Netflix 
In today’s International Newswire, Series Mania snags Reed Hastings and other heavyweights for its Lille Transatlantic Dialogues; Netflix confirms “Money Heist” as its most watched non-English series ever; Spain converts to Turkish telenovelas; HBO Nordic’s “Berforeigners” gets Norwegian government backing. A considerable Series Mania coup: Reed Hastings, co-founder, chairman and CEO of Netflix is billed as attending Series Mania’s first Lille Transatlantic Dialogues, along with CEO grandees of Europe’s TV/digital platform scene: Endemol Shine Group’s Sophie Turner Laing, telecom Orange’s...
Netflix
Reed
Hastings
Co-Founder / CEO
Catapulted by the insight that consumers favored a flat-rate subscription model with no late fees in the DVD rental era, Reed Hastings built a subscription-VOD streaming giant. Netflix carries a stock market capitalization surpassing $50 billion today (Hastings owns about 3%) and has a $6 billion programming budget set for 2017 to help grow the business worldwide in over 200 countries.
Netflix has transitioned brilliantly to the streaming era by allowing subscribers to binge entire seasons of content and expertly mining its vast audience data. That big data is analyzed to tailor the user experience and also direct Netflix program acquisitions. Having already thoroughly disrupted the TV industry, Netflix is currently embarking on a diversification into film that should prove just as difficult for the traditional exhibition business.
Netflix’s rocket ride has not been without its bumps. 2011 threw Hastings the biggest challenge of his career when his decision to separate the DVD and streaming operations was a disaster that sent the stock tumbling.
Before Neflix, Hastings founded Pure Software, a debugging tool for engineers. He later pocketed $750 million from selling the company, funneling the proceeds into starting Netflix, which he co-founded with Marc Randolph.
Hastings is a Facebook board member and is a former Microsoft board member. He is a graduate of Bowdoin College, and has a master’s degree in computer science from Stanford University.
