Netflix executive on what getting fired publicly taught her: 'First 3 months were really...'

Bela Bajaria said after being fired from Universal Television, she wondered if the hard work she put into her career was worthwhile. (Image credit: LinkedIn, Unsplash)

Netflix's chief content officer Bela Bajaria has had an incredible nine-year run at the company. But before she joined the streaming giant, she was publicly fired from her role as president of Universal Television in 2016. Although it was a bitter pill to swallow, Bajaria has said it turned out to be “the greatest learning lesson”.

Bajaria had worked at the company for five years and had major accomplishments to boast of. Calling the incident a “big public failure,” she told CNBC: "There’s amazing books and quotes and all this stuff about [how] you learn so much from failure, and failure is important, and you’re not trying hard enough if you’re not failing. And all of that is true, but then when you fail, nobody wants to talk about it.”

Bajaria told the publication that the first few months after being fired publicly were particularly tough. She found it hard to separate her personal identity from her professional status and wondered if the hard work she put into her career was worthwhile. "All those amazing shows, all these great relationships I built; I treated people so fairly. We had a lot of success — it meant nothing," she recalled thinking.

But in retrospect, Najaria said she was "so grateful that it happened". “I’m not scared of getting fired. It’s very liberating, actually," she told CNBC.

Moreover, the response she received from others was exactly the opposite of what she anticipated. “I quickly realised, as the phone rang and I got job offers, and everybody reached out, and people were really supportive — it all mattered. The way I treated people, what I had done, the impact I left — it all mattered,” Bajaria said.

“I knew I could always look at myself in the mirror and [think] I liked what I had done. I didn’t have any shame around what I did. I thought it was really a great, successful run,” she added.