Reed Hastings: Co-founder of Netflix

About Reed Hastings: Co-founder of Netflix

Wilmot Reed Hastings Jr. (born October 8, 1960, in Boston, Massachusetts) is an American billionaire businessman and the co-founder of Netflix, which provides the eponymous streaming service. He serves on a number of boards, works with non-profit organizations and is a former president of the California State Board of Education and an advocate for charter schools. As of May 2025 Forbes estimated his net worth at $6.6 billion. Hastings's father, Wilmot Reed Hastings Sr., was an attorney for the Department of Health, Education and Welfare in the Nixon administration; his mother, Joan Amory Loomis, came from a Boston Brahmin family and taught her children to disdain high society. He attended Buckingham Browne & Nichols School in Cambridge, sold vacuum cleaners door-to-door during a gap year, and in 1983 graduated from Bowdoin College with a Bachelor of Arts in mathematics. He joined Marine Corps officer training and spent college summers in the Marines, including the Officer Candidate School boot camp at Quantico in 1981, but did not complete the training and never commissioned; he chose the Peace Corps instead, "out of a combination of service and adventure". From 1983 to 1985 he taught math at a high school of around 800 students in rural northwest Swaziland, an experience he credits with part of his entrepreneurial spirit. He later co-founded Netflix, which grew into one of the world's leading streaming services. Sources: English Wikipedia (Reed Hastings, accessed September 2026).

Basic Information

Co-founder, Netflix

Company Details

Netflix

Streaming, Media, Entertainment

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