Throughout her childhood, Anjali Sud’s father would put clips from Wall Road Journal articles about chief govt officers on her pillow for her to search out when she went to sleep. The transfer might need been a bit presumptuous, Sud says, however the message that her father, an entrepreneur himself, was sending stayed together with her: “I grew up with dad and mom who believed I could possibly be the individual in that clip,” she now says.
Sud rose to the position of CEO at video streaming platform Vimeo, a part of Barry Diller’s media conglomerate IAC, on the age of 33, and took the corporate public in 2021. Now, she is the CEO of Fox Corp.‘s free ad-supported streaming app Tubi, the place she has overseen speedy progress. In her first full 12 months as CEO (2024), month-to-month energetic customers hit 80 million; it is now nearing 100 million. In February, it hosted the most important streaming occasion of all, the Tremendous Bowl.
Sud’s time at Vimeo was centered on serving to creators get their tales out and that continues to tell her view of the place streaming content material and viewership is headed. “I actually consider the way forward for leisure goes to be free for shoppers,” Sud, who was named to the 2025 Changemakers checklist, tells CNBC. “The way forward for the web is much more variety in storytelling and viewers tastes than mirrored within the conventional Hollywood system at present,” she mentioned.
Beneath are highlights from an prolonged video interview that CNBC’s Julia Boorstin carried out with Sud, through which the CEO weighed in on changing into a chief govt at 33, the competitors throughout the disrupted media panorama, and her method to getting issues finished as her obligations have grown and the stakes have gotten larger. And her greatest life hack of all: getting sufficient sleep.
Chasing Netflix, or any competitors, isn’t any solution to succeed
In case you are making an attempt to compete with Netflix or YouTube straight, it’s possible you’ll be setting your self up for failure. That was Sud’s view when she was main Vimeo and trying to place it for achievement within the media market. “You need to know your strengths and consider you might be embarking on a technique the place you may have the proper to win,” she mentioned.
For Vimeo, the necessity to present extra space to extra creators, and creators’ want for extra instruments, drove the enterprise. “I bear in mind making an attempt to persuade folks earlier than the pandemic that firms would livestream city halls, and I’d be informed no again and again,” she recalled. “It is actually necessary to not let the competitors drive your technique,” she mentioned.
Whereas she says YouTube has, thus far, in all probability taken the concept of enabling creators outdoors of the normal Hollywood system the farthest, she does not suppose any firm has totally succeeded in constructing the enterprise mannequin of taking content material from a various slate of creators that does rather well on social and enabling these creators to provide Hollywood-level content material. And what Tubi is listening to from audiences is that they wish to see this expertise on larger screens.
What is prime to creating the conviction for achievement is listening to and understanding prospects — their wants and the issues they’re making an attempt to unravel.
“Each technique that wins in enterprise has some ingredient of that,” she mentioned.
This does not imply you may ignore the competitors. “Your competitors is your mirror,” she mentioned. “It helps you assess the place to lean into power, or the place to distinguish … what you aren’t going to do. … However do not do issues as a result of others are doing them. That is by no means a very good purpose,” she added.
How Amazon will get product out to market earlier than it is even constructed
Sud was at Amazon again when e-commerce could possibly be described as nonetheless in scaling mode versus dominant mode. It is well-known that Amazon hammers residence the idea of consumers coming first, and Sud mentioned the corporate constructed many administration rules round this core perception. One small apply associated to this which Sud has taken together with her is Amazon’s method to launching a brand new product.
The corporate begins with a apply that appears counter-intuitive: it writes a press launch explaining the brand new product to the shopper earlier than the product exists. After which it “works backwards” from that second, she mentioned.
Amazon can be well-known for a company tradition that prioritizes inner debate, and Sud says that encouraging dissenting views and opinions within the pursuit of attending to the proper reply is one other key to innovation. In any space the place the objective is innovation, there may be “no playbook, no apparent reply,” she says. In consequence, if the interior tradition is not “actually combating it out a bit bit to get to at a proper reply, then your monitor report will not be as robust,” she mentioned.
“Construct the tradition the place folks see you will not get punished for talking your thoughts,” she says.
Being ‘impatient’ at all times labored at Barry Diller’s IAC
Whereas at IAC and on the best way as much as Vimeo CEO, she says the company administration expertise was considerably like being thrown into the deep finish of the pool as a way of studying to swim — in probably the most constructive sense of that analogy, she rapidly added.
IAC acted on a core perception that should you guess on expertise over expertise and provides folks alternatives but additionally “depart it to them to determine it out,” then success will observe for people and their organizations.
That deep-end of the pool analogy was additionally enacted in one other manner at IAC: by way of a philosophy of being “impatient on execution and affected person on imaginative and prescient,” says Sud.
She realized each are potential on the similar time. Leaders want a way of urgency, to be always striving ahead day-to-day on easy methods to execute, however relating to imaginative and prescient always remember that nice companies are constructed over a very long time.
“You possibly can’t surrender when one thing does not go properly. You possibly can’t hedge relating to the precise imaginative and prescient,” she mentioned.
Imposter syndrome is an ‘every single day’ actuality for CEOs
Leaders are sometimes requested what they want they’d identified earlier of their paths to success. For Sud, accepting that “imposter syndrome” will at all times be part of the expertise would have saved some effort and time.
“I spent a lot time after I was youthful; a lot vitality was wasted making an attempt to indicate up as a sure type of chief or making an attempt to contort myself to be what I believed everybody would need me to be, and I want I had simply taken all that vitality and simply centered it on my job and myself,” she mentioned.
Actually, she mentioned that didn’t occur till she turned a CEO, and “had the privilege to be myself.”
She additionally thinks it is not solely necessary for the person however is contagious for the group. “Individuals do not wish to observe and do not rally behind leaders who aren’t genuine,” she mentioned.
However the “imposter” feeling by no means goes away.
“I really feel it every single day, proper now,” she mentioned. “I’ve at all times felt it and reframed it. … No person’s bought it found out. No person,” she mentioned.
Make the tradeoffs wanted to get sufficient sleep
As a working mom, Sud says managing life and work is a continuing wrestle — and he or she concedes that she has much more assist than many working mothers — however she provides that there’s “no higher capital allocator, nobody higher geared up to handle scare sources,” than a working mother.
“My bar for what’s value doing in each facet of life will get larger and better,” she mentioned.
One massive a part of life that Sud says contributes to all of her success is eight to 9 hours of sleep each evening.
“My massive life hack is sleep,” she mentioned. “I’ve been doing it [8-9 hours per night] for a decade, and together with by way of having youngsters and a profession, and many individuals will say how on earth do you try this?”
Along with the assistance Sud will get at residence, she additionally makes some massive every day sacrifices. “If I’ve to decide on between understanding or watching a present, I select sleep. I take the tradeoffs. … I select sleep each single time and undoubtedly took successful to my social life,” she mentioned.
Having been a feminine CEO at a younger age, Sud is intent on recreating the setting through which she was capable of develop. “It made me wish to attain out and have folks on my workforce given that chance,” she mentioned, and he or she added there are examples of ladies on her workforce which have change into two-time CEOs on their very own now.
“It does cascade. If you end up younger and bold, take note of the folks above you and their journeys and attempt to put your self within the place of working at an organization that has that philosophy. It would make issues a lot simpler,” she mentioned.
Watch the video above to be taught extra about Sud’s life and profession and the way she thinks about management and reaching profitable outcomes.