Idiot
The available evidence seems to indicate that at some point, Reed Hastings was a smart guy. Smart enough to count to twenty with his shoes on. Smart enough read pages 1-15 of the kind of introductory strategy text where they solemnly tell you to figure out what business you’re really in. Smart enough to grind Blockbuster into a pile of gleaming blue-and-white sand while launching a streaming service so popular that it now accounts for something like 20% of peak-load internet traffic. If you want to write an article on how he’s a big fat idiot who couldn’t find his ass with both hands in the dark, then you should probably have a theory of the transition between these two states of Reed Hastings. Did he suffer a stroke? Start dating distractingly gorgeous supermodels? Has he been licking the paint chips in his gloriously restored Victorian mansion?
If you do not have a theory—if you believe that Reed Hastings just suddenly and for no apparent reason became an idiot—then one of two things is likely. Either there is some undiagnosed medical condition that Mr. Hastings’ doctor should investigate immediately, or you are committing the fallacy of Chesterton’s fence.