Hastings: Humans biologically separate passive storytelling from active gaming
Reed Hastings · The Netflix Culture Code That Changed Entertainment Forever | Reed Hastings Interview · Invest Like The Best · Jan 6, 2026 · at 39:44
Netflix co-founder Reed Hastings explains the psychological and biological reasons traditional storytelling formats endure against interactive media.
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“We're in lean back mode with a TV and we're mostly wanted to tell us a story. If you think of young kids, Two year olds. They're half of the time. They're like, you know, daddy, read me a story. And half of the time it's daddy play with me. And these like are two different modalities that are different. One is passive. And I mean, I, again, I think it's very biological and we're selected for it. And one's very active and that one of those becomes TV and another becomes video game.”
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