Reed Hastings, Netflix: Stanford GSB 2014 Entrepreneurial Company of the Year

Netflix


The future for the industry

Management Style

Founder: Reed Hastings

Spend several years serving in the peace corp as a high school maths teacher

Work in the AI lab in Schlumberger

His first company Pure Software was acquired by in 1997 in Scotts Valley

Established in 1997

Competitors

Blockbuster

Youtube

Had a huge advantage as they were 15-20 times larger than Netflix

Netflix had the advantage of starting it first

When Viacom spun them out ,they were left with billion dollers debt and a lot of tough convenants

Eventually went bankrupt due to the fall of the DVD industry

Streaming started actively

Netflix launched their first Streaming product but it was not very succesful

Challenges

1st stage

Freedom of responsiblility

"incredible people don't want to be micro-managed"

Manage through setting context and letting people run

Reed tries to make as little decisions as possible

Creating a sense of I want and able to make a difference

Mobile phones will be widely used for everything

The Tv will just be like a huge Android tablet

Shows will be only on demand

Everything will be more personalized

"Less than friends"

More and more young people live the internet ife

Advices

Building Culture and Value

As people grow, more ideas are generated

''We create great stories for pure,uninterrupted enjoyment''

getting profitability and stop consuming cash

2nd stage

Blockbuster

launched in 2004

getting more global and more into original content

compete for entertainment time

Woman seeking for board

Board directors will mostly choose candidates they are comfortable around with

Make an effort to try and accept people of other genders

Work Life integration

"Freedom and responsibility"

Focus on accomplishment and not process

Plan your own schedule out of work