REED HASTINGS

$3.5

BILLION  SELF-MADE SCORE: & SOURCE: NETFLIX AGE: 59 RESIDENCE: SANTA CRUZ, CA PHILANTHROPY SCORE: Netflix, a pioneer in the streaming industry, faces frenzied competiton from Amazon, Hulu, Apple and Disney. Its stock has fallen 25% since second-quarter earnings were announced— though the company spent $12 billion last year on programming in an effort to gain a bigger international following. Hastings cofounded Netflix in 1997, two years after the IPO of his troubleshooting software company Pure Software. He’s pictured above amid a mountain of DVDs in September 2001.