Reed Hastings, the co-founder and chairman of Netflix, is leaving the company’s board when his term expires this summer. Hastings is stepping aside to focus on “philanthropy and other pursuits,” the company said in a letter to shareholders. The departure was revealed in the company’s first-quarter earnings report published Thursday.
Hastings will officially leave the board when his term is up in June, according to the filing. In 1999, when mom-and-pop video rental stores still coated the country, Hastings and Netflix co-founder Marc Randolph launched a subscription DVD-by-mail business for movies. In the coming years, Netflix would help wipe out many of those mom-and-pop stores (as well as mega-rental chain Blockbuster), as its offerings expanded from a disc-delivery service to digital delivery (the company officially retired its disc-delivery service in 2023).
Under Hastings’ leadership, Netflix became a pioneer in the streaming industry, inspiring a wave of similar services from the likes of Amazon, HBO, Disney, Hulu, and others. The report also mentions the streaming giant’s recent acquisition of InterPositive, Ben Affleck’s AI company. The company reported $12.25 billion in revenue in the first quarter, a 16.2% increase from the same period last year.
Netflix’s net income rose nearly 83% to $5.28 billion.
Extract — continue reading at the source.
