Netflix CEO Reed Hastings To Depart Facebook Board of Directors (cnbc.com)

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Netflix CEO Reed Hastings To Depart Facebook Board of Directors (cnbc.com)

Posted by BeauHD on Friday April 12, 2019 @10:00PM from the see-ya-later dept.

Netflix CEO Reed Hastings will not be nominated for re-election at the company's 2019 annual stockholders meetings, Facebook said on Friday. CNBC reports: Hastings has served on the board of the social media company since 2011. The company said it will also not be re-nominating Erskine Bowles the president emeritus of the University of North Carolina, and it will instead nominate Peggy Alford, PayPal senior vice president of core markets. The addition of Alford, an African-American woman, comes as Facebook and other Silicon Valley companies strive for the inclusion of more women and minorities in their boards and throughout their workforces.

Hastings departure had been talked about for some time due to Facebook's growing interest in video services, according to Andrew Ross Sorkin. In 2017, Facebook launched Watch, its video streaming service, and last year, the company released IGTV, its Instagram video streaming app. Hastings' departure comes about three years after he got into a tussle with fellow board member Peter Thiel over their political leanings. In an August 2016 email, Hastings told Thiel that he planned to dock his performance review over his endorsement of then Republican Presidential-nominee Donald Trump, according to a New York Times report.

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Minorities by Anonymous Coward · 2019-04-12 22:15 · Score: -1

Peggy Alford, PayPal senior vice president of core markets[...] an African-American woman [...] inclusion of more women and minorities.
Posting anonymously to avoid being fired.
Is she actually good for the board, or only to fill the minority quota? Couldn't they find some trans Afro-American half-native Indian with Latino roots lesbian woman?
I'm sorry for her (and most women reaching high level positions nowadays), because there are serious doubts about her value because of the current social movements.
1. Re: Minorities by Anonymous Coward · 2019-04-12 22:31 · Score: 0
  
  Placed for skin color and reproductive organs. Not one word about her accomplishments. Very short resume?
2. Re:Minorities by LostMyAccount · 2019-04-12 23:18 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  My guess is she's better than you think. It's probably a real job with real responsibilities that has a really high income. And if she was half-smart, she'd also know that a black female executive who's actually good at her job is worth a giant pay premium to many companies for the black and female part.
  It seems kind of ironic, but so many companies need/want to virtue signal their ethnically diverse makeup that they're fairly desperate to retain and promote female, and especially black female, executives, and will pay premiums to keep the ones that are average-or-better in their positions.
  My wife (who isn't black) actually squeezed more money out of her employer for this reason. Her boss actually told her that female executive recruiting and retention was a big deal to global management ("You're actually on a high-value, high achievers list at corporate in Dublin."), and despite getting a bunch of unrequested deferred compensation thrown at her, she also asked for a big raise and they didn't even negotiate, they just gave it to her.
  My guess is Peggy Alford doesn't give a shit whether some right wing cranks think she's only where she's at because she's female or black, she's too busy cashing checks and figuring out her new company-supplied Mercedes.
3. Re:Minorities by TimothyHollins · 2019-04-12 23:33 · Score: 1
  
  I very much doubt FB would put a quota hire on the board. Directors only like quota employees that are kept far away from the director, and this is a person they would have to converse with frequently. She's there because she's good, though the black woman thing doesn't hurt the image either.
4. Re:Minorities by Anonymous Coward · 2019-04-13 00:13 · Score: 0
  
  Also, implying "African-American" i.e. US citizens have it bad. What about an Eritrean, a North Korean or an Afghan?
5. Re: Minorities by Anonymous Coward · 2019-04-13 00:46 · Score: 0
  
  That comment alone hits poor white people where it hurts most. Feel free to disagree. Or not. Whatever.
6. Re: Minorities by Anonymous Coward · 2019-04-13 00:48 · Score: 0
  
  I always assume that is why the âoeprogram managerâ count is unusually high with minorities. You can do check lists right? Quota met!
So? Is this BusinessNews now? by Anonymous Coward · 2019-04-12 22:29 · Score: 0

Who but stock gambling addicts will even blink?
1. Re: So? Is this BusinessNews now? by Anonymous Coward · 2019-04-13 01:13 · Score: 0
  
  My friend, THIS is the year of GNU/Linux on the desktop.
Not enough minorities! by Anonymous Coward · 2019-04-12 22:35 · Score: 0

It should be a disabled vegan lesbian mexican black jewish-muslim rape victim hemaphrodite trans-woman-born-woman with only half a a lower jaw who can only say "Timmae!". :D
Merit Considered Harmful by Kunedog · 2019-04-12 22:35 · Score: 3, Insightful

The addition of Alford, an African-American woman, comes as Facebook and other Silicon Valley companies strive for the inclusion of more women and minorities in their boards and throughout their workforces.

