This article first appeared in Options, The Edge Malaysia Weekly on June 17, 2019 - June 23, 2019

At its core, US media services provider Netflix is about quality entertainment and making its customers happy. In an exclusive interview, co-founder, chairman and CEO Reed Hastings tells Anandhi Gopinath about his appetite as a tech entrepreneur, what powers the innovative company forward and how the team finds inspiration to tell the compelling, powerful stories for which the brand is known.

Netflix’s most recent release is a movie titled Always Be My Maybe, which is anchored in the oldest romantic film trope in the book — childhood friends, who had drifted apart, find each other as adults (who are now at different socio-economic levels) and somehow fall in love. And yet, defying conventional wisdom, Always Be My Maybe has received nothing but rave reviews and feels at once familiar, refreshing and quietly revolutionary. The movie is headlined by Randall Park of Fresh Off the Boat fame and the white-hot and hilarious Ali Wong. Together, they tell a time-tested tale of modern will-they-or-won’t-they that is somehow universal yet effortlessly Asian-American.

In many ways, only a company like Netflix could have taken on the risk of such a film — corny, predictable and with a cast that is almost entirely represented by a minority. Always Be My Maybe shares a few important similarities with the rest of Netflix’s original content, which has traditionally been well received. These unique stories artold with a strong voice, and through incredibly good filmmaking.

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