It seems like the blog is referencing the documents posted directly on Netflix's website[1], the early versions of which do open up with well-designed cover pages.

In contrast, the link you shared is perhaps the direct filings that the SEC receives from the company, which may remove these designed elements prior to filing.

-----

[1] https://ir.netflix.net/financials/annual-reports-and-proxies...

Re: Netflix's Annual Reports (10-Ks) used to be a work of art. What happened?

#18

Post by WheelsAtLarge »

I worked for a company that would spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on their annual report. Every year it was a big deal. There were meetings, interviews, photo shoots and a lot of late nights to make sure it was just perfect and on time. It was beautiful every year.

Then one year a new Chief of operations was hired. She reviewed costs and saw that the creative department was too expensive. She closed it and outsourced the work.

One thing that happened was that the annual report was turned into a plain accounting report which reported the needed information. Tada, no one really complained, people that needed the information got what they needed and a few hundred thousand dollars was saved every year. It never came back.

Re: Netflix's Annual Reports (10-Ks) used to be a work of art. What happened?

#19

Post by breput »

carls wrote: post #16
breput wrote: post #12

I don't know where this blog is getting their data from, but Netflix's 10-K filings have never been highly designed. https://www.sec.gov/cgi-bin/browse-edgar?action=getcompany&C...

It seems like the blog is referencing the documents posted directly on Netflix's website[1], the early versions of which do open up with well-designed cover pages. In contrast, the link you shared is perhaps the direct filings that the SEC receives from the company, which may remove these designed elements prior to filing. ----- [1] https://ir.netflix.net/financials/annual-reports-and-proxies...

That's what I figured. So the blog post is completely off-course - this person is complaining that the Investor Relations site no long has tarted up versions of the annual filings.

"One fine day, as I was following the internet rathole, I landed myself on the Netflix investor page for some reason. One thing to understand about these 10-K forms is that these are …. pretty basic."

Like the vast majority of companies that just need to comply with their regulatory requirements.

Re: Netflix's Annual Reports (10-Ks) used to be a work of art. What happened?

#20

Post by carls »

ntdef wrote: post #7

What happened was Barry McCarthy, who was CFO at Netflix till 2010, left Netflix. Barry was an exceedingly creative and forward thinking CFO. He was the CFO responsible for taking Spotify public via direct listing in 2018, which was an incredibly bold move at the time. Definitely creative as far as CFOs go.

I'm not sure this is a sufficient explanation.

McCarthy left in 2010. But it looks like the decline in the "designy"-ness began in 2006.

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