Nothing says "We don't care about qualifications or achievement" more than "striving" to promote job candidates based on two attributes they were born with.
1. Re:Merit Considered Harmful by SDF-7 · 2019-04-12 23:18 · Score: 1
  
  They don't have much choice. SB826 says they need to get to 50% by 2021.
2. Re:Merit Considered Harmful by Anonymous Coward · 2019-04-12 23:25 · Score: 0
  
  That's when they should be relocating out of CA.
3. Re: Merit Considered Harmful by Anonymous Coward · 2019-04-12 23:52 · Score: 0
  
  How does that not violate federal anti discrimination laws? Seems like males kicked out over these sexist quotas should sue the state in federal court.
4. Re: Merit Considered Harmful by Anonymous Coward · 2019-04-12 23:57 · Score: -1
  
  Males, and especially white males, have no rights.
5. Re:Merit Considered Harmful by Anonymous Coward · 2019-04-13 00:23 · Score: 0
  
  Faecesbook? I'd rather they stay in Silly Valley, Cretinia, than that they get to pretend to be a real business elsewhere.
  Let them have their lesiban neggir captains and let the ship sink out of sheer inclusivity.
  In more positive news, are there actually reasonably successful companies founded and headed by non-whites in the USA, and if not, why not? If we're only looking at skin colour, wikipedia's article on USian demographics says about one in eight people is "african american" so if there's not one in eight companies run by someone of that persuasion, I'd like to know why. If the answer really is "racism" then there's no better way to keep being racist than to be "inclusive" and favour unqualified people of the right skin colour; the next round, they'll be out on their ears and nobody else gets a second try, either. And if it's not "racism", then what is it? What does it take for anyone, regardless of skin colour, to get into the pool of qualified people and why does that effectively keep some colours out?
6. Re:Merit Considered Harmful by N1AK · 2019-04-13 00:34 · Score: 1
  
  To be fair, the reason this is happening is that enough people think it was already happening, thus the lack of gender and race diversity in senior positions, and that organisations weren't addressing it voluntarily so laws were enacted to force them to.
7. Re:Merit Considered Harmful by SpankiMonki · 2019-04-13 01:50 · Score: 1
  
  They don't have much choice. SB826 says they need to get to 50% by 2021.
  Actually, SB826 is a little more complicated than that. By the end of 2021, Public Companies must meet the following:
  If a Public Company’s number of directors is six or more, the Public Company must have a minimum of three female directors;
  If a Public Company’s number of directors is five, the Public Company must have a minimum of two female directors; and
  If a Public Company’s number of directors is four or fewer, the Public Company must have a minimum of one female director.
8. Re:Merit Considered Harmful by Anonymous Coward · 2019-04-13 02:35 · Score: 0
  
  The addition of Alford, an African-American woman, comes as Facebook and other Silicon Valley companies strive for the inclusion of more women and minorities in their boards and throughout their workforces.
  Nothing says "We don't care about qualifications or achievement" more than "striving" to promote job candidates based on two attributes they were born with.
  Are you trying to say women and minorities are unqualified, or that you think white men are more qualified? Or just explain where you read that qualifications are not important to someone that wants to recruit women and minorities.
  Why is there a problem with a board electing diverse, qualified members? Especially for the board of a social media company, it seems like common sense.
9. Re: Merit Considered Harmful by Anonymous Coward · 2019-04-13 03:36 · Score: 0
  
  You have a real purty mouth for a bigot, hold still kunedog, I'm going to feed you.
10. Re:Merit Considered Harmful by Anonymous Coward · 2019-04-13 03:40 · Score: 1, Insightful
  
  The problem is obvious, if you stop to think about it: there is a very limited supply of "diversity hires" available on the market, and an even smaller number of those are actually talented in their field (unless you're going to claim that being a minority automatically makes them competent). And that small supply is hotly demanded by a great many employers. Once the cream of the crop is skimmed off by the largest, highest paying companies, the leftovers will be hired anyway -- because even though they might be incompetent, they still provide PR and legal compliance value to the company that outweighs their lack of job ability.
  Of course many will disagree with that logic on an emotional level, but simply ask yourself, if you were forced to undergo a risky medical procedure, would you be ok with your surgical team being chosen according to ethnicity first and experience/ability second?
11. Re:Merit Considered Harmful by doesnothingwell · 2019-04-13 04:06 · Score: 1
  
  It worked for the former CTO of Equifax, maybe she's still available. Yeah, I went there.
  
