NETFLIX=
Netflix, Inc. is an American media-services provider and production company headquartered in Los Gatos, California, founded in 1997 by Reed Hastings and Marc Randolph in Scotts Valley, California.
Netflix's initial business model included DVD sales and rental by mail, but Hastings abandoned the sales about a year after the company's founding to focus on the initial DVD rental business.[11][14] Netflix expanded its business in 2010 with the introduction of streaming media while retaining the DVD and Blu-ray rental business. The company expanded internationally in 2010 with streaming available in Canada,[15] followed by Latin America and the Caribbean. Netflix entered the content-production industry in 2012, debuting its first series Lilyhammer.
Netflix, Inc. is an American media-services provider and production company headquartered in Los Gatos, California, founded in 1997 by Reed Hastings and Marc Randolph in Scotts Valley, California.
Netflix's initial business model included DVD sales and rental by mail, but Hastings abandoned the sales about a year after the company's founding to focus on the initial DVD rental business.[11][14] Netflix expanded its business in 2010 with the introduction of streaming media while retaining the DVD and Blu-ray rental business. The company expanded internationally in 2010 with streaming available in Canada,[15] followed by Latin America and the Caribbean. Netflix entered the content-production industry in 2012, debuting its first series Lilyhammer.
Establishment=
Netflix was founded on August 29, 1997, in Scotts Valley, California, by Marc Randolph[24][25] and Reed Hastings. Randolph worked as a marketing director for Hastings' company, Pure Atria.[26] Randolph was a co-founder of MicroWarehouse, a computer mail order company, and was later employed by Borland International as vice president of marketing. Hastings, a computer scientist and mathematician, sold Pure Atria to Rational Software Corporation in 1997 for $700 million in what was then the biggest acquisition in Silicon Valley history. They came up with the idea for Netflix while commuting between their homes in Santa Cruz and Pure Atria's headquarters in Sunnyvale while waiting for government regulators to approve the merger,[27] although Hastings has given several different explanations for how the idea was created.[28]
Hastings invested $2.5 million in startup cash for Netflix.[29][14] Randolph admired the fledgling e-commerce company Amazon and wanted to find a large category of portable items to sell over the Internet using a similar model. They considered and rejected VHS tapes as too expensive to stock and too delicate to ship. When they heard about DVDs, which were first introduced in the United States on March 31, 1997,[30] they tested the concept of selling or renting DVDs by mail, by mailing a compact disc to Hastings' house in Santa Cruz. When the disc arrived intact, they decided to take on the $16 billion home video sales and rental industry.[27] Hastings is often quoted saying that he decided to start Netflix after being fined $40 at a Blockbuster store for being late to return a copy of Apollo 13. But this is an apocryphal story that he and Randolph designed to explain the company's business model and motivation.[27]
Video on demand introduction, declining DVD sales, global expansion=
For some time, the company had considered offering movies online, but it was only in the mid-2000s that data speeds and bandwidth costs had improved sufficiently to allow customers to download movies from the net. The original idea was a "Netflix box" that could download movies overnight, and be ready to watch the next day. By 2005, they had acquired movie rights and designed the box and service, and were ready to go public with it. But after discovering YouTube, and witnessing how popular streaming services were despite the lack of high-definition content, the concept of using a hardware device was scrapped and replaced with a streaming concept instead, a project that was completed in 2007
Search around online about Netflix, and you'll probably find some website talking about how Netflix's founder, Reed Hastings, was inspired to start the business after being slapped with $40 in late fees by Blockbuster and deciding at that exact moment he'd do everything in his power to screw them over for it. Hastings has told the story dozens of times with varying levels of detail, but one fact that seems consistent is that he was apparently trying to return a DVD copy of Apollo 13. As great as the story is at putting a neat little bow on the founding of the company, it's completely made up. Like it's not even a little bit true, at all.
Hastings basically made the story up for after-dinner speeches and interviews because he didn't want to go into the long and convoluted story of how the company was actually founded. It also, rather conveniently, downplays the input of Netflix's co-founder, Marc Randolph, by making it sound like the company was all Hastings's idea. To quote Gina Keating, author of the book Netflixed which gives a comprehensive overview of how the company began and eventually came to dominate the online landscape:
It didn't really happen, but the founding story is long and complicated and is not a lightning strike. Initially the tale was sort of a marketing tool. It tells you everything about how Netflix works.But what would grate on the founding team is that Reed would go out and just tell that story all the time. It never happened and there is something very indicative about the fact that Hastings would continue to do that. We go back to the hubris of the whole thing. It's sort of, "This company is me; I thought it up," and maybe it just becomes true after a while.
Search around online about Netflix, and you'll probably find some website talking about how Netflix's founder, Reed Hastings, was inspired to start the business after being slapped with $40 in late fees by Blockbuster and deciding at that exact moment he'd do everything in his power to screw them over for it. Hastings has told the story dozens of times with varying levels of detail, but one fact that seems consistent is that he was apparently trying to return a DVD copy of Apollo 13. As great as the story is at putting a neat little bow on the founding of the company, it's completely made up. Like it's not even a little bit true, at all.
Hastings basically made the story up for after-dinner speeches and interviews because he didn't want to go into the long and convoluted story of how the company was actually founded. It also, rather conveniently, downplays the input of Netflix's co-founder, Marc Randolph, by making it sound like the company was all Hastings's idea. To quote Gina Keating, author of the book Netflixed which gives a comprehensive overview of how the company began and eventually came to dominate the online landscape:
It didn't really happen, but the founding story is long and complicated and is not a lightning strike. Initially the tale was sort of a marketing tool. It tells you everything about how Netflix works.But what would grate on the founding team is that Reed would go out and just tell that story all the time. It never happened and there is something very indicative about the fact that Hastings would continue to do that. We go back to the hubris of the whole thing. It's sort of, "This company is me; I thought it up," and maybe it just becomes true after a while.
Search around online about Netflix, and you'll probably find some website talking about how Netflix's founder, Reed Hastings, was inspired to start the business after being slapped with $40 in late fees by Blockbuster and deciding at that exact moment he'd do everything in his power to screw them over for it. Hastings has told the story dozens of times with varying levels of detail, but one fact that seems consistent is that he was apparently trying to return a DVD copy of Apollo 13. As great as the story is at putting a neat little bow on the founding of the company, it's completely made up. Like it's not even a little bit true, at all.
Hastings basically made the story up for after-dinner speeches and interviews because he didn't want to go into the long and convoluted story of how the company was actually founded. It also, rather conveniently, downplays the input of Netflix's co-founder, Marc Randolph, by making it sound like the company was all Hastings's idea. To quote Gina Keating, author of the book Netflixed which gives a comprehensive overview of how the company began and eventually came to dominate the online landscape:
It didn't really happen, but the founding story is long and complicated and is not a lightning strike. Initially the tale was sort of a marketing tool. It tells you everything about how Netflix works.But what would grate on the founding team is that Reed would go out and just tell that story all the time. It never happened and there is something very indicative about the fact that Hastings would continue to do that. We go back to the hubris of the whole thing. It's sort of, "This company is me; I thought it up," and maybe it just becomes true after a while.
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