Netflix's "boss" journey to billionaire status

Reed Hastings, co-founder of the online movie viewing service Netflix, was born in Boston, USA.

After graduating from high school, instead of going straight to college, he deferred his studies to work as a vacuum cleaner salesman for a year before pursuing a major in mathematics at Stanford University.

After graduating from college and working for a few years, Hastings and his two friends, Raymond Peck and Mark Box, founded Pure Software at the age of 31. This product was conceived by him as a debugging tool for engineers.

Speaking to The Times about his experience running Pure Software, Hastings said: "When kayaking, if you just focus on the negatives and stare at them, there's a chance you'll be in danger. So I just focus on what I'm aiming for and do whatever it takes to get there. I don't pay attention to other people's doubts and don't let them bother my mind."

Reed Hastings' first business was an unexpected success, recording impressive revenue growth.

Two years later, a company called Rational Software acquired Pure Software for $750 million. This deal created an opportunity for Hastings, laying the foundation for his journey with Netflix.

Reportedly, the idea that led Hastings to the Netflix service business model came after he had a bad experience with a traditional movie rental store.

Then, on his way to the gym, a business model popped into his head that offered a video streaming service where users could pay around $30-40 a month to watch as many videos as they wanted.

Hành trình trở thành tỷ phú của ông trùm Netflix - 1 — Reed Hastings, co-founder of the online movie viewing service Netflix (Photo: Getty).

Netflix was founded in 1997 by Reed Hastings and entrepreneur Marc Randolph. However, Randolph left the company after a long tenure as its leader five years later.

In its first year alone, Netflix attracted 239,000 subscribers. The way it worked at the time was for users to list all the DVDs they wanted to watch on Netflix.com, and the company would mail each one in a red envelope. Subscribers could keep the movies for as long as they wanted without worrying about late fees.

But then Reed Hastings split Netflix's traditional DVD subscription plan and split its fledgling streaming business into separate services with different fees, a move that plunged the company into a major crisis.

Netflix customers experienced dissatisfaction, even anger, when faced with new subscription options, causing Netflix's stock price to fall by 75% by the end of 2011.

After the challenges, Netflix gradually restored its reputation thanks to the high rating of its content from critics. Currently, Netflix is a giant in the entertainment industry with 230.75 million paid members worldwide.

The Middle East and Africa was the region with the highest growth in the fourth quarter of last year, with more than 5 million new accounts opened. This region also contributed $2.78 billion of the company's total revenue of $8.83 billion in the last quarter.

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