That Will Never Work

In the tradition of SHOE DOG, comes the incredible story of how Netflix went from concept to company — all told by co-founder Marc Randolph


Silicon Valley lore has it that Netflix was born out of a frustration with video stores' late fees, and while that is a convenient, charming story it is far from the truth. In reality, the idea was just one of many more and far worse proposals, like personalized baseball bats and a shampoo delivery service, that Marc Randolph would pitch to his business partner, Reed Hastings, on their commute to work each morning. From this ever-shifting pool of potential ventures the pair, with Hastings as the primary investor and Randolph as the CEO, took a risk and founded Netflix. Not until years later, when a billion dollar company emerged out of a business model that — after countless disasters and flirtations with bankruptcy — seemed destined for failure would the risk pay off and become one of the mostly incredible and unlikely…