Netflix co-founder Reed Hastings donates $1.1 bn shares to charity

SAN FRANCISCO — Netflix Co-founder and CEO Reed Hastings has donated $1.1 billion of his company shares to charity.

Hastings donated two million shares to the charity known as the Silicon Valley Community Foundation, reports The Wall Street Journal.

The charity is popular with tech founders with over $10 billion in assets at the close of 2022. Donors see an immediate tax benefit (like avoiding payment of capital-gains tax) but funds can ultimately “sit for years” before being distributed, according to the report.

Hastings’s gift accounts for about 40 per cent of the executive’s direct ownership stake in Netflix.

Previous donors have included Facebook co-founder Mark Zuckerberg, who gave more than $1 billion worth of Facebook stock a decade ago.

Earlier this month, the foundation appointed Greta Hansen, Santa Clara County’s Chief Operating Officer, to the position of board chair and added David Chun and Archana Sathaye as new members of the board.

“I’m honoured to be joining an incredible board of individuals motivated to make our community a better place,” said Sathaye.

“I look forward to working alongside them to make an already successful organisation even more impactful in our community.”

Since 2007, the foundation has leveraged its unique position and relationships to create dynamic partnerships that “further the success of our neighbours throughout the region.”

In 2022, it granted $2.57 billion to nearly 6,000 organisations, $394 million of which supported nonprofits right across the 10-county Bay Area in the US.