Netflix co-founder on why he stopped calling CEOs Ted Sarandos & Greg Peters
Netflix co-founder Reed Hastings says he has stopped calling co-CEOs Ted Sarandos and Greg Peters about the business since leaving the Netflix board in June. Hastings says the two can already guess what he would think, then decide for themselves. He compares the shift from CEO to board member to going from parent to godparent, and reveals he had no involvement in Netflix's Warner Bros. Discovery…
Reed Hastings, co-founder of Netflix, has spent 29 years at the company and has recently ceased calling its two co-CEOs, Ted Sarandos and Greg Peters, regarding business matters. This change was not due to any dissatisfaction, but rather a result of the CEOs absorbing Hastings' thinking so thoroughly that referring to them is now unnecessary. Hastings confirmed this on Semafor's The CEO Signal podcast.
After stepping down as Netflix CEO in January 2023 and leaving the board in June, Hastings described his exit from the board as less disruptive than his departure from the CEO role. He explained that being on a board of a successful company is a relaxed position, while his role as CEO involved a significant workload of around 70 hours per week. The genuine shift came when his duties at the board level dropped to roughly one hour per week.
Netflix's decision to reject the Warner Bros. Discovery deal this year was the clearest indication of the handover. Hastings noted that he was not involved in the decision-making process, with Sarandos and Peters handling the trade-offs themselves. He characterized the shift as moving from being a parent to being a godparent, emphasizing that the company needs to stop emulating his decisions and start making its own mistakes.
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