Meet Reed Hastings, the man who built Netflix

Netflix is one of the greatest underdog success stories at the crossroads of technology and television.

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What started as a DVD-by-mail rental service has now spawned a slew of award-winning original television series, made available over 100 million hours of content, and virtually redefined what it means to watch, and create, TV in 2015. 

While CEO and founder Reed Hastings is a prominent member of the Silicon Valley tech community, he's largely elusive to the general public.

Reed Hastings
Getty

Scroll through to learn about the man who built the $47 billion online streaming service.

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Reed Hastings was born in Boston, Massachusetts on October 8, 1960, to Joan and Wilmot Hastings. His father was a lawyer who later worked for the Nixon Administration.

Reed Hastings childhood
Facebook/Reed Hastings

Source: Vanity Fair

Hastings attended Bowdoin College where he earned a bachelor's degree in mathematics and ran the Outing Club where he organized climbing and canoeing trips.

Reed Hastings
Flickr/Neil Hunt

Source: Vanity Fair, Fortune

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After college, he joined the Peace Corps to teach high school math for two years in Swaziland, an experience he's called "a combination of service and adventure."

Reed Hastings Swaziland
Screenshot via CBS

Source: Inc. MagazineVanity Fair

After returning to the States, Hastings earned his master's in artificial intelligence at Stanford. He credits the school with turning him on to the entrepreneurial model. Interestingly enough, Stanford's graduate school of business named Netflix the 2014 Entrepreneurial Company of the Year.

Reed Hastings Stanford
YouTube/Stanford Graduate School of Business

Source: Stanford Business

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In 1991, Hastings founded Pure Software, which developed a debugging tool for engineers. The company reportedly doubled its revenue every year and Hastings soon moved from his position as an engineer to CEO (although he now admits there were major hiccups in his managerial style).

Reed Hastings Pure Software
Screenshot via CBS

Source: Inc. Magazine

Pure Software went public in 1995 and was eventually acquired by Rational Software. Hastings earned $750 million from the acquisition and was able to cofound Netflix with Marc Randolph in 1997. The idea for Netflix came after Hastings was charged a $40 late fee for an overdue rental from Blockbuster.

Reed Hastings
Netflix.com Chief Executive Officer Reed Hastings sits in a cart full of ready-to-be-shipped DVDs January 29, 2002 in San Jose, CA. The online DVD rental site has 500,000 subscribers who can rent, receive and return unlimited discs per month by mail. Justin Sullivan/Getty Images

Source: Fortune, CNN Money

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Ironically, Hastings offered to sell forty-nine percent of Netflix to Blockbuster in 2000 to act as an online arm for the video-rental giant. Blockbuster turned them down and Hastings returned home to promote Netflix as the rental underdog.

Blockbuster delivery
Blockbuster screenshot

Source: The New Yorker

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Five years later the tables turned. By 2005, Netflix had 4.5 million subscribers and counting, beating out any online efforts made by Blockbuster. During this time, Hastings, his wife Patty, and their two children were renting a house outside of Rome and he was commuting to Silicon Valley two weeks out of every month.

Reed Hastings
CEO of Netflix Reed Hastings attends the Allen & Co. annual conference at the Sun Valley Resort on July 11, 2013 in Sun Valley, Idaho. The resort is hosting corporate leaders for the 31st annual Allen & Co. media and technology conference where some of the wealthiest and most powerful executives in media, finance, politics and tech gather for weeklong meetings. Past attendees included Warren Buffett, Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg. Kevork Djansezian/Getty Images

Source: The New Yorker

 

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Netflix continued to grow into the online marketplace by offering on-demand streaming services – by 2010 it had 16 million subscribers. After a brief separation of the DVD rental and on-demand streaming portions of Netflix in 2011, Hastings rejoined the two after he regretfully admitted the division was a mistake.

Reed Hastings
Hastings launched Netflix in Canada, it's first expansion outside of the U.S., on September 22, 2010. REUTERS/ Mike Cassese

Source: The New Yorker, The New York Times

In 2013, Hastings moved Netflix into uncharted territory when it premiered its first original television series, "House of Cards." The show was nominated for a staggering nine Primetime Emmy awards and went on to win three – rivaling a number of traditional shows. By the end of that year, Netflix’s stock had tripled in value.

Reed Hastings
Netflix

Source: IMDb, The New Yorker

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Netflix stocks have ridden a rocky road since the company went public in 2002. But as of August 2015, Netflix surged to an all-time high with shares up 9925% above the IPO price. “We will come to see that linear TV declines every year for the next 20 years...and that internet TV rises every year for the next 20 years,” Hastings said at a media conference in Berlin this year.

reed hastings netflix
Gareth Cattermole / Getty Images

Source: Business Insider, re:publica

In August 2015, Netflix announced unlimited maternity and paternity leave for its employees, paving the way for forward-thinking companies to follow suit. The forward-thinking company already offered unlimited vacation for its employees.

netflix reed hastings
Getty Images Latam

Source: Business Insider

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Hastings reportedly doesn't have an office at Netflix headquarters in Los Gatos, California. Instead, he floats around between desks, and when he needs a break, heads to the "towering inferno" – a secluded square room built on the roof of Netflix’s main building.

Netflix HQ
A sign is posted in front of the Netflix headquarters on July 20, 2011 in Los Gatos, California. Online movie rental company Netflix will report quarterly earnings on Thursday following a recent customer backlash over a 60 percent increase in fees. Justin Sullivan/Getty Images

Source: Business Insider

Netflix's leading man is not only paving the way for the future of television, he's also a staunch advocate for education reform in California. Hastings served as President of the California State Board of Education from 2001 to 2004 where he lobbied for charter schools. Last year, he was the Keynote Speaker at the 2014 Annual CA Charter Schools Conference.

Reed Hastings education
YouTube/California Charter Schools Association

Source: Wall Street Journal, Washington Post

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In December 2013, Hastings and John Doerr, of venture capitalist firm Kleiner Perkins, invested a combined $14.5 million in DreamBox Learning, an online math program for elementary and middle school students.

reed hastings, netflix, sv100 2015
Reed Hastings speaks during 'The State of Digital Education' onstage at the Vanity Fair New Establishment Summit at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in October 2014. Michael Kovac/Getty

Source: Vanity Fair

Hastings and his wife signed the Bill and Melinda Gates Giving Pledge in 2012, vowing to give away a hefty portion of their wealth. At the time, Hastings was not yet a billionaire.

Hastings Gates
Getty Images

Source: CNN Money

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Today, Hastings's net worth is $1.54 billion according to Forbes, most of which is tied to Netflix stock.

reed hastings netflix
Elizabeth Fuentes/Getty

Source: Forbes

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Outside of Netflix, he's a board member on a handful of organizations, including Facebook since 2011, and is still active in education philanthropy. According to his Facebook page, he also enjoys trips to Monterey with friends and family and is close with the Zuckerbergs.

Reed Hastings
Facebook/Reed Hastings

Source: LinkedIn

 

Disclosure: Mathias Döpfner, CEO of Business Insider's parent company, Axel Springer, is a Netflix board member.

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