  --
  They can have my command prompt when they pry it from my cold dead fingers.
12. Re:Merit Considered Harmful by alexo · 2019-04-13 04:23 · Score: 1
  
  They don't have much choice. SB826 says they need to get to 50% by 2021.
  Not really 50%, just at least 3 women if the number of board members is 6 or more, 2 if the number is 5, and 1 otherwise.
  Other than that, I find two loopholes in the bill large enough to drive a medium-sized planet through:
  Regarding violations and penalties:
  301.3.(e)(3) For purposes of this subdivision, a female director having held a seat for at least a portion of the year shall not be a violation.
  301.3.(f)(1) “Female” means an individual who self-identifies her gender as a woman, without regard to the individual’s designated sex at birth.
  So for one day a year (I suggest May 1st for maximum Irony), the chairman of the board should come to work in drag.
13. Re:Merit Considered Harmful by alexo · 2019-04-13 04:24 · Score: 1
  
  I suggest May 1st for maximum Irony
  Ugh, meant March 8th. Sorry.
14. Re:Merit Considered Harmful by Anonymous Coward · 2019-04-13 04:48 · Score: 0
  
  I was born with a very high IQ. Would that fit your idea of not deserving compensation due to an attribute you were born with? I always thought it should be tied to how much more you produce for an employer than you consume - the basic meritocracy, but maybe that's because I win big in that system...
  Obviously there's no need for productivity, everyone has enough of everything already, right?
15. Re: Merit Considered Harmful by Anonymous Coward · 2019-04-13 05:10 · Score: 0
  
  I believe everyone should choose their surgeon on ideological beliefs. Eventually the problem solves itself!
16. Re: Merit Considered Harmful by Anonymous Coward · 2019-04-13 05:16 · Score: 0
  
  The ceo of yahoo left. I heard she did a stellar job and that company is still around. Special props to the one that brought greatness back to HP. They still make servers right?
17. Re:Merit Considered Harmful by Anonymous Coward · 2019-04-13 07:16 · Score: 0
  
  Were you actually born with a high IQ? That's not how IQ works. Born with the talent, sure. But IQ depends on more than that.
  Moreover, "how much more you produce than you consume" doesn't have that much to do with IQ, though it might help. Just dilligent and efficient work already gets you decent pay. For winning big you need to own a shop, not work for a shop-owner. And for that you need business acumen. You don't particularly want lots of IQ to go with that, in fact too much can easily get in the way. The alternative is working as an investment banker or an executive, and for either you need to be a psychopath.
  Besides, "meritocracy" is the justification fable for the current upper class, but it's not actually true for anyone else. It's still who you know, not what you can do. Sad but true. This is just as much true for the "inclusively promoted" people as it was for the white male bunch.
  As someone with also quite a high IQ yet not reaping any monetary gains from that mere fact, I say good for you, but don't kid yourself.
18. Re:Merit Considered Harmful by Anonymous Coward · 2019-04-13 13:08 · Score: 0
  
  The problem is obvious, if you stop to think about it: there is a very limited supply of "diversity hires" available on the market, and an even smaller number of those are actually talented in their field (unless you're going to claim that being a minority automatically makes them competent). And that small supply is hotly demanded by a great many employers. Once the cream of the crop is skimmed off by the largest, highest paying companies, the leftovers will be hired anyway -- because even though they might be incompetent, they still provide PR and legal compliance value to the company that outweighs their lack of job ability.
  Of course many will disagree with that logic on an emotional level, but simply ask yourself, if you were forced to undergo a risky medical procedure, would you be ok with your surgical team being chosen according to ethnicity first and experience/ability second?
  People pick doctors by at least their gender, and other attributes REGULARLY. Speaks my first language? Same gender as me? These are very common deciding factors. Incredibly common.
  You need to ask yourself if you'd be OK with your surgery team only speaking Farsi, even though they are the most skilled at your operation. So what about cream of the crop now?
  Is that a stupid example? You tell me, or did you forget we're talking about the board of a social media company and not some hypothetical super-skill.
19. Re:Merit Considered Harmful by Anonymous Coward · 2019-04-13 13:28 · Score: 0
  
