Reed Hastings to leave Netflix board after 29-year run, company says

Reed Hastings is set to exit Netflix’s board in June, closing out a 29-year run that began when he co-founded the company with Marc Randolph in 1997 and ended with Netflix’s rise from DVD-by-mail upstart to global streaming giant. Netflix said Hastings will not stand for re-election at its annual meeting and plans to focus on philanthropy and other pursuits.

The move marks another step away from the founder-led era that defined Netflix’s culture, risk tolerance and strategic ambition. Hastings ran the company as chief executive from 1999 to 2023, became executive chairman in 2023, then shifted in April 2025 to chairman of the board and a non-executive director role. By the time he leaves the board this summer, the company he helped shape will be run day to day by co-chief executives Ted Sarandos and Greg Peters, with Hastings no longer in the governance structure that once anchored his influence.

That transition comes as Netflix is trying to show it can thrive on scale and execution rather than constant reinvention. The company said the same day that first-quarter revenue rose 16% from a year earlier to $12.25 billion, while operating income increased 18%. It also reaffirmed its 2026 revenue outlook of $50.7 billion to $51.7 billion and an operating margin of 31.5%, signals that management is prioritizing profitability and predictability as much as growth.

Investors appeared to read the announcement through that lens. Netflix shares fell about 8% to 9% in after-hours trading after the news, even as the company tries to recover momentum following the collapse of its proposed $72 billion deal for Warner Bros. Discovery. The failed bid underscored how much larger and more mature Netflix has become, and how its ambitions now sit closer to media consolidation and capital discipline than to the old Silicon Valley playbook of perpetual disruption.

Sarandos and Peters praised Hastings in statements, calling him a “singular source of inspiration” and “Netflix’s founder and biggest champion.” That legacy is now being handed off to a company with enough scale to outlast its founder, but also enough complexity to demand a different kind of leadership. Netflix’s next chapter looks less like a startup trying to reinvent entertainment and more like a mature media company intent on protecting margins, guiding investors and proving that the culture Hastings built can survive without him in the room.