Wilmot Reed Hastings Jr. was born on October 8, 1960 in Boston, Massachusetts, the son of Joan Amory (Loomis) and Wilmot Reed Hastings. The popular American entrepreneur is perhaps best known as being the CEO of Netflix, a web-based DVD mail order company, but also for his philanthropic activities, particularly with regard to education.
So just how rich is Reed Hastings? Sources estimate that Reed currently earns $6 million per year just as ‘salary’ from Netflix, but also from other business interests such that his net worth is over $940 million.
Reed Hastings Net Worth $940 Million
Reed Hastings initially enrolled at Bowdoin College, graduating with a B.S. in mathematics, and then studying at Stanford University from which he holds an M.S. in computer science. Reed had his first job at Adaptive Technology where he was a designer of debugging software. However, it was in 1991 when Reed decided to change his career and start working on his own, that he established a company named Pure Software. The company focused on providing products for troubleshooting software, and grew immediately from inception. From one side it was good as it added considerable revenues to the total size of Reed Hastings net worth, however, Reed had little experience in managing a big company, and so struggled somewhat. Hastings himself claimed that he lacked organizational abilities., so it is interesting that Reed felt so inexperienced that he even asked his team to choose another CEO instead of himself. However, nobody accepted this offer, and this was eventually to Reed`s benefit, as evidenced by his current net worth.
In 1996 Pure Software merged with another company called Atria Software to form Pure Atria, but which Reed Hastings soon left to create Netflix, with co-founder Marc Randolph. The former company was focusing on detecting bugs while the latter on developing complicated software systems. When these two companies joined, the total size of Reed Hastings net worth became even bigger, but the total size of Reed Hasting’s net worth increased further through Netflix, and from incomes accrued by being on the board of Facebook and of many other popular organizations and companies. He served on the Microsoft board from 2007 to 2012, and has been working on the Facebook board since 2011 as well.
Reed Hastings has a lot to do with non-profit organizations, and with his interest in education decided to focus on educational reform in California. He enrolled into Stanford Graduate School of Education, and in 2000 Hastings was appointed to the State Board of Education, then one year later had the honour to become its president.
Currently, Hastings Reed resides in San Francisco Bay Area with his wife and two children.
