Reed Hastings, the man who built the world’s most successful TV streaming service (and changed the way we entertain ourselves in the process) makes no apologies for Netflix’s extreme – some might say extremely odd – workplace culture GoodWeekendMag
Radical honesty. Dispassionate sackings. “Sunshining” failure. Reed Hastings, the man who built the world’s most successful TV streaming service makes no apologies for Netflix’s extreme – some might say extremely odd – workplace culture.Reed Hastings: “You may not know what the threat is, but there’s always threats out there.”Reed Hastings is not the warmest interview. That’s not a personal assessment, but the warning I receive in advance of our chat.
A normal life is unlikely for Hastings. The company he co-created in 1997 now has 193 million subscribers in 190 countries, including 5.4 million accounts in Australia. Hastings looks through DVD envelopes in 2005. Netflix now has 193 million subscribers in 190 countries, including 5.4 million accounts in Australia.Let’s not forget his net worth, either. He might dress in the T-shirt, jeans and jacket uniform of the American tech CEO, but according to Forbes this new media mogul has a not inconsequential fortune of $US5.6 billion . I’m loath to admit it, but his time is indisputably more valuable than mine.
In 1978 he went to Bowdoin College, a small nearby liberal arts school, where he discovered an aptitude for mathematics. He loved being great at something, fell particularly hard for self-paced classes, and has said that “calculus was my first binge”. He once toldhe had no hobbies and was a “pitiful failure as a Renaissance man”, yet he had an intrepid streak at university, running the Outing Club, organising hikes and canoeing trips.
Eventually their combined company was acquired by another for $US750 million. “We were both out of a job,” Randolph says, “but in that wonderful Silicon Valley way where you stay on for six months to advise.” With Ted Sarandos, who was named co-CEO in July this year. Hastings says he'll be around for another decade at least.. Ted Sarandos, his current co-CEO, remembers meeting him in San Jose in 1999, and listening to a lengthy dissertation on Moore’s Law: the theory of exponential growth in computing power. “Reed was talking about how all filmed entertainment would one day be delivered directly into homes through the internet. That was a very abstract idea back then!” says Sarandos.
“He is not a naturally empathetic guy. He’s not a bad person – he just doesn’t feel what others feel.” The 126-slide presentation went viral. Facebook chief operating officer Sheryl Sandberg later said it may well be “the most important document ever to come out of the Valley”. It became a recruiting tool, and the cultish personality of the company was born. Its workplace wouldn’t be a “family”, for instance, but something closer to a professional sports team.
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