Reed Hastings, co-founder of Netflix, announced in a company blog post on Thursday that he will transition from his role as CEO to executive chairman. In the post, Hastings said, “I’m so proud of our first 25 years, and so excited about our next quarter of a century. We can do so much more to better entertain the world and deliver more joy to our members.”
Hastings goes on to mention the normalcy of situations like this, where CEO’s move on to serve as executive chairman, citing names like Jeff Bezos and Bill Gates. Along with this change, former Chief Operating Officer Greg Peters will now serve as co-CEO alongside Ted Sarandos, similar to the previous co-CEO structure of Hastings and Sarandos that went into effect in July 2020.
Hastings and Marc Randolph first conceptualized Netflix in 1997 as a mail-delivery DVD rental service in attempts to compete with Blockbuster. The company officially launched in 1998 and has since grown to become a giant in the entertainment industry, going public in 2002 and revolutionizing the way we take in television content through streaming in 2007.
Similar to how Netflix has changed over the decades, we expect to see more of the same as we head into 2023 and beyond.
