Netflix founder "Rebel" AI: Do what you're afraid of

Original by David, Deepwater TechFlow

Netflix has never made so much money before, and the founder chose to leave at this time。

On 16 April, Netflix released a quarterly newspaper in 2026, which collected $12.25 billion, an increase of 16 per cent over the same period, with net profits rising by 83 per cent over the same period, with a profit of $1.23 per share and nearly 60 per cent above the expected $0.76 on Wall Street。

But the newspaper also announced another thing, and the co-founder and current chairman of the board, Reed Hastings, will not be re-elected after his term expires in June。

In 1997, Hastings founded Netflix, which has been running from the DVD mail business to a global mass media giant of over 325 million paid members for almost 30 years. In 2023, he gave the CEO to his successor and withdrew to the chairman. Now, even the Chairman is gone。

Netflix wrote, inter alia, in a document submitted to the United States SEC: “There is no disagreement between this decision and the company”

But the more it is stressed that there are no differences, the more people wonder what he's going to do。

A cold knowledge was that last May, Hastings had joined the board of directors of Anthropic。He's been in business for almost 30 years, basically making people pay for content, and Claude of Anthropic, while not directly generating video, is changing the way content is produced。

From text to picture to video, costs are getting faster and faster。

Netflix is profitable, because good content is worth paying. If AI sets the threshold for content production at a sufficiently low level, is this a prerequisite

Hastings is obviously already thinking about this。

What's he afraid of

As the world's top content producer and distributor, Netflix's founder actually had a mental concern about AI。

What you probably don't know is that in 1988 Hastings studied in Stanford was an AI master's degree. Yeah, he was studying artificial intelligence 40 years ago. It's just that back then, AI wasn't as useful as today...

At Stanford University graduation in 2022, Hastings was also a guest speaker。

He said it himself later, like he was telling a joke when he was young. It's just that AI didn't make it. He turned around and started Netflix. It was almost 30 years。

A PERSON WHO HAS LEARNED AN AI CAN'T NOT FOCUS ON THIS FIELD。

HE WAS INTERVIEWED IN 2024 AND TALKED ABOUT AI, WHICH WAS QUITE EASY AT THE TIME: "AI WILL HELP US BECOME MORE CREATIVE AND WE CAN USE THESE TOOLS TO MAKE MORE PROGRAMMING." HE WAS HUGGING. AI IS A TOOL, A HELP, NOT A JOB。

In March 2025, he donated $50 million to the home school Bowdoin College。

This Maine Institute of Arts doesn't make large models. Hastings paid them to do a research program called "AI and Humans" that specializes in research  AI impacts on work, education and interpersonal relations。

And on the day of the donation he said a sentence that was completely different from the light words of a year ago: "We shall fight for the survival and prosperity of mankind."

OVER THE COURSE OF A YEAR, AI'S PROGRESS HAS BEEN RAPID, AND HIS POSITION HAS BEEN TRANSFORMED FROM AI TO AI TO BEING A THREAT TO HUMANITY。

Two months later, he went to the board of directors of Anthropic。

His appointment was an independent body called the Long-Term Interest Trust, with five members not holding all the Anthropic shares, with only one function: to ensure that development of AI is in the long-term interest of humanity。

In March of this year, he said the best thing in another interview. The moderator asked him what the greatest risk was for Netflix, who jumped out of competition and membership growth and said two words:

I'M SORRY, AI.

He said if AI made free content on YouTube cool enough, attractive enough, young people went to see free, who paid for Netflix

From the public information, you can find Hastings calling himself "extreme technological optimist," and he doesn't think AI is a bad thing in itself. It's just a problem。

AI IS TOO FAST TO KEEP UP WITH HUMAN ETHICS AND INSTITUTIONS。

That explains his seemingly contradictory choices over the past year. No donation to the technical AI laboratory, no donation to a humanities institute; no advisory panel from any commercial AI company was selected to the board of directors, and the security committee from Anthropic was selected。

The writer felt that Hastings was more qualified than most people to worry about whether AI would destabilize the industry。

