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Netflix isn’t making many friends lately and I’m willing to bed CEO Reed Hastings can add AOL President Tim Armstrong to his list of detractors.
Speaking on the Netflix company blog over the weekend Hastings apologizes for his price hike handling and then made the following comment:
Most companies that are great at something — like AOL dialup or Borders bookstores — do not become great at new things people want (streaming for us) because they are afraid to hurt their initial business. Eventually these companies realize their error of not focusing enough on the new thing, and then the company fights desperately and hopelessly to recover. Companies rarely die from moving too fast, and they frequently die from moving too slowly.
While Hastings didn’t actually say AOL is dead he alluded to the fact that their new approach is a last gasp before their collapse, a statement i’m sure has Arianna Huffington fuming.
A Netflix spokesperson was quick to point out that Hastings was only talking about AOL dial-up service, however AOL took on a new approach as he alluded to which makes his remarks seem somewhat more pointed at AOL’s new approach to content over hardware/software offerings.
In any case it’s not like Hastings would be the first tech mogul to attack AOL, IAC chairman Barry Diller recently said Tim Armstrong screwed up when handling CrunchFund and other industry tech guru’s have made the same type of complaints against AOL and Huffington Post
