MAD MONEY — Pictured: Reed Hastings, CEO of Netflix, in an interview on September 18, 2015 — (Photo by: Mark Neuling/CNBC/NBCU Photo Bank/NBCUniversal via Getty Images)

NBCU Photo Bank/NBCUniversal via Getty Images

In a free market bereft of politics, Netflix arguably would have come out on top in its battle with Paramount Global for Warner Brothers Discovery. Evidence supporting the previous claim can be found in a 10% decline in the price of Netflix shares.

The steep decline in Netflix’s valuation followed news that co-founder Reed Hastings is exiting the company. Talk about a validation of Hasting’s genius.

With Hastings we’re talking about someone who saw the behemoth that was Blockbuster Video, only for him to innovate around the business that the FTC once thought had “monopoly” powers. Yet Hastings didn’t stop there.

Aware that stasis in any business is the quick path to obsolescence, Hastings quite literally disrupted his own co-creation. While Netflix built impressive market share with mail-order DVDs, Hastings gradually replaced it with streaming.

Yet even then, the biggest of the big in entertainment couldn’t grasp how very much Hastings was seeing around the proverbial corner. Having introduced streaming in 2007, Hastings knew he needed content, and abundant amounts of content, to gain credibility.

At which point he began paying bigger and bigger sums for the right to stream movies and television shows. Funny about this was that content creators were only too happy to attain the revenue from Netflix, all the while unaware of just how genius Hasting’s strategy was.

As some readers may remember, it was in 2010 that Netflix’s future in entertainment was described as inconsequential by a cable bigwig who described Netflix in “Albanian army” terms. The joke was on Netflix and Hasting’s detractors.

By paying big sums for content, Hastings was building a rapidly growing subscriber base whose monthly payments would cover its next big leaps into originally produced television shows and movies. In other words, what it gained with content that some late to the game streamers eventually took back, Hastings built a business that became the U.S. Navy to more than a few studios and cable companies eventually reduced to “Albanian army” status.

No less than John Malone, widely regarded as the smartest man in media, described Hastings as the “undisputed victor” in the media present, with Netflix having left “Disney, Amazon and Apple in the dust.” Malone’s praise hopefully explains why investors bid down Netflix’s shares so substantially upon news of Hastings’ exit.

Just the same, the $40 billion+ decline in Netflix’s market capitalization hopefully vivifies the meaning of this opinion piece’s headline. Without dismissing Paramount Global head David Ellison for even a second, the corporation he runs is presently worth $13 billion relative not just to Netflix’s $400 billion+ market cap, but also the enormous amount shaved off in response to Hastings’ departure.

It’s a market signal of just how revered Hastings is by investors. And it’s a bigger signal that absent the politics that invariably get in the way of assets rapidly being directed to their highest uses, M&A outcomes would at times be different. This once again isn’t meant to dismiss Ellison or Paramount, but it is to say that it’s no surprise why Warner Brothers Discovery shareholders so quickly accepted Netflix’s initial offer. With Hastings and Netflix, they were getting new owners who possessed an unparalleled ability to see into the future, only to expertly execute based on that vision.

So, while the present is always a lousy look into the future of commerce, Hastings’ departure from Netflix, and the market response to his departure, speaks volumes about what a remarkable entrepreneur Hastings is. And also to how different the commercial outlook would be if government would just get out of the way.