After ensuring a turnaround, Reed Hastings announced he’s stepping down as chief executive of Netflix, the company he co-founded 25 years ago. Ted Sarandos remains co-CEO and he will be joined by Greg Peters, who was formerly COO.
“Our board has been discussing succession planning for many years(even founders need to evolve!). As part of that process, we promoted Ted to co-CEO alongside me in July 2020, and Greg to chief operating officer — and in the last two and a half years I’ve increasingly delegated the management of Netflix to them,” Hastings wrote on the company’s official blog.
Hastings will continue to be a part of the company as executive chairman but it will be the CEOs who will run day-to-day operations.The change comes at a time when Netflix surpassed its own forecast for subscriber gains in the final quarter of the year, adding nearly 7.7 million new customers vis-à-vis an expected 4.5 million during the period.
Hasting’s path towards executive chairman is similar to that of Amazon’s Jeff Bezos and Microsoft’s Bill Gates. The billionaire founder said he plans to“spend more time on philanthropy” but “remain very focused on Netflix stock doing well”.
Helping the turnaround in the fourth quarter are popular programming such as the Addams Family spin-off Wednesday and the Harry & Meghan documentary series.
Netflix now has more than 231 million subscribers worldwide, which also translates into ending 2022 with more subscribers than it started the year with, in spite of losing more than a million subscribers in the first six months.
Addressing shareholders in a letter, Netflix said that its advertising-supported subscription has helped in subscriber growth but there is also an acknowledgment that it faces competition from streaming competitors and emerging platforms like TikTok. It’s a very different era than what the co-founder has been used to. He often said: “No advertising coming onto Netflix. Period.”
Hastings founded Netflix in 1997 with Marc Randolph as a movie rental-by-mail service.
Larry Page and Sergey Brin
Alphabet: Larry Page and Sergey Brin
Larry Page and Sergey Brin, the Stanford graduate students who founded Google, stepped down from executive roles at Google’sparent company, Alphabet, in 2019, leaving Sundar Pichai, who was already Google’s chief executive,to become the chief of both Google and Alphabet. Page and Brin’swork on the Google search engine ensured the company’s dominance in Silicon Valley.
Kevin Plank
Under Armour: Kevin Plank
Kevin Plank, who founded Under Armour in 1996 in his grandmother’s basement, stepped down as CEO in 2019. In the past few years the high-tech shoes and apparel brand hasn’t impressed Wall Street. Hopefully a turn around is coming as Stephanie Linnartz, president of Marriott International, will take over as chief executive in February.
Jack Ma
Ant Group: Jack Ma
In January, Ant Group announced that the billionaire entrepreneur Jack Ma plans to relinquish control of the company. The planned change of control, first reported last July, is expected to help the company recover from the uncertainty after its intended IPO was pulled at the last minute in November 2020. The billionaire founded Ant Group in 2014 as an offshoot to Alibaba. Ant Group said earlier this month that Ma would no longer be the “control person”; he would be one of 10 major shareholders.
Jeff Bezos
Amazon: Jeff Bezos
In 2021, Jeff Bezos said his time at the top of the Seattle-based company was over, handing over the reins to Andy Jassy while he remains in the role of executive chairman. “As much as I still tapdance into the office, I’m excited about this transition,” he had told his employees and added that he wanted “to focus my energies and attention on new products and early initiatives”.
Bill Gates
Microsoft: Bill Gates
His departure happened in many stages, starting with stepping down as CEO in 2000, then leaving his full-time position at the company he helped found in 2008, and finally stepping down from his position on the board in 2020. He remains one of the largest individual shareholders of Microsoft.