9781422270448

chapter 1

STORY OF A STARTUP

ROCKETING TO SUCCESS When Reed Hastings rented the movie Apollo 13 from his local Blockbuster store decades ago, he went home with an Academy Award-winning film featuring a star-laden cast that included Tom Hanks, Kevin Bacon, and many other Hollywood heavyweights. This gave Hastings an idea, and within weeks of renting that VHS, Hastings had hatched a plan that would allow it to bloom into one of the most beloved and widely used innovations of the 21st century. Netflix forever changed how we watch and stream original programming, classic movies, comedies, horror flicks, dramas, documentaries, love stories—and even the dreaded duds that flopped at the box office, which we just can’t resist checking out. These days, Netflix is one of the biggest distributors and producers of video content in the world, with more than 200 million subscribers around the globe. Some even say that Hastings is directly responsible for the phenomenon known as binge-watching, which now takes place in millions of homes every day.

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