PARQOR
Monday AM Briefing: Reed Hastings Steps Down (and Up)
In Q1 2023, PARQOR will be focusing on four trends. This essay focuses on the trend, "The definition of scarcity is continuously evolving away from linear. What happens next?”
I don’t know if there is any particular take or angle on Co-CEO Reed Hastings’ departure after 25 years at Netflix. I imagine this career move will spur many, or perhaps even infinite takes now that we have ChatGPT to opine.
Last week I included an anecdote from Disney CEO Robert Iger about Hastings having tried to convince him not to launch a streaming service back in 2017:
“Reed Hastings from Netflix tried to convince me that there was no way we could do it. ‘You won't have the platform. You don’t know how to manage things like busted credit cards, all the issues with geotargeting and so many different factors.’ We had no ability to do any of that.”
Hastings’ point, back then, was that the streaming business was always going to be greater than the sum of the parts of commoditized technology available to Disney and other legacy media companies to assemble their streaming services. The little problems would inevitably add up.
Did Disney management believe it could solve for these problems in the long run?
Key Takeaway
What about the market competition makes Netflix Co-CEO Reed Hastings feel comfortable stepping down now? It might be the little failures of Netflix’s competition.
Total words: 1,200
Total time reading: 5 minutes