Reed Hastings, Co-Founder of Netflix — How to Cultivate High Performance, The Art of Farming for Dissent, Favorite Failures, and More (#730)

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“Hope is everything.”
— Reed Hastings



Reed Hastings ( @reedhastings ) became executive chairman of Netflix in 2023, after 25 years as CEO. He co-founded Netflix in 1997. In 1991, Reed founded Pure Software, which made tools for software developers. After a 1995 IPO and several acquisitions, Pure was acquired by Rational Software in 1997. Reed is an active educational philanthropist and served on the California State Board of Education from 2000 to 2004. He is currently on the board of several educational organizations including KIPP and Pahara . Reed is also a board member of City Fund and Bloomberg. He received a BA from Bowdoin College in 1983, and an MS CS in artificial intelligence from Stanford University in 1988. Between Bowdoin and Stanford, Reed served in the Peace Corps as a high school math teacher.



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#730: Reed Hastings, Co-Founder of Netflix — How to Cultivate High Performance, The Art of Farming for Dissent, Favorite Failures, and More







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What was your favorite quote or lesson from this episode? Please let me know in the comments .







Want to hear an episode with another Netflix founder? Listen to my conversation with Marc Randolph in which we discussed changing communication style as a leader, split testing superpowers, what sets good entrepreneurs apart from mediocre ones, best and worst ideas, pushing back when countless people proclaimed Netflix’s business model would never work, and much more .


#496: Marc Randolph on Building Netflix, Battling Blockbuster, Negotiating with Amazon/Bezos, and Scraping the Barnacles Off the Hull



SELECTED LINKS FROM THE EPISODE




Connect with Reed Hastings :




Powder Mountain | Twitter | LinkedIn




Tuxedo Park: A Wall Street Tycoon and the Secret Palace of Science That Changed the Course of World War II by Jennet Conant | Amazon



Radio History: The Rise, Fall, and Resurrection of LORAN | Mini-Circuits Blog



Stock Market Crash of 1929 | Federal Reserve History



Subprime Mortgage Crisis | Federal Reserve History



The Big Short: Inside the Doomsday Machine by MIchael Lewis | Amazon



Memento | Prime Video



Risk Tolerance: It’s in Your DNA | University of California San Diego



Jeff Bezos Explains One-Way Door Decisions and Two-Way Door Decisions (Clip) | Lex Fridman Podcast #405



Free Solo | Prime Video



Why Culture Matters with Netflix’s Reed Hastings | Masters of Scale #8



Netflix Culture — Seeking Excellence | Netflix



How Netflix Reinvented HR | Harvard Business Review



Ozark | Netflix



Pure Software | Wikipedia



Beginner’s Guide to Java | Microsoft Azure



Epic Pass | Vail Resorts



Multi Resort Ski Passes | Ikon Pass



Radical Candor: Fully Revised and Updated Edition: How to Get What You Want by Saying What You Mean by Kim Scott | Amazon



I Think You’re Fat by A.J. Jacobs | Esquire



Reed Hastings and John Doerr: Building an Iconic Company | Kleiner Perkins



Blitzscaling: The Lightning-Fast Path to Building Massively Valuable Companies by Reid Hoffman and Chris Yeh | Amazon



Reed Hastings On Netflix’s Biggest Mistake | Forbes



Farming for Dissent | The Condorsay Newsletter



No Rules Rules: Netflix and the Culture of Reinvention by Reed Hastings and Erin Meyer | Amazon



Netflix vs. Blockbuster — The Official Case Study | Drift



Vintage Calgonite Commercial (1970s) | YouTube



TED 2018: Netflix Sees Itself as the Anti-Apple | Wired



Reed Hastings: Netflix Future, Hardest Keeper Test, Lessons From Book | Variety



Beyond Entrepreneurship: Turning Your Business into an Enduring Great Company by James Collins and William C. Lazier | Amazon



Jim Collins on The Value of Small Gestures, Unseen Sources of Power, and More | The Tim Ferriss Show #483



Jim Collins — A Rare Interview with a Reclusive Polymath | The Tim Ferriss Show #361



Why Is Rinsing Your Cottage Cheese Important? | Dan Greer



The Five Dysfunctions of a Team: A Leadership Fable by Patrick Lencioni | Amazon



The Advantage: Why Organizational Health Trumps Everything Else in Business by Patrick Lencioni | Amazon



Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind by Yuval Noah Harari | Amazon



