Reed Hastings Is Stepping Down From Netflix

Reed Hastings is going the way of those little red envelopes. Hastings, who co-founded Netflix with Marc Randolph in 1997, is stepping down from his position as the executive chairman of the Netflix board of directors. He told shareholders that he plans to leave in June and intends to “focus on new things,” per the New York Times.

“My real contribution at Netflix wasn’t a single decision; it was a focus on member joy, building a culture that others could inherit and improve, and building a company that could be both beloved by members and wildly successful for generations to come,” Hastings said. 

Hastings is the one who came up with the idea for a DVD rental company that allowed the costumer to hold the DVD for as long as they wanted. “I had a big late fee for Apollo 13,” he told the Times in 2006. “I didn’t want to tell my wife about it. And I said to myself, ‘I’m going to compromise the integrity of my marriage over a late fee?’ Later, on my way to the gym, I realized they had a much better business model. You could pay $30 or $40 a month and work out as little or as much as you wanted.” Thirty years later, Hastings helped bring the company onto the internet, then into the streaming wars. Now, the man who began Big Red is on his way out.