Netflix boss to leave platform after three decades — Here’s why

Netflix Chairman is leaving its co-founded video streaming platform in a bold move.

Reed Hastings Netflix's boss is quitting the streaming service he co-founded 29 years ago.

The departure of Hastings, comes at an inopportune time when the company is ‌searching for new avenues of growth as sales slow due to competition, and after a potentially transformative merger with Warner Bros Discovery fell through in February.

Netflix on Thursday forecast earnings per share in the current quarter below analysts' expectations and quarterly revenue growth that is the slowest in a year, according to LSEG.

The company's stock plunged around 9% on the news of Hastings' departure.

Netflix doubled down on its existing strategy to entertain the world, providing movies and series for many tastes, cultures and languages, in a 14-page shareholder letter released on Thursday. The company's full-year outlook remained unchanged.

The company's co-chief executive, Greg Peters, said that Netflix ended last year with more than 325 million paid members and is entertaining an audience approaching a billion people. "But even given that number, we still have plenty of room to grow into our addressable market," he said.

In the letter to investors, Netflix said Hastings will not stand for re-election at its annual meeting in June and plans to focus on philanthropy and other pursuits.

Reed Hastings journey at Netflix:

Hastings transformed Netflix from a DVDs-by-mail business to a global streaming goliath that revolutionized the distribution of movies and television series. He led the company through missteps like the short-lived decision, in 2011, to spin off the DVD business into a service called Qwikster.

He also steered it through a pandemic, which led to a surge of growth at Netflix even as other entertainment companies struggled.

The entrepreneur forged Netflix's unique performance culture in a moment of crisis, when funding for internet startups had dried up, and Hastings was forced to lay off one-third of his employees.

"My real contribution at Netflix wasn't a single decision," Hastings wrote on Thursday, but rather, "building a company that others could inherit and improve."