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Meet Reed Hastings, the man who built Netflixhttps://www.businessinsider.in/meet-reed-hastings-the-man-who-built-netflix/reed-hastings-was-born-in-boston-massachusetts-on-october-8-1960-to-joan-and-wilmot-hastings-his-father-was-a-lawyer-who-later-worked-for-the-nixon-administration-/slidelist/48849609.cms2021-07-26T12:47:33+05:30

Meet Reed Hastings, the man who built Netflix

Jul 26, 2021, 12:47 IST

Reed Hastings was born in Boston, Massachusetts on October 8, 1960, to Joan and Wilmot Hastings. His father was a lawyer who later worked for the Nixon Administration.

Hastings attended Bowdoin College where he earned a bachelor's degree in mathematics and ran the Outing Club where he organized climbing and canoeing trips.

After college, he joined the Peace Corps to teach high school math for two years in Swaziland, an experience he's called "a combination of service and adventure."

After returning to the States, Hastings earned his master's in artificial intelligence at Stanford. He credits the school with turning him on to the entrepreneurial model. Interestingly enough, Stanford's graduate school of business named Netflix the 2014 Entrepreneurial Company of the Year.

In 1991, Hastings founded Pure Software, which developed a debugging tool for engineers. The company reportedly doubled its revenue every year and Hastings soon moved from his position as an engineer to CEO (although he now admits there were major hiccups in his managerial style).

Pure Software went public in 1995 and was eventually acquired by Rational Software. Hastings earned $750 million from the acquisition and was able to cofound Netflix with Marc Randolph in 1997. The idea for Netflix came after Hastings was charged a $40 late fee for an overdue rental from Blockbuster.

Ironically, Hastings offered to sell forty-nine percent of Netflix to Blockbuster in 2000 to act as an online arm for the video-rental giant. Blockbuster turned them down and Hastings returned home to promote Netflix as the rental underdog.

Five years later the tables turned. By 2005, Netflix had 4.5 million subscribers and counting, beating out any online efforts made by Blockbuster. During this time, Hastings, his wife Patty, and their two children were renting a house outside of Rome and he was commuting to Silicon Valley two weeks out of every month.

Netflix continued to grow into the online marketplace by offering on-demand streaming services – by 2010 it had 16 million subscribers. After a brief separation of the DVD rental and on-demand streaming portions of Netflix in 2011, Hastings rejoined the two after he regretfully admitted the division was a mistake.

In 2013, Hastings moved Netflix into uncharted territory when it premiered its first original television series, "House of Cards." The show was nominated for a staggering nine Primetime Emmy awards and went on to win three – rivaling a number of traditional shows. By the end of that year, Netflix’s stock had tripled in value.

Netflix stocks have ridden a rocky road since the company went public in 2002. But as of August 2015, Netflix surged to an all-time high with shares up 9925% above the IPO price. “We will come to see that linear TV declines every year for the next 20 years...and that internet TV rises every year for the next 20 years,” Hastings said at a media conference in Berlin this year.

In August 2015, Netflix announced unlimited maternity and paternity leave for its employees, paving the way for forward-thinking companies to follow suit. The forward-thinking company already offered unlimited vacation for its employees.

Hastings reportedly doesn't have an office at Netflix headquarters in Los Gatos, California. Instead, he floats around between desks, and when he needs a break, heads to the "towering inferno" – a secluded square room built on the roof of Netflix’s main building.

Netflix's leading man is not only paving the way for the future of television, he's also a staunch advocate for education reform in California. Hastings served as President of the California State Board of Education from 2001 to 2004 where he lobbied for charter schools. Last year, he was the Keynote Speaker at the 2014 Annual CA Charter Schools Conference.

In December 2013, Hastings and John Doerr, of venture capitalist firm Kleiner Perkins, invested a combined $14.5 million in DreamBox Learning, an online math program for elementary and middle school students.

Hastings and his wife signed the Bill and Melinda Gates Giving Pledge in 2012, vowing to give away a hefty portion of their wealth. At the time, Hastings was not yet a billionaire.

Today, Hastings's net worth is $1.54 billion according to Forbes, most of which is tied to Netflix stock.

Outside of Netflix, he's a board member on a handful of organizations, including Facebook since 2011, and is still active in education philanthropy. According to his Facebook page, he also enjoys trips to Monterey with friends and family and is close with the Zuckerbergs.

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