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Reed Hastings' CEO Washed His Coffee Cups at 5am. Then Led Them Off a Cliff.

By Reed Hastings · Leadership · 1 min read

Hastings followed a charismatic CEO who cleaned his dishes at dawn. They sold one copy of their product. To one customer.

Key Points

Personal charisma and integrity are not enough - you need product-market fit
Hastings found his CEO washing his coffee cups at 5am and pledged loyalty
They built an elaborate product and sold exactly one copy - which was never installed

You can be very personally compelling and high integrity. But you also got to lead people in the right direction.

The 5am Discovery

Reed Hastings was 28, coding all night at a startup called Coherent Thought. Gross coffee cups piled on his desk.

He noticed the janitor kept cleaning them. So he stopped bothering. Someone else would handle it.

One morning at 5am, he walked into the bathroom. His CEO, Barry Plockton, was scrubbing the cups. The CEO. At dawn.

The CEO was washing his engineer's coffee cups at 5am.

The Loyalty Moment

Hastings asked: 'Barry, what are you doing?' Barry said: 'I'm cleaning your cups.'

'Have you been doing this the whole year?' 'Yes.' 'You never said anything?' 'No.' 'Why?' 'You work so hard. This is the only thing I can do for you.'

Hastings decided: 'I will follow this guy to the end of the Earth.'

You work so hard. This is the only thing I can do for you.

And That Is Exactly Where He Led Them

To the end of the Earth. Meaning off a cliff.

Barry was an incredibly charismatic guy. High integrity. But he didn't have a good product-market fit vision.

They built an incredibly elaborate product. Sold exactly one copy. To one customer. Who never installed it.

One copy sold. One customer. Never installed.

Not Into the Back Canyon

Hastings: It's a funny thing about leadership. You can be very personally compelling and high integrity — that's great. But you also got to lead people in the right direction. Not into the back canyon.

Personally compelling and high integrity — great. But you also got to lead people in the right direction.