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Hi. I'm Marc Randolph, co-founder and first CEO of Netflix. Ask me anything.

My definition of success:

Building Netflix taught me that your first idea is rarely your best idea. We started mailing DVDs, not streaming movies. Stay married to the problem you’re solving, not the solution you THINK will solve it.

For many years, Bill Gates used to fly Economy, not because he couldn’t afford First Class, but because he didn’t consider it good value. It’s five or six times more expensive, but only marginally better (and you all get to your destination at the same time). In the same vein