Update: Netflix has issued the following press release:

Netflix Inc. today announced that Chief Operations Officer Bill Henderson is planning to become a strategic advisor to the company and that Vice President of IT Development Andy Rendich, an eight-year Netflix executive, has become interim head of Operations. Mr. Henderson is expected to serve as a consultant to Netflix for at least the next two years.

“Andy was one of my stars and I have total confidence in him running Operations,” said Mr. Henderson.

“Bill’s unprecedented operational expertise as former Postmaster General of the United States has contributed to Netflix’s tremendous gains in automation and efficiency,” said Netflix Founder, Chairman and CEO Reed Hastings. “We look forward to Bill’s continued participation in the company’s growth

 According to Valleywag, a tech gossip blog Former Postmaster General William “Bill”  Henderson was demoted from the COO slot at Netflix, “taking on the likely specious title of “strategic advisor” till his options vest or something.”

This ( below) was sent out on Friday to all employees. Bill Henderson has been in the job for all of one year, since he was already retired from the post office when netflix came calling last year it is a bit odd that after only one year he now is a “strategic advisor”… at least it wasn’t special projects!! When you add that the BOD (SEC filings) just gave raises to Barry McCarthy, Reed Hastings and Leslie Kilgore and NOT Bill Henderson it’s pretty obvious what happened here. He was only a hire to liason with the Post Office as the real operations work was done already and he had absolutely nothing to do except make sure the post office didn’t try and screw netflix …

more at Valleywag