Good morning, Broadsheet readers! Sara Blakely sells a major Spanx stake, it’s Latina Equal Pay Day, and we meet Minyoung Kim, the Netflix executive who snapped up the ‘Squid Game’ script. Have a terrific Thursday.
– Giving the green light. Netflix on Wednesday confirmed that the survival thriller Squid Game is now its most popular show ever. Some 142 million households have watched the dystopian drama.
The success of the series from writer and director Hwang Dong-hyuk is a milestone for Korean and Asian storytellers, and—as my colleague Yvonne Lau reports—it’s a career-defining moment for Minyoung Kim, Netflix’s vice president of content in Asia (excluding India), who greenlit the show. Shortly after setting up Netflix’s Seoul office in 2018, the 18-year industry veteran and film nut snapped up the script that Hwang had been shopping around for a decade.
“[W]e were looking for shows that were different from what’s traditionally ‘made it’ and Squid Game was exactly it,” she told Yvonne.
Kim says Squid Game has “traveled” well beyond its domestic market because of its relatable characters—they’re grappling with debt in a hyper-capitalist society—easy-to-understand childhood games, and visually-stunning images.
Kim joined Netflix in 2016 after bouncing around the entertainment industry in Asia and Europe. The streaming giant gave Kim her dream job—”reading scripts, meeting creators and working with different types of people,” she says. Kim’s team in Asia has launched 80 Korean titles on Netflix and has plans for lots more. The streaming giant is investing $500 million in Korean content this year alone, nearly three-fourths what it’s spent in the country in the past four years combined.
As Netflix grapples with the fallout of the Dave Chappelle special (more on that below), Kim acknowledges that “there’s a long way to go” in fostering genuine equality in South Korea and the entertainment industry at large. She sees it as her mission to partner “with different types of creators to tell different stories, [whether] it’s those that have been traditionally successful or others from underrepresented groups.”
You can read Yvonne’s full story on Kim here.
Claire Zillman
claire.zillman@fortune.com
@clairezillman
The Broadsheet, Fortune’s newsletter for and about the world’s most powerful women, is coauthored by Kristen Bellstrom, Emma Hinchliffe, and Claire Zillman. Today’s edition was curated by Emma Hinchliffe.
ALSO IN THE HEADLINES
- Equal pay day. Today is Latina Equal Pay Day, the date Latinas had to work into the new year to earn what white men did the year prior. Latinas, compared to other demographic groups, face one of the largest wage gaps. Read more from Fortune's Marco Quiroz-Gutierrez. Fortune
- Shape up. Sara Blakely became a self-made billionaire by founding Spanx. Now, she's sold a majority stake in the company to Blackstone in a deal valuing the shapewear brand at $1.2 billion. She'll stay on as executive chairwoman when the deal closes. Wall Street Journal
- Paid leave for all. Meghan, the Duchess of Sussex, wrote a letter to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer advocating for federal paid family leave in the U.S. as Congress continues to hammer out its economic package. "I am, like many, an engaged citizen and a parent," she wrote in the open letter. “I’m writing to you at this deeply important time—as a mom—to advocate for paid leave." HuffPost
MOVERS AND SHAKERS: Varo Bank hired Amy Ferris, former Apple marketing exec, as chief growth officer. Airbnb hired civil rights attorney Megan Cacace as director of anti-discrimination policy & equity programs. Former Ulta Beauty CEO Mary Dillon joins the board of Daily Harvest. Rethink Education promoted Ebony Brown to partner.
IN CASE YOU MISSED IT
- Streaming pause. Netflix employees walked out yesterday over the company's handling of Dave Chapelle's anti-trans comments in his Netflix comedy special, including the firing of a Black trans staffer who organized a separate walkout. Co-CEO Ted Sarandos has said he "screwed up" with his response to employees. The 19th*
- VP on unions. Vice President Kamala Harris (who celebrated her birthday yesterday) announced new guidelines with Labor Secretary Marty Walsh encouraging federal workers to join unions. Government jobs will be required to educate new hires about union eligibility, and union representatives will participate in employee trainings. Axios
- Bystander effect. A rape on a commuter train near Philadelphia has prompted outrage for its lack of bystander intervention; passengers saw the assault in action—some even pointing their phones at the rapist—but no one called 911. Experts say changing social norms of the pandemic may have contributed to this case of the bystander effect, with people "retreating into their own corners." Time
ON MY RADAR
Eternals has the MCU’s first Deaf superhero. Her Deafness is one of her superpowers L.A. Times
Talking about abortion with my mom The Cut
These millennial women hadn’t invested before. The pandemic was ‘a wake-up call' Washington Post
PARTING WORDS
-Angelina Jolie, in her speech for Elle's Women in Hollywood event
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