Reed Hastings She may soon seal one of the biggest deals in entertainment history. Thursday, Netflix Announce Plans to acquire Warner Bros.—home of franchises like sand dunes harry potter, and dc universe, Along with the streamer HBO Max – in a deal with a total enterprise value of $83 billion. The move is intended to establish Netflix as a media juggernaut that now rivals the old Hollywood giants it once idle.
It’s a remarkable path for Netflix co-founder Hastings, a self-made billionaire who found a love for the business starting out as a teenage door-to-door sales clerk.
“I took a year off between high school and college and sold Rainbow vacuums door to door,” Hastings recalls. New York TimesIn 2006. “I started working as a summer job and found that I loved it. As a sales pitch, I cleaned the carpet with the customer’s vacuum cleaner and then cleaned it with Rainbow.”
This fickle sales job was his first exposure to how to properly read customers — an instinct that would later shape Netflix User obsession culture. After graduating from Bowdoin College in 1983, Hastings considered joining the Marine Corps but eventually joined the Peace Corps, where he taught mathematics at Eswatini For two years. When he returned to the United States, he received a… Master’s in Computer Science from Stanford University and began his career in technology.
The idea for Netflix reportedly came a few years later in the late 1990s. After misplacing the VHS copy Apollo 13 Hit with a $40 late fee at Blockbuster, Hastings began exploring a mail-order rental service. While it is An origin story that has been debated ever sinceIt marked the beginning of a company that would reshape global entertainment.
Hastings resigned as CEO in 2023 and now serves as Chairman of Netflix. I have collected With a net worth of approximately $5.6 billion. He’d be richer if he didn’t keep it Unloading his shares In company and manufacture Charity that broke the record Donations.
The secret to Netflix’s success: finding the right people
Hastings has long said that one of the biggest drivers of Netflix’s success is its own success Focus on recruitment And retain exceptional talent.
“If you want to win the championship, you have to have amazing talent in every position. And that’s the way we think about it,” he said. CNBC In 2020. “We encourage people to focus on who of your employees would you fight hardest to retain if they were to go to another company? And those are the ones we want to keep.”
To secure high-performing companies, Hastings said he is willing to pay above-market rates.
“With a fixed amount of money for payroll and the project I needed to complete, I had a choice: hire 10 to 25 average engineers, or hire one ‘rock star’ and pay much more than I would have paid the others, if necessary,” Hastings wroRe. “Over the years, I’ve realized that the best programmers don’t add 10 times the value. They add 100 times more.”
This mindset has also guided the leadership transition at Netflix. When Hastings stepped down as CEO, the company chose not one successor, but two. Greg Peters join Ted Sarandos As co-CEO in 2023.
“It’s a high-performance technology,” Hastings said He saidtalks about the co-CEO model. “This isn’t appropriate for most situations and most companies. But if you have two people who work well together and complement and stretch and trust each other, it’s worth doing.”
Netflix stock has risen more than 80,000% since its IPO in 2002, adjusted for the stock split.
Netflix has brought unlimited PTO to the mainstream
Netflix’s flexible workplace culture has also played a major role in its success, with Hastings often known for prioritizing time off to recharge.
“I take a lot of vacation, and I certainly hope that sets an example,” the former CEO said. He said In 2015. “It’s helpful. You often do your best thinking when you’re out hiking some mountains or something. You get a different perspective on things. “
The company was one of the first companies to provide Unlimited PTOIt is a policy that many companies have adopted since then. About 57% of retail investors said this could improve the company’s overall performance, according to a Business Insider survey. Bloomberg. Critics argued Such policies can backfire when employees feel guilty about taking time off, but Hastings emphasized that freedom is at the core of Netflix’s identity.
“We’re fundamentally committed to employee freedom because it makes us more flexible, and we’ve had to adapt a lot from mail-in DVDs to today’s leading-edge streaming,” Hastings said. “If you give your employees freedom, you have a better chance of achieving that success.”
The other co-founder of Netflix, Mark Randolphespoused a similar philosophy to Appreciate work-life balance.
“For more than thirty years, I had a severe blackout on Tuesdays. Rain or shine, I would leave at 5 p.m. and spend the evening with my best friend. We would go to a movie together, have dinner, or go shopping together downtown,” Randolph he wrote in a post on LinkedIn.
“Those Tuesday nights kept me sane. It put the rest of my work into perspective.”
https://fortune.com/img-assets/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/GettyImages-2223991304-e1764951408675.jpg?resize=1200,600
2025-12-05 16:28:00