Netflix himself was the last wave of subversives, killing DVD leases with streaming media, damaging cable television, forcing the whole Hollywood to rebuild distribution systems. He did it with his own hands once: "Throw the cost of content and distribution to a sufficiently low level with new technology and then take out a generation of winners."。

NOW HE LOOKS AT AI, PROBABLY THINKING WHO'S NEXT。

So, Hastings is also the major shareholder of Netflix and the director of Anthropic. Take the shares of the company you started and sit down in a business that could destabilize the company。

This may not be called retirement, it may be called hedge。

But Netflix has never been better

Four years ago, Netflix was also a $30 billion-earned company with a profit margin of less than 20 percent, chased by Wall Street and asked, "When will you get real money?" Four years later, this financial report answered。

In the first quarter of 2026, net profits amounted to $5.28 billion, an increase of 83 per cent over the same period. Free cash flows amounted to $5.09 billion, almost twice as much as in the same period last year. At the same time, the profit-making station is on 32%. The year-round collection guidelines range from $507 to $51.7 billion, and NetFlix nearly doubled if it is really possible at the end of the year, equivalent to three years。

Out of daily business, Netflix didn't see AI。

A few weeks ago, it spent up to $600 million buying InterPositive, a company that works as an AI-assisted video production tool that can be used to accelerate script development, scenario previews and later production. Netflix also specifically refers to the generation of AI in its financial letters, which it uses to improve content production and user experience。

THERE IS NO PROBLEM WITH USING AI TO REDUCE PRODUCTION COSTS AND INCREASE EFFICIENCY. IN FACT, THE WHOLE HOLLYWOOD OR CONTENT INDUSTRY IS MOVING IN THIS DIRECTION。

Just the founder Hastings was worried in the interview that maybe not the same problem。

In February this year, byte beats released video generation model Seedance 2.0. Uploads a photograph to generate a 2K video with a mirror, audio, mouth-sync in 60 seconds。

AT THE TIME, THE PRODUCER OF BLACK MYTH: THE GOKU SAID FOUR WORDS AFTER THE SURVEY: "AIGA'S CHILDHOOD IS OVER." DIRECTOR JAFFAN KEI WEIBO SAID HE WAS GOING TO USE IT FOR SHORT FILMS...

More specific figures come from within the industry. According to the Securities Times, in the field of electrical advertising, one person can complete the work of the past seven individuals for three days with the use of Seedance 2.0 in 30 minutes, with a cost reduction of more than 99 per cent。

Queue shows, late clips, special effects, and the whole chain of industries are saying the same word - unemployment anxiety。

THE FOUNDER OF THE AKI ART, JIN WOO, PUBLICLY SAID A JUDGMENT AT THE END OF LAST YEAR: AI MAY REDUCE THE COSTS OF THE FILM INDUSTRY BY ONE ORDER OF MAGNITUDE, INCREASE THE NUMBER OF CREATORS BY ONE AND INCREASE THE NUMBER OF WORKS BY TWO。

Netflix uses AI to reduce production costs, which is equivalent to efficiency gains in existing models. But what the Seiedances are doing is pulling the threshold of "making video" from millions of dollars to a few dollars。

The future of what Hastings says, "free content on YouTube is good enough," is becoming a reality。

Of course, it may all have nothing to do with his choice to leave Netflix now. He began his shift in 2023, CEO, Chairman, step by step, with a transition period of at least three years。

Just the point of time is really delicate. Netflix handed over the best financial score in history, and fell by 8%. On the same day, the founders announced their complete departure。

After June, the name of Hastings will disappear from Netflix's list of board members。

His title now is Anthropic, Bloomberg, and the owner of a ski field in Utah. Netflix's stock he still holds, estimated by Forbes to be $5.8 billion, mostly tied to Netflix。

He took Netflix's money and sat on AI's desk。

AS TO WHETHER THIS CHOICE IS FAR-SIGHTED OR CONSIDERED, IT MIGHT BE THE DAY WHEN AI ACTUALLY PRODUCES A FILM THAT THE AUDIENCE WANTS TO SEE。