As co-founder and CEO of Netflix, Reed Hastings is revolutionizing the world of entertainment.

Why you should listen

Reed Hastings co-founded Netflix in 1997. Today the company develops, licenses and delivers entertainment across a wide variety of genres and languages to 193 million of people in 190 countries. In 1991, he founded Pure Software, which made tools for software developers. After a 1995 IPO and several acquisitions, Pure was acquired by Rational Software in 1997.

Hastings is an active educational philanthropist and served on the California State Board of Education from 2000 to 2004. He is on the board of several educational organizations including DreamBox Learning, KIPP and Pahara. He's also a board member of Facebook and was on the board of Microsoft from 2007 to 2012. He received a BA from Bowdoin College in 1983 and an MSCS in artificial intelligence from Stanford University in 1988. Between Bowdoin and Stanford, he served in the Peace Corps as a high school math teacher in Swaziland.

In 2020, Hastings cowrote No Rules Rules: Netflix and the Culture of Reinvention with Erin Meyer, detailing the secrets behind Netflix's work culture.

Reed Hastings’ TED talks

More news and ideas from Reed Hastings

Live from TED2018

What matters: Notes from Session 11 of TED2018

April 14, 2018

What a week. We’ve heard so much, from dystopian warnings to bold visions for change. Our brains are full. Almost. In this session we pull back to the human stories that underpin everything we are, everything we want. From new ways to set goals and move business forward, to unabashed visions for joy and community, […]

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