Reed Hastings is stepping down as Netflix’s co-CEO

As Netflix announced its quarterly earnings, co-founder Reed Hastings revealed that after 25 years of running the company that grew from mail order video disc rentals into a streaming behemoth, he is no longer its CEO.

He’d named content chief Ted Sarandos co-CEO in 2020, and Sarandos will continue on in that role but now sharing duties as co-CEO with Greg Peters, Netflix’s former chief operating officer. In other executive moves, Bela Bajaria is now Netflix’s chief content officer, and Scott Stuber has been named the chairman of Netflix Film. 

Hastings isn’t completely out from the company; according to a blog post, he’s taken on the role of executive chairman, a position he says he’ll be at “for many years to come” in a tweet. The shift comes as Netflix rolls out ad-supported streaming for the first time, something Hastings had publicly resisted for years until a drop in subscribers pushed the company to change.