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Netflix Boss Plots Life After The DVD

Wells Fargo didn't transmogrify into General Motors, but Netflix CEO Reed Hastings feels like a guy who owned a fleet of stagecoaches around the turn of the 20th century. He thinks his core business -- mailing rental DVDs to consumers -- is doomed, writes Nick Wingfield.

Hastings is scrambling to offer digital delivery and his case history offers "a rare look at how a CEO manages a still-hot business as its time runs out," Wingfield writes. The biggest challenge will be to convince Hollywood studios that the DVD is the old grey mare the rest of the world knows it is.

And the competition isn't the most obvious target. "As a capitalist, I'd rather have Blockbuster as my primary competitor than all those Internet companies," Hastings says.

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