Netflix is still the runaway market leader but will have to contend with even more challengers in the next little while, from US television spin-off streamers like Peacock and HBO Max, to dozens of niche offerings like ESPN+ (sports) and Crunchyroll (anime). There have been choppy headwinds to navigate, of course, with leviathans like Apple, Amazon and Disney ramping up competition in the “streaming wars”. This year it is set to make its largest annual investment in new shows and movies: $US17 billion ($23 billion). ( Roy Morgan Research estimates roughly 13 million Australians use the service, meaning there’s basically a 50-50 chance that you’re watching.)Īnd of course Netflix doesn’t merely stream content now but creates it, too – and not a little, either. The company he co-created in 1997 now has 193 million subscribers in 190 countries, including 5.4 million accounts in Australia. You lead a less normal life.”Ī normal life is unlikely for Hastings. It’s an appropriate and necessary sacrifice, but on a personal basis, it’s pure downside, because then you just get more recognised. He has ever since he sold his first venture – a software debugging company in the mid-1990s – and was featured in USA Today, photographed on the bonnet of a new Porsche Carrera under the headline “Boom! You are rich!” (Great headline though, he’d have to concede.) He told Vanity Fair in 2012 exactly how he felt about personality profiles: “I hate the photo shoots. In the end, following a digital diary snafu, I’m granted the barest half-hour. I’ve never been cautioned before an interview to do my homework: “Have you read the book?” I’ve never been given interview tips from a PR: “You might want to open with a few questions about the culture.” And I’ve definitely never been implicitly advised not to be late: “Punctuality is really important to him.” We’ll have only 45 minutes to talk, too – a limited window that the “intense” Hastings might (but probably won’t) stretch. All of which makes the forewarning I receive curious. The book is intriguing – from the radical candour feedback mechanisms the company uses, to the transparency process known as sunshining – but it’s just one source of research into the 59-year-old chief executive and co-founder of one of the biggest entertainment platforms on the planet. If I’m planning to thaw him out, his handlers urge, I should make sure I’ve read his new book – No Rules Rules – about the somewhat terrifying workplace culture Hastings created at global streaming giant Netflix, a company governed by such ominous slogans as A dequate performance gets a generous severance package and its blunter corollary, Fire loudly, and with clarity.Īpparently a few journalists didn’t read his corporate leadership tome in advance, and consequently got a cool reception from the author. That’s not a personal assessment, but the warning I receive in advance of our chat. Reed Hastings is not the warmest interview.
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