Netflix Taps Former Apple Podcasts Marketing Chief Steve Wilson to Run Podcast Acquisitions

Netflix has hired Steve Wilson to lead its expansion into podcasts, Variety has confirmed. Wilson will oversee the streamer's podcast content acquisitions and is working with the company on a contract basis.

Wilson arrives with a long background in the audio industry. He spent 15 years at Apple, where his most recent role was head of marketing for Apple Podcasts, and he worked with podcasters and networks. He left Apple in December 2020. After that, he served for nearly six years as chief strategy officer at the podcast studio QCode, then took the same title at Daylight Media before moving to Netflix.

The hire comes as Netflix builds out its podcast offering. As reported in September, the service now carries more than 60 video podcasts, and the company has kept pushing to widen that catalog.

Its original video podcast lineup currently includes the true-crime show "Murder With My Husband" and "The Pete Davidson Show," a talk show hosted by the "Saturday Night Live" alum. It also features "Shut Up Evan," a pop-culture interview show hosted by Evan Ross Katz, and "The Puzzle Room With David Kwong." Another entry is "Allegedly," a true-crime podcast from NBC News correspondent Ellison Barber.

Wilson joins at a turbulent moment for the company. Two weeks ago, Netflix announced layoffs affecting 6% of its employees, about 1,000 jobs. It was the largest cut in the company's history, and it fell mainly on staff in the product, technology, legal and HR teams, according to an email to employees from co-CEOs Ted Sarandos and Greg Peters.

In the memo, a copy of which Variety obtained, the co-CEOs wrote: "Our mission, to entertain the world, is ambitious, and delivering on it requires us to be disciplined about where we prioritize our people and resources."

The layoffs coincided with a shake-up among Netflix's senior content leaders. The company pushed out chief content officer Bela Bajaria, head of film Dan Lin and his top lieutenant Doug Belgrad, as well as director of original series Carolina Garcia. Veteran TV executive Peter Rice was chosen to succeed Bajaria.

Asked about the changes on the content side during the streamer's third-quarter 2026 earnings call, Sarandos said: "I know that we could do better, and we want to build on that momentum."