[squarecog]

Why is this odd?

If he started two years later and there was not a trace of the Prize work at the company, that would be an indicator that the competition was not important. If he started and could still see knock-on effects from the competition, that's an indicator that it was important.

Plus, he didn't just start at Netflix. He "took over the small team that was working and maintaining the rating prediction algorithm that included the first year Progress Prize solution."

Yeah, that sounds like he has some authority on the matter.

[alberth]

Could it not be something more simple like, Netflix didn’t originally have profiles. So my child watching kid shows and me watching action shows were all feeding into the same recommendation system resulting in subpar results. That and they originally had a 5 star rating system which they then dropped.

Its very possible Netflix realized they needed to course correct the UX and as a result the winners algorithm was solving for a problem that no longer applied because it was using assumptions (rating system & no existence of different profiles) that were no longer relevant.