Founders of extremely successful corporations do not live in silos. They also have to look far and wide for solutions to problems – professional to private. This is especially true when finding the solution within themselves becomes impossible or something comes before them that is just too valuable to discard without first going through it and even adopting it. This happened to none other than Netflix co-founder Reed Hastings and he seems to have profited immensely from it.
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On a Tim Ferriss podcast, Hastings revealed his thoughts and actions on one of the most important aspects of running a corporation – taking risk. Too much, too less, just right? Hastings says he takes “a lot of risk on things that are recoverable.” Quite a complex statement, but he then proceeds to break it down. Applying the ‘recoverable risk’ principle to his profession has meant, Hastings said, he gets much more done than he ordinarily would do.
He was quoted on CNBC Make it as saying, “In most fields … you want to move fast, and some things don’t work, and you fix them fast.”
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This philosophy to taking risk, Hastings says, has been borrowed from Amazon founder Jeff Bezos who, on a Lix Fridman podcast, had said that he eyes risks as either “one-way doors [or] two-way doors.” And what does that mean? The two-way door risk approach allows you to reverse the course of action. Bezos had said, “You can come back in and pick another door”. There are no comebacks possible if you take risks based on one-way door approach. That means whatever decision is taken, should be very carefully considered.
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Hastings added that he wholeheartedly agrees with this approach. He also indicated what happened when Netflix took on really heavy risks way back in 2017. This was based on certain facts. “Our hit ratio is way too high right now,” he had said and added: “You have to try more crazy things.” This kind of risk-taking produced amazing hits for Netflix like “13 Reasons Why”.
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