# The Netflix Layoffs Reveal What Corporate America Is Getting Wrong.

Opinion

— October 27, 2026

By Paul Hardart

As seen in: Fortune

![Paul Hardart](/sites/default/files/styles/492w/public/assets/images/Hardart%2C%20Paul%20.jpg.webp?itok=x0ET7p-C)

Last week, Netflix eliminated roughly 1,000 jobs and replaced its chief content officer, Bela Bajaria, who had spent years helping transform the streaming service into a global entertainment powerhouse. Netflix said Bajaria was “leaving” after nearly a decade. She wasn’t departing to “spend more time with her family” or to “pursue other interests.” Whatever the circumstances of her departure, she was out.

Donald Trump turned firing people into a catchphrase on *The Apprentice*. But somewhere along the way, corporate America seems to have turned that sentiment into a management philosophy. Her replacement, Peter Rice, knows the experience firsthand. In 2022, Rice was abruptly dismissed from his senior position at Disney by then-CEO Bob Chapek, reportedly catching himself and much of Hollywood by surprise. Only months later, Chapek himself was fired, learning of his own dismissal via a phone call at home hours before he was scheduled to introduce Elton John at a concert at Dodger Stadium that was being live streamed on Disney+.

In his recent memoir, *Behind the Castle Walls*, Chapek reflects on the painful end to his decades-long Disney career, including the absence of an opportunity to say goodbye to the employees he had spent years working alongside. Why, he wondered, did they have to be so cold?

Read full [*Fortune* article](https://fortune.com/2026/10/27/netflix-layoffs-corporate-america-getting-wrong-dignity/).
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*Paul Hardart is Clinical Professor of Marketing and Director of the Entertainment, Media and Technology Program at NYU Stern.*

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