That Will Never Work: The Birth of Netflix and the Amazing Life of an Idea

by Marc Randolph

sleazy

Sordid corrupt immoral

Believe me, after that, asking an investor for $25,000 was nothing.

AMazing

When you pitch a business idea to someone, you never expect to make it all the way through your presentation. It’s like presenting a case to the Supreme Court: within a few moments of making your first point, the questions will invariably start.

If they don’t, you’re probably in trouble. Nine times out of ten, they’re not quiet because they’re politely listening – they’re quiet because they’re totally uninterested. Or worse: they’re thinking your arguments are so weak and pathetic that they don’t even warrant an argument.

This is sheet. (Transliteration

HhhaHaha he got the accent spelled accurtely

And if you’re arguing with a potential investor, it’s already over. We left that office deflated, surprised, and a little nervous. On the trip back to Sunnyvale, I drove fast, as I usually do, taking corners at speed all the way home. Reed didn’t say a word.

You get so used to it that if you hear a sentence starting with “This is great,” you mentally start gathering your papers and feeling for your keys. This is great, but I’d love to see more traction before committing. This is great, but why don’t we talk again when you have ten thousand subscribers?

HAaahaah

right now. Alexandre didn’t tell us, This is great. He told us, This is shit. And that scared the hell out of us.

HAhaahaah

But the most important reason I wanted Steve on the board? He was a friend. Not only would he be helpful, honest, and thoughtful. It would be great to have one person who truly had my back.

stern

SerIOUs and unrelenting

Our office sent a clear message: this isn’t about us, it’s about the customers. The reasons for working there weren’t exotic perks or free food. It was the camaraderie and the challenge, the opportunity to spend your time solving hard, interesting problems with smart people.

And we needed back-end coding and tech talent – the shortest resource in Silicon Valley.

He brought a wealth of experience and knowledge. I knew as soon as I convinced him that he’d be one of the most important hires I ever made.

Culture is a reflection of who you are and what you do – it doesn’t come from carefully worded mission statements and committee meetings.

you have to start taking the small steps to put your words into practice.

While our salaries at that point were well below what might be available elsewhere, each of those early employees received a large stake in the business in the form of stock options. They wouldn’t be making a lot up front – but we were betting on ourselves that the eventual payoff would be huge.

(As it would turn out, he was rarely wrong. He knew a blockbuster when he saw one – and he could smell a turkey like it was in the oven in the next room.)

Amazing mitch lowe

Culture isn’t what you say. It’s what you do.

You could come in when you wanted, leave when you wanted. You were being judged by what you could accomplish. As long as you were solving problems and getting things done, I didn’t care where you were, how hard you worked, or how long you stayed.

arduous

Involving strenuous effort

Which do you choose for the group? The answer is none of them. If there’s no trail, why are you trying to force everyone to go the same way? The scouts

So as a leader, the best way to ensure that everyone arrives at the campsite is to tell them where to go, not how to get there. Give them clear coordinates and let them figure it out.

We call it being loosely coupled but tightly aligned.

we were supplying our employees with fine dining, a fitness center, and an Olympic-size pool and they were still complaining, what are the factors that really drive employee satisfaction? Or, more importantly, what does it take to get other people to sign on to help you with your dream – and be happy doing it? What we found was surprising. And surprisingly simple. People want to be treated like adults.

They want to be surrounded by other adults whose abilities they respect.

What they really want is freedom and responsibility. They want to be loosely coupled but tightly aligned.

boon

A thing that is helpful or beneficial

A disc: $20. A reputation for having every DVD and always being in stock: priceless.

Erlewine was a hoarder. His real motivation wasn’t information: it was collecting. He’d cannily found a way to monetize his obsessions, and he needed my DVDs more than he needed my money.

ballpark

Estimate likely to be correct

I think people are more productive when they’re happy, when their lives outside of work aren’t totally subsumed by their job.

If we were going to try to fundamentally change an entire industry, we needed to have our wits about us.

One night when I came home for dinner, my son Logan greeted me at the door and, instead of a hug, said he had a question to ask me. “Sure, Logan. What’s up?” He studied me for a moment, staring hard at the backpack I was shrugging off my shoulders. “Is the bacon in there?” I cocked my head. “What do you mean?” “Mom said you were bringing some home,” he told me. It took me a second, and then I got it. I couldn’t stop laughing for about five minutes.

Haha cute!

She only stopped saying it when Logan told some of his friends at school that his dad climbed ladders for a living.

HAaahaahaaa how adorable

“It just makes me think of porno,” Jim said at our meeting. “Skin flicks.” “Plus, that x,” Christina added.

Lol

So we did. There was no vote, no momentous ballot-casting. We printed out that spreadsheet and stared at it. Everyone went home to sleep on it. The next day, we all agreed: we were NetFlix.com. It wasn’t perfect. It sounded a little porn-y. But it was the best we could do.

Awh meant to be!!! I wanna cri

There are countless ways nature can tell you that you are unwanted, alone, and far from medical attention.

repertoire

Types of behaviouf

“What is going to go wrong?”

That’s what it’s like being in a startup. You spend a lot of time thinking about what might happen. And preparing for it. Sometimes you actually put a backup plan in place, but most of the time you just think through how you will respond – you scout out the rivers for rocks, check out the cliffs for things to grab onto if you fall. Most of the time, the worst doesn’t come to pass. But when it does…when the shit really hits the fan? Well, you’re going to be the guy with the pail and the mop.

inscrutable.

Impossible to ujnderstand or interpret

We still needed an algorithm that would ensure that high-demand titles were always in stock – and figure out how to steer customers to lower-demand titles in a way that made them actually want to rent them.

onslaught.

A fierce or destructive attack

What if they could assure every one of their customers that if they bought a DVD player, they would have immediate access to every DVD available?

what if every new player they sold came with a coupon offering three free Netflix rentals? Chicken. Egg. Simultaneous!

share, a risk or innovation could help set the company apart. Whatever his reasoning, I’m eternally thankful to Steve Nickerson for taking the plunge. In my estimation, he’s one of the single most important players in the Netflix story. Without his help, there is absolutely no way the company would have succeeded.

And Toshiba solved its biggest problem: convincing reluctant buyers that they’d actually be able to find something to play on their new machine. The

a startup is a lonely place. You are working on something that no one believes in, that you’ve been told time and time again will never work. It’s you against the world. But the reality is that you can’t really do it on your own. You need to enlist help. Bring others around to your way of thinking. Let them share in your enthusiasm. Give them the magic glasses that will let them see your vision of the future.

But I’d made a deep miscalculation. I had assumed that we would need a lot of “front-end” engineers – people with the skills to build web pages designed for e-commerce.

she knows the answer to her question before she even asks it.