Netflix boss Hastings worth $3.7bn
May 30, 2018
By Chris Forrester
Netflix co-founder and CEO Reed Hastings is worth an estimated $3.68 billion, says Forbes list of global billionaires. Hastings, and co-founder Marc Randolph, established the business in 1997-8. Hastings, says Forbes, still owns 2.5 per cent of the business.
The company itself is now neck and neck in terms of overall valuation with Disney and Comcast, and Hastings has benefitted from a 75 per cent+ rise in stock market valuation in 2018 alone, and Hastings has ridden the crest of that wave.
Hastings enjoys a decent salary and valuable stock options, and has realised some $600 million from selling shares over the past few years, according to Forbes estimates. In 2016 he said he would place $100 million into an education fund.
Hastings’ net worth has seen a meteoric rise as the company has prospered. One year ago (in March 2017) Forbes estimated his wealth at $1.8 billion. But Forbes says he has a long way to go before he even gets into the world’s ‘Top 600’ billionaires. Hastings is at Number 639 in the Forbes list of the world’s richest people.
Hastings has said that he – and Randolph – founded Netflix after he faced a $40 fine for the late return of a hired video of Apollo 13 from Blockbuster. The story may not be true. What is undoubtedly true is that Netflix grew rapidly from a simple DVD rental-by-post system to today’s OTT subscription service introduced in 2007.