The Overstory: A Novel by Richard Powers | Amazon



I Am Woman | Prime Video



Helen Reddy: I Am Woman (Video) | YouTube



Netflix at 20: Let’s Revisit the Failure of Qwikster | Quartz



Netflix CEO Reed Hastings Apologizes for Mishandling the Change to Qwikster | YouTube



Netflix Apology | Saturday Night Live



24 Lessons from Jeff Bezos’ Annual Letters to Shareholders | CB Insights Research



Where Does Netflix Go from Here? With CEO Reed Hastings | New York Times Events



Goldilocks Principle | Wikipedia



Wasatch Peaks Ranch



Skiing | Yellowstone National Park Lodges



What is Cat Skiing? (Quickly Explained) | The Ski Girl



Salt Lake City International Airport to Powder Mountain | Google Maps



Eden, Utah | Visit Ogden



Warren Buffett Was ‘Terrified’ of Public Speaking and Took Three Steps to Conquer His Fear | Inc.com



What Are Index Funds, and How Do They Work? | Investopedia



35. Amateurs Should Stick With Low-Cost Index Funds | 2008 Berkshire Hathaway Annual Meeting



Reed Hastings Creates $100 Million Education Fund | Philanthropy News Digest



KIPP Public Charter Schools



Support a Classroom. Build a Future. | DonorsChoose



QuestBridge



Waiting For Superman | Prime Video



Understanding Charter Schools vs. Public Schools | US News



Why Can’t Charter Schools and Teachers’ Unions Be Friends? | Pacific Standard



Reed Hastings’ Philanthropic Efforts and Social Impact | Pressfarm



Make the Most of Your World | Peace Corps



Summary of Reed Hastings’ Interview with Stanford Graduate School of Business | r/Entrepreneur



The Three Qualities of the Most Effective Team Players | TED




SHOW NOTES




[06:34] Alfred Lee Loomis and Tuxedo Park .



[07:53] Risk tolerance: nature or nurture?



[10:56] Cultivating culture that “eats strategy for lunch.”



[15:41] The logic behind generous severance.



[17:02] Adapting to Pure chaos.



[18:44] Reference checking potential hires.



[20:29] Context vs. control.



[22:35] Radical candor.



[24:15] Guardrails for maintaining work/life balance.



[27:04] Farming for dissent.



[28:39] Believing in the green crystals.



[30:54] High-performance team, not family.



[31:59] The keeper test.



[32:49] Fire and replace, or replace and fire?



[33:59] Beyond Entrepreneurship and other recommended reading/viewing.



[37:46] A favorite failure.



[40:32] Outstanding leaders.



[41:10] Reed’s two “religions.”



[42:19] Powder Mountain.



[44:44] How Powder Mountain differs from Reed’s other projects.



[46:24] Powder Mountain’s biggest challenges ahead.



[47:02] Could Reed ever really retire?



[47:19] Best investments of time, energy, or money.



[48:49] How can we improve education in the US?



[52:48] What class would Reed teach?



[53:59] Juggling projects without losing focus.



[55:04] Philanthropy: Why Africa?



[55:32] Being “big-hearted champions who pick up the trash.”



[56:28] Reed’s billboard.



[58:01] Parting thoughts.




MORE REED HASTINGS QUOTES FROM THE INTERVIEW



“I’m in the camp that culture eats strategy for lunch. … How do you get human beings to work well together and accomplish amazing things? One of the aspects of that is being around other incredible performers.” — Reed Hastings



“Customers would love to have everything for free — the challenge is to have great customer satisfaction and to charge them enough to have growing operating income. And that constraint is what makes business challenging, fun, and exciting.” — Reed Hastings



“The few times I’ve done investing, I’ve lost my shirt and I realize I’m just so optimistic. Anybody who seems to have a good idea, I’m like, ‘Sure!'” — Reed Hastings



“Hope is everything.” — Reed Hastings



PEOPLE MENTIONED




Alfred Lee Loomis



Bill Gates



Michael Burry



Steve Eisman



Jeff Bezos



Reid Hoffman



Patricia Quillin



John Doerr



Elon Musk



Jim Collins



Larry Ellison



Patrick Lencioni



Yuval Noah Harari



Helen Reddy



Brian Armstrong



Warren Buffett



Dale Carnegie

The post Reed Hastings, Co-Founder of Netflix — How to Cultivate High Performance, The Art of Farming for Dissent, Favorite Failures, and More (#730) appeared first on The Blog of Author Tim Ferriss .