SAN FRANCISCO (AP) ? Netflix CEO Reed Hastings will pay a $1.5 million penalty for the management blunders that alienated the video subscription service’s customers and pulverized its stock.
The punishment will be delivered with a 50 percent reduction in his stock option awards next year. The company disclosed that in regulatory documents Thursday.
Instead of the $3 million stock option allowance he received this year, Hastings will get $1.5 million in 2012. His salary will remain unchanged at $500,000.
Netflix Inc. declined to comment on the changes.
Hastings has repeatedly said that he mismanaged how the company told customers in July that prices in the U.S. would go up as much as 60 percent. Since then, Netflix has lost at least 800,000 U.S. subscribers while its stock has plunged 75 percent.
