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Reed Hastings steps back from CEO role of Netflix

Hasting’s path towards executive chairman is similar to that of Amazon’s Jeff Bezos and Microsoft’s Bill Gates

The Telegraph Published 21.01.23, 06:12 PM
Netflix co-founder Reed Hastings

Netflix co-founder Reed Hastings Pictures : The Telegraph

After ensuring a turnaround, Reed Hastings announced he’s stepping down as chief executive of Netflix, the company he co-founded 25 years ago. Ted Sarandos remains co-CEO and he will be joined by Greg Peters, who was formerly COO.

“Our board has been discussing succession planning for many years(even founders need to evolve!). As part of that process, we promoted Ted to co-CEO alongside me in July 2020, and Greg to chief operating officer — and in the last two and a half years I’ve increasingly delegated the management of Netflix to them,” Hastings wrote on the company’s official blog.

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Hastings will continue to be a part of the company as executive chairman but it will be the CEOs who will run day-to-day operations.The change comes at a time when Netflix surpassed its own forecast for subscriber gains in the final quarter of the year, adding nearly 7.7 million new customers vis-à-vis an expected 4.5 million during the period.

Hasting’s path towards executive chairman is similar to that of Amazon’s Jeff Bezos and Microsoft’s Bill Gates. The billionaire founder said he plans to“spend more time on philanthropy” but “remain very focused on Netflix stock doing well”.

Helping the turnaround in the fourth quarter are popular programming such as the Addams Family spin-off Wednesday and the Harry & Meghan documentary series.

Netflix now has more than 231 million subscribers worldwide, which also translates into ending 2022 with more subscribers than it started the year with, in spite of losing more than a million subscribers in the first six months.

Addressing shareholders in a letter, Netflix said that its advertising-supported subscription has helped in subscriber growth but there is also an acknowledgment that it faces competition from streaming competitors and emerging platforms like TikTok. It’s a very different era than what the co-founder has been used to. He often said: “No advertising coming onto Netflix. Period.”

Hastings founded Netflix in 1997 with Marc Randolph as a movie rental-by-mail service.

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