Hastings restated his warning for Blockbuster at a Reuters conference in San Francisco in March. “How long are you prepared to run at break even?” I asked. “As long as it takes to run off the competition,” he answered. “So—is that a year? Five years?” I asked. “As long as it takes,” he answered. Part of Hastings’s break-even strategy called for spending $90 million per quarter in an advertising arms race designed to force Blockbuster deeper into the red.
