Netflix CEO Reed Hastings resigns
The streaming platform's CEO is stepping down after 25 years just before the presentation of its fourth quarter earnings for 2022.
Netflix's CEO is stepping down. After 25 years in the position, co-founder Reed Hastings will begin his transition from chief executive officer to become the company's executive chairman, per a Netflix press release:
Hastings shared that the CEO position will now be held by two people, Co-CEO Ted Sarandos and COO Greg Peters.
Stock market plunge
The announcement of his resignation came minutes before the company released its 2022 fourth quarter earnings. Despite the omens, the streaming giant earned 4.49 billion dollars in the last year, adding $55 million in the last four-month period, as reported by Reuters. In addition, Netflix also saw an increase in subscribers. In the last quarter of 2022, the platform added 7.6 million subscribers, closing the year with 230,7 million total subscribers. Analysts attribute this jump partially to the success of the Harry & Meghan documentary and the popular series Wednesday, starring Jenna Ortega.
On Wall Street, things didn't go so well for Netflix. However, the platform ended the year with a bump in its share price, reaching a value of $335,05 per share at the time of this article's publishing. However, the figure does little to make up for the stock market plunge it took in March 2022 when the company lost nearly 200,000 subscribers and, as a result, its share price fell nearly 25%, as reported by NBC News. For that reason, the company was forced to introduce cheaper plans and restrict account sharing. These measures, according to Netflix's letter to its shareholders, worked: