9781422270448

One of the most important people Hastings met at Adaptive Technology was then- CEO Audrey MacLean: “From her, I learned the value of focus. I learned it is better to do one product well than two products in a mediocre way,” he explained. Hastings worked at Adaptive Technology until 1991, when he decided to leave and co-found Pure Software. The purpose of Pure Software was to find and fix bugs in computer software. The type of work Hastings and his employees did was akin to what Adaptive Technology did, except on a much smaller scale. Pure Software took off quickly. Before Reed knew it, he was in charge of hundreds of employees. He was great at the technical part of his job, but he admitted having difficulties managing so many people. “As the company grew from 10 to 40 to 120 to 320 to 640 employees, I found I was definitely underwater and over my head,” he said. Hastings stuck with it until Pure Software announced it would merge with Atria Software in 1996. He was offered the chief technical officer (CTO) position at the new company in 1997, but turned it down. Hastings had learned a lot through Pure Software, and he was now ready to take on new challenges. Hastings wanted his next business venture to be more successful than his first, so he took his time thinking of the perfect idea.

REVAMPING RENTING That was when Hastings came up with the idea for Netflix. By 1997, video rental stores were booming. DVDs were not widely used yet,

12

NETFLIX