Reed Hastings Rewrites The Hollywood Script

Netflix had already upended Hollywood when the pandemic hit. but by making use of a highly unusual management style, its billionaire founder has positioned his juggernaut to prosper like few companies in the world right now

- DAWN CHMIELEWSKI

The man responsible for keeping the world entertained does so, at least this day, alone in front of a computer screen, in his son’s largely unadorned childhood bedroom. In some ways, it’s the perfect setting for Reed Hastings, the unpretentious co-founder and co-CEO of Netflix, whose global army of innovators has revolutionised entertainment in the home. While Hollywood measures people’s offices by their totems and grandeur, the analytical Hastings, a Silicon Valley interloper, values functionality over trappings.

Netflix currently functions, by any measure, at a world-class level. As the year of the pandemic upends entertainment companies—Disney’s crippled theme parks, Warner Bros’ furloughed blockbusters, AMC’s shuttered theaters—Netflix is having a moment. A moment of prestige, with a record 160 Emmy Award nominations, eclipsing the long-dominant HBO, and more Oscar nods than any other media company. A moment of influence, adding almost as many customers in the first six months of the year as in all of 2019, extending its reach to nearly 200 million subscribers in 190 countries. And a moment of profits, with sales up 25 percent year over year, earnings more than doubled and its stock up 50 percent, as most of the market gyrates wildly just to scratch back to even. Recent market cap: $213.3 billion.

All these data points stem from data points, and a perfect synthesis of Hollywood and Silicon Valley, serving up content informed by a deep understanding of their users’ tastes. “We fundamentally want to be better at creating stories people want to talk about and watch than any of our competitors,” says Hastings.