Reed Hastings barred DVD executives from staff meetings during Netflix's streaming pivot
Ben Horowitz · 20VC: a16z's Ben Horowitz on How To Create An Environment of Trust with Founders, How and Why Creating Shocking Rules Is So Impactful To Culture & What The Samurai, Shaka Senghor and Toussaint Teach Us About Company Culture Building · Oct 28, 2019 · at 22:21
Ben Horowitz, co-founder of venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz, explains how tech CEOs create organizational urgency during major strategic pivots, referencing Netflix CEO Reed Hastings.
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“Kind of the example that I use, the parallel example, is Reed Hastings when he switched the business from CDs to streaming, which, or DVDs to streaming, sorry. You know, he had no streaming revenue, and, you know, the DVD business was, not only was the entire business, they were a public company and all these things, and so, but he was terrified, and he knew that the company needed to be urgent, About getting to streaming before a pure streaming company did, and so in order to do that, he kicked all the people running the DVD business out of the executive staff meeting.”
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