2026-09-24
Reed Hastings: the origin story that made him famous was invented
"He was charged a $40 late fee, so he built a company with no late fees" — co-founder Marc Randolph says that story was made up, and Netflix itself charged late fees for its first 17 months. The decision that actually mattered gets told far less often: he killed the DVD business while it was the most profitable thing he had. No. 16 in the 100 Product Managers Who Changed the World, scored 96/90/85/93/93/94.
