Netflix Hires ex-Postmaster General

BetaNews.com reports, "William Henderson has found out that working for the U.S. Postal Service may not be so bad after all. The 58-year-old former Postmaster General is now the Chief Operating Officer of Netflix, replacing Tom Dillion, who plans to retire in April. The company cited Henderson's experience with large amounts of mail as one of the primary reasons for his hiring."

Netflix is working to distribute movies over the Internet in the future, but the U.S. Postal Service remains its sole delivery method today. The company ships more than 1 million DVDs a day from 37 distribution centers in the U.S. and touts one business-day delivery.

Henderson was the Chief Operating Officer of the USPS from 1994 to 1998, and was promoted to CEO and Postmaster General in 1998. He held both positions up until his retirement in 2001.

"Bill Henderson is about the only person on the planet who looks at our volume of mail as a trickle," Netflix CEO Reed Hastings said in a statement.