30 Inspirational Reed Hastings Quotes [2024] Co-Founder Of Netflix

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Updated: January 20th, 2022

Reed Hastings is an American businessman.

He is the co-founder, chairman, and co-chief executive officer of Netflix American over-the-top content platform and production company.

Reed Hastings is a former member of the California State Board of Education, Hastings is an advocate for education reform through charter schools.

We've put together an incredible collection of Reed Hastings quotes to read.

Here they are:

30 Inspirational Reed Hastings Quotes [2024] Co-Founder Of Netflix

List of Inspiring Reed Hastings Quotes

“Most entrepreneurial ideas will sound crazy, stupid and uneconomic, and then they’ll turn out to be right.” – Reed Hastings

“Companies rarely die from moving too fast, and they frequently die from moving too slowly.” – Reed Hastings

“Be brutally honest about the short term and optimistic and confident about the long term.” – Reed Hastings

“Great leaders, like Steve Jobs or Jeff Bezos, also focused on the long term.” – Reed Hastings

“The best managers figure out how to get great outcomes by setting the appropriate context, rather than by trying to control their people.” – Reed Hastings

“Tomorrow when you come to work, if it doesn’t make the customer happy, move the business forward, and save us money – don’t do it.” – Reed Hastings

“When there’s an ache, you want to be like aspirin, not vitamins. Aspirin solves a very particular problem someone has, whereas vitamins are a general ‘nice to have’ market.” – Reed Hastings

“When we think about online learning, it’s such ‘early days.’ Bill Gates is a wildly smart insightful guy. Yet, even a guy as smart and insightful as that, 30 years ago can say things like, ‘Who’s every going to need more than 640K of memory?'” – Reed Hastings

“I learned the value of focus. I learned it is better to do one product well than two products in a mediocre way.” – Reed Hastings

“With failures, you learn one of 99 things to avoid. So they are not that useful. I think it is more useful to learn from others’ failures.” – Reed Hastings

“… as an entrepreneur you have to feel like you can jump out of an aeroplane because you’re confident that you’ll catch a bird flying by. It’s an act of stupidity, and most entrepreneurs go splat because the bird doesn’t come by, but a few times it does.” – Reed Hastings

“At Netflix, we think you have to build a sense of responsibility where people care about the enterprise. Hard work, like long hours at the office, doesn’t matter as much to us. We care about great work.” – Reed Hastings

“I’ve worked very hard, but my life’s always been fun.” – Reed Hastings

“Occasionally great wealth is created in a short amount of time, but it’s through a lot of luck in those situations. You just have to think of building an organization as a lot of work. It may or may not turn into great wealth.” – Reed Hastings

“Taking smart risks can be very gratifying.” – Reed Hastings

“Don’t get distracted by the shiny object [and if a crisis comes], execute on the fundamentals.” – Reed Hastings

“Don’t be afraid to change the model.” – Reed Hastings

“Responsible people thrive on freedom and are worthy of freedom. [They are] self-motivating, [pick] up the trash lying on the floor, [and behave] like an owner… Our model is to increase employee freedom as we grow rather than limit it.” – Reed Hastings

“Do not tolerate brilliant jerks. The cost to teamwork is too high.” – Reed Hastings

“Truly brilliant marketing happens when you take something most people think of as a weakness and reposition it so people think of it as a strength.” – Reed Hastings

“Be big, fast and flexible.” – Reed Hastings

“Guessing right is a skill developed over time. Not all smart risks work out, but many of them do.” – Reed Hastings

“Stone Age. Bronze Age. Iron Age. We define entire epics of humanity by the technology they use.” – Reed Hastings

“I got the idea for Netflix after my company was acquired. I had a big late fee for Apollo 13. It was six weeks late and I owed the video store $40. I had misplaced the cassette. It was all my fault.” – Reed Hastings

“When you grow up, as I have, in the shadow of Steve Jobs, Bill Gates and others, success is defined as the total global transformation of a market. To achieve that, you need low prices and an attractive offering. It’s about trying to make a positive impact on a big scale.” – Reed Hastings

“Lead with context, not control,” and coaching your employees using such guidelines as, “Don’t seek to please your boss.” ― Reed Hastings

“In a fast and innovative company, ownership of critical, big-ticket decisions should be dispersed across the workforce at all different levels, not allocated according to hierarchical status.” ― Reed Hastings

“HIGH PERFORMANCE + SELFLESS CANDOR = EXTREMELY HIGH PERFORMANCE” ― Reed Hastings

“TALENT DENSITY: TALENTED PEOPLE MAKE ONE ANOTHER MORE EFFECTIVE” ― Reed Hastings

“We learned that a company with really dense talent is a company everyone wants to work for. High performers especially thrive in environments where the overall talent density is high.” ― Reed Hastings

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Pat Walls

I'm Pat Walls and I created Starter Story - a website dedicated to helping people start businesses. We interview entrepreneurs from around the world about how they started and grew their businesses.

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