that will never work the birth of netflix

But now that Reed had named a number, I saw something new, something I didn't recognize, his earnest expression slightly unbalanced by a turning up at the corner of his mouth. Frame questions in a way that makes it clear you're listening. 'I had seen him use all the tricks that I'd also learned over the years: lean in, make eye contact, nod slowly when the speaker turns in your direction.

'Through Reed's pitch and Barry's windup, I had been watching Antioco,' Randolph writes. If excerpts from Netflix co-founder Mark Randolph's book That Will Never Work: The Birth of Netflix and the Amazing Life of an Idea (as published in GQ) are to be believed, former Blockbuster CEO John Antioco very nearly laughed in the faces of Randolph and Reed Hastings when they offered to sell their fledgling company to the video giant for the bargain basement price of $50 million. So secure was Blockbuster's market dominance throughout the 1990s, the video chain (once comprised of over 9,000 stores) barely bat a lash when an upstart internet company began making waves with their video-by-mail service. For much of the '80s and '90s, Blockbuster Video was indeed the unrivaled champion of the video rental market, with families and cinephiles alike flocking to stores on a weekly basis and scouring the shelves for the latest Hollywood release or that little-seen foreign flick that never, ever seemed to have a copy in stock. As it happens, the mark they missed likely would've seen the one-time video rental king flourishing in the time of streaming, instead of becoming a long-shuttered relic of days past.

That will never work the birth of netflix