✔️ 2022-12-10 23:05:00 – Paris/France.
A $40 fine for late delivery of a movie he paid for in 1997 was the seed of an idea that changed his life. Hastings Reed, an American businessman born in 1960 in the city of Boston, Massachusetts. While involved in various ventures, his most famous contribution is co-founded Netflix and run the business diffusion most famous in the world as a CEO since 1998.
Hastings is recognized for his unique leadership style and business success, in a career that included selling vacuum cleaners and teaching math in a small, isolated country in Africa.
So it was: After graduating from Buckingham Browne & Nichols School in 1978, Hastings took a year off to work as a door to door vacuum cleaner salesman.
He attended Bowdoin College to major in math and trained for the marine corps during the summers of his university years. He also went to Officer Candidate School in 1981.
Instead of a Marine Corps career, Hastings turned to the Peace Corps to teach math from 1983 to 1985 at swatinia small country in southern Africa, then called Swaziland.
Hastings then received a IT master from Stanford University in 1988 and started working as a software developer.
Reed Hastings is a quiet millionaire.
From software to Streaming
Beyond those brief stints selling vacuum cleaners, training in the Marine Corps, and volunteering with the Peace Corps, Hastings' career has largely been in two phases: as a software developer and CEO.
He has been involved in both careers as a founder or co-founder, helping him achieve his current wealth and success in the media industry.
The company PureSoftware, which Hastings founded in 1991, created a debugging tool that engineers could use. It was a successful business that doubled its revenue every year.
“At the time, I was kayaking in white water, and in a kayak, if you look and focus on the problem, you're much more likely to run into danger,” Hastings told The New York Times about his experience with Pure Software. " I focused on drinking water and what he wanted to happen. I didn't listen to the skeptics,” he recalls.
Morgan Stanley took the company public in 1995, so Hastings went from engineer to CEO. Hastings sold Pure Software, then known as Pure Atria, in 1997 for 750 million.
RationalSoftware acquired the company, giving Hastings enough funds to focus on his next business venture as the next media mogul.
Reed Hasting is co-founder of Netflix.
netflix origin
It took Hastings a while to develop the idea for Netflix. Wanting to start a new business, he reached out to his former colleague and former Vice President of Corporate Marketing for Pure Atria, Marc Randolph. Randolph was interested in helping fund a company that could achieve the same success and widespread use as Amazon. They explored e-commerce ideas as varied as home delivery of shampoo and surfboards. The two entrepreneurs finally decided to create a mail-order service for one of the media technologies: the DVD.
Hastings got the idea for a subscription movie rental service after a bad experience with a video store
“I was very late to pay”apollo 13'” he told the New York Times in 2006. “I was 6 weeks late and owed the video store $40. He had misplaced the tape. It was all my fault. I didn't want to tell my wife. And I thought, 'Am I going to compromise the integrity of my marriage for late fees? Later, on the way to the gym, I realized they had a much better business model. You could pay $30 or $40 a month and be as little or as late as you wanted. »
The company received 239 subscribers in the first year alone. Users kept a queue of DVDs they wanted to watch on Netflix.com, and the company sent them one by one in the then-iconic red envelopes. Subscribers could keep the movies for as long as they wanted without late fees.
The CEO split Netflix's traditional DVD subscription and its Streaming then fledgling into separate services with separate fees, sending the company headlong into crisis. "We want to be ready when video on demand comes along," Hastings Inc. said in 2005. "That's why the company is called Netflix, not DVD-by-Mail“. Customers were outraged by the new subscription options, and Netflix's stock price plummeted 75% at the end of 2011. Netflix's subscriber base slowly rebounded thanks to its critically acclaimed original content, and the entertainment giant now has more than 200 million subscribers worldwidedespite the recent drop in subscriber numbers.
Hastings became president of Netflix on August 29, 1997. Held 70% ownership And while Randolph initially served as CEO, Hastings became CEO in 1998. The company grew rapidly, expanding its library and audience. Netflix went public in 2002, Randolph resigned as CEO in 2003, and the company started streaming content in 2007.
