Forbes estimated Reed Hastings's net worth at $6.6 billion in May 2025. Most of it comes from his Netflix shares. Hastings co-founded the company in 1997 and was its CEO until he became executive chairman.
He paid for the start himself. Hastings put in $2.5 million from the sale of his earlier company, Pure Atria, and he owned about 70 percent of Netflix when Amazon offered to buy it for $14 million to $16 million. He declined. In September 2000 Netflix offered itself to Blockbuster for $50 million, and Blockbuster's chief executive turned it down.
Netflix went public on 29 May 2002, selling 5.5 million shares at $15.00 on Nasdaq. Streaming launched on 16 January 2007. In September 2011 Hastings announced a separate DVD service called Qwikster and then reversed course, after about 800,000 of 12 million subscribers cancelled.
In 2025 Netflix reported revenue of about $45.2 billion, net income of about $11.0 billion and operating income of about $13.3 billion. It reported some 325 million paid memberships in 2026. Its market value was $272.98 billion on 6 November 2026, according to companiesmarketcap.com.