Netflix’s Black Friday

Reed Hastings
Photo by Sylvain Lefevre/Getty
Matthew Belloni
January 24, 2022

Sssh, don’t say this too loudly. What if, just maybe—this is tough—but maybe, stay with me… Netflix is just a regular old entertainment company? I know, that’s blasphemy. Entertainment? What? That’s the Business That Must Not Be Named. Netflix, of course, is a technology company—a truly global, algorithmically driven, product-first engagement machine. It might produce and distribute what Hollywood people call “movies” and “television shows,” but to the stock market, the content is merely a $15 billion a year annoyance. The Netflix platform—and its seemingly unending growth, thanks to its first-mover position in streaming—is what has driven the sky-high valuation.