From mailing to Streaming
Before becoming the service of Streaming popular as it is today, Netflix offered DVD rentals by mail.
The media giant was a pioneer in the industry. It not only revolutionized the movie rental industry with convenient and widespread DVD-by-mail services, but also paved the way for streaming services.
As a service leader in Streaming, Netflix has dramatically expanded access to on-demand entertainment.
Hastings led the company in its move from DVD rental to Streaming television, documentaries and films, in addition to its growing collection of Netflix Originals.
Hastings became known for his style of leadership without intervention while he was CEO of Netflix.
For example, it offers its employees opportunities to innovate and introduce new show ideas, like House of Cards.
Reed Hastings (first from left), with President Alberto Fernández in Buenos Aires on February 18, 2020.
discreet millionaire
The net worth of the Hastings fortune is estimated to be around 3 billion. Part of his fortune was intended to support education reform and bolster Democratic Party election campaigns in the United States.
Although he only owns about 1% of Netflix since its IPO, his successful management of the company and other financial strategies have allowed him to become a self-made billionaire. He is ranked 801 on the Forbes Billionaires list.
Hastings married his wife, Patricia Ann Quilin, in 1991. They have two children. Her eldest daughter, Molly Hastings, is a musician. The family lives with a very low profile.
Hastings is co-author, with Erin Meyer, of the book “ There are no rules here: Netflix and the culture of reinvention“, published in 2020 by Penguin Press, which was shortlisted for the Financial Times & McKinsey Business Book of the Year 2020.
Hastings and Meyer describe in the book the strategies and decisions behind the great success of Netflix.
Describe how prioritize people over processesgiving context to employees and other new standards that Hastings says led to his success while running Netflix.
Animal and holiday lovers
Hastings shares the day-to-day responsibilities of running the business with ted sarandoswho was promoted to co-CEO in July 2020.
As part of his strategy, Hastings says he usually takes 6 weeks vacation per year. "I take a lot of vacations and I'm open about it internally," Hastings said during a 2015 appearance at the New York Times DealBook conference. "As you'd expect, you often think better (when) you're hiking in the mountains or something and you get a different perspective...or read something unrelated to work," a- he declared.
Although he values free time at work, Hastings says he has no hobbies to fill his free time. "Unfortunately, and strangely enough, I have almost no hobbies," Hastings told The New Yorker. “I don't sail, I don't fish. I'm a sad failure as a Renaissance manHowever, Hastings enjoys swimming and snowboarding, he told The New York Times in 2006.
But the billionaire is a animal lover. Among the family's pets are 4 rescued dogs, 4 Nigerian dwarf goats and 10 chickens, according to a 2014 profile of Hastings in The New Yorker.
In 2012, Hastings and Quillin signed The Giving Pledge, the philanthropy pact founded by Bill Gates and Warren Buffett which obliges the signatory billionaires to donate most of their fortune. “It is an honor to try to help our community, our country and our planet through our philanthropy,” Hastings and Quillin said in a statement at the time. “We are thrilled to join other lucky people in committing the majority of our assets to investing in others. We hope that through this community we can learn as we go and do all we can to make a positive difference for many. »
In 2020 alone, Hastings and Quillin donated 120 million to fund scholarships for black students through a partnership with 2 universities and the United Negro College Fund, and funded a luxury teacher training camp in Colorado. However, its activities in this field are not limited to financing. Hastings joined the California State Board of Education in 2000 and spent 3 years as chairman, according to the Silicon Valley Business Journal.
Netflix is the biggest player in the Streaming.
The maxims of the founder of Netflix
Here are Hastings' main claims in the book:
- “My first company, Pure Software, was exciting and innovative in the early years and bureaucratic and cumbersome in recent years before being acquired. The problem was that we tried to systematize everything and establish perfect procedures. »
- " Stone Age. The Bronze Age. Iron Age. We define entire epics of humanity by the technology they use. »
- “I worked very hard, but my life has always been fun"
- “Most business ideas will sound crazy, stupid and uselessand then they will turn out to be correct. »
- “Companies rarely die from going too fast, and often die from moving too slowly"
SOURCE: Reviews News
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