Netflix CEO breaks with big tech, saying it’s actually a media company

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Reed Hastings attends Reed Hastings panel during Netflix ‘See What’s Next’ event at Villa Miani on April 18, 2018 in Rome, Italy.

Netflix CEO Reed Hastings broke with his big tech peers Monday when he argued the company is actually more of a media operation than a tech one, Recode reported.

Many of the other big tech firms have resisted labeling themselves as media companies and instead opted for the label of “platforms” where users supply the content. Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, for example, has repeatedly made the distinction between his company and traditional media firms. In 2016, he said, “We build the tools, we do not produce any content,” according to Reuters. (Facebook does pay to produce some original programming for its Watch video product.) Some have argued that the distinction allows tech firms to abdicate responsibility for the content it hosts and promotes.

But as regulators and politicians have turned their eyes toward tech companies, Hastings has taken a decidedly different approach in calling Netflix a media company. While valued like a tech company with a market cap of nearly $159 billion, Hastings said the distribution of spending at Netflix makes it a media company.

“[W]e’re really mostly a content company powered by tech,” Hastings said, according to Recode, since the company spends $1.2 billion on technology and about $10 billion on video programming.

Hasting’s response came after Recode asked about the role U.S. lawmakers should play in regulating tech companies when it comes to privacy and antitrust. Democratic presidential contender Elizabeth Warren, a senator from Massachusetts, called out Netflx’s FAANG peers — Facebook, Amazon, Apple and Google — in her plan to “break up Big Tech.” If seen as a media company, Netflix could have a chance of avoiding the limelight as more presidential candidates are forced to take a stance on big tech regulation.

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