  The addition of Alford, an African-American woman, comes as Facebook and other Silicon Valley companies strive for the inclusion of more women and minorities in their boards and throughout their workforces.
  Nothing says "We don't care about qualifications or achievement" more than "striving" to promote job candidates based on two attributes they were born with.
  Striving for inclusion of women and minorities
  THEREFORE
  don't care about qualifications or achievements
  REALLY??
  Come on /. you can't let Kunedog and his trash mouth stand at +Insightful. This is not a good look.
  I know the mods are being manipulated on this one, but don't give up and keep the down mods flowing.
  All the feigned outrage at Facebook's board of directors being anything less than a total meritocracy, and the presumption that you can't have that with a black woman on board, I mean come on people, that's not Slashdot, this site is not dead yet.
20. Re:Merit Considered Harmful by Anonymous Coward · 2019-04-13 18:28 · Score: 0
  
  It sounds like you're making excuses for your own failures. Could it be, perhaps, that your IQ isn't as you think it is, and your ego is too big?
shouldn't be allowed, anyway by Anonymous Coward · 2019-04-12 22:45 · Score: 1

the BOD should not contain a CEO from another company, the BOD is meant to be a check on the CEO and stuffing the board with CEOs is a definite conflict of interest.
Netflix is not that great anymore by Anonymous Coward · 2019-04-12 23:04 · Score: 0

Unless you like Indian movies
Because it's the law? by qubezz · 2019-04-12 23:17 · Score: 1

Because they strive to comply with the law requiring at least one woman, while there is no law requiring at least one man.
Oh come on! by Anonymous Coward · 2019-04-12 23:34 · Score: 0

Stop it with that "inclusion of more women" bullcrap.
You can't have the magical 50/50 men to women. (They want even more than that)
Go to any school teaching CS or engineering, the ratio of men to women is pretty much 3:1 if not greater. The majority of women simply doesn't study in that field, so why would jobs have to misrepresent the reality by essentially doing gender discrimination and not hiring men in favor of these non-existent women.
Too many Jews? by Anonymous Coward · 2019-04-13 00:04 · Score: 0

The best thing about this whole racial politics thing is that you can take it to its logical conclusion and examine the over representation of Jews in corporate boards and C-level suites. If a given company has way too many Jews, you can launch an anti-racist Twitter campaign to denounce excessive Jewish presence and ask for the inclusion of more non-Jews.. Am I rite?
1. Re: Too many Jews? by Anonymous Coward · 2019-04-13 03:13 · Score: 0
  
  No. You are not right. You should take it to the logical conclusion you were too cowardly, historically ignorant, or just weak-ass-troll about it and go to death camps for Jews.
  A real troll would have gone there. Your troll-fun is weak!
2. Re: Too many Jews? by Anonymous Coward · 2019-04-13 06:24 · Score: 0
  
  If we truly seek diversity (I think it is good) we should examine ALL non-diverse groups. Don't play favorites, that is how we got here in the first place.
Re: Minorities - exactly. by Anonymous Coward · 2019-04-13 02:13 · Score: 0

Your wife and this woman are obviously only doing well exactly for the reasons your wife was given: vagina and skin color.
I was surprised to see they put a random ass VP on the board until the summary also explained VP has a black vagina. Those are well known success traits in the video streaming industry just like being tall is helpful in basketball.
Does your wife at least acknowledge she is not worth that much in a meritocracy?
Just wrong by Anonymous Coward · 2019-04-13 02:15 · Score: 0

In an August 2016 email, Hastings told Thiel that he planned to dock his performance review over his endorsement of then Republican Presidential-nominee Donald Trump,
Can't say I like Trump in any way other than "he's not Hillary", but that is just plain wrong.
1. Re: Just wrong by Anonymous Coward · 2019-04-13 03:36 · Score: 1
  
  I agree. This should be just as disturbing as diversity laws being being passed dictating the board members race and sex. Smacks of having to be a good nazi or communist party member in order to have a job, etc.