Netflix CEO jokes that the future of entertainment could be drugs
That brings new meaning to "Netflix and chill."
Netflix is one of the most successful entertainment companies in the world, and it did so by constantly looking for ways to reach people. CEO Reed Hastings said in an WSJD Live interview that in the early days, they licked envelopes for DVD-by-mail, slowly transitioned to streaming, and then started to make their own content when they couldn't get what they wanted from studios. So what does the future hold? Well, Hastings said it could be VR, it could be gaming, or it could be, uh, pharmacological.
Pharmacological? Wall Street Journal Financial Editor Dennis K. Berman pushed Hastings to continue on that point, which sparked a hilarious off-handed description about "entertainment drugs." "In twenty or fifty years, taking a personalized blue pill, you just hallucinate in an entertaining way, and then a white pill brings you back to normality is perfectly viable," he said. "If the source of human entertainment in thirty or forty years is pharmacological we'll be in real trouble."
In the same interview, Hastings says that he's not opposed to the AT&T and Time Warner merger, so as long as Netflix traffic gets treated the same way as HBO's. He also explains that Netflix won't go into news and sports, though he did mention that the upcoming "Ultimate Beastmaster" is a take on "Ninja Warrior."
