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

by Marc Randolph

I was now one of only five students from throughout the Northeast, all of us competing for a single job. I didn’t get it. I bounce back quickly, so my disappointment in not having gotten this dream job quickly turned to confusion. What could I possibly be missing that some other candidate had? Ignorant of all the invisible criteria that were being applied to me (and that I would be especially aware of when it was later my turn to be on the hiring side of the table), I frankly couldn’t conceive of what I was missing. So I decided to ask. I wrote a long letter to every single person who had interviewed me, taking the opportunity to recap for them all of my positive traits. I explained that while I had concluded that I must be missing something important, I was hoping they might be able to explain to me exactly what that was. “You see,” I explained, “since there is a one hundred percent certainty that I will be applying for this job next year, I would like to take the time to work on whatever skills I am deficient in.” I’m cringing thinking about this now. But it worked. Just four days later, I got a call. One of the senior partners in the agency wanted to meet with me. This was the guy who ran the whole business side of the agency. Several days later, as we sat in a plush corner office forty-two stories above Sixth Avenue, he offered me the job. It turned out that none of the candidates had actually been offered the job the first time around. N. W. Ayer knew that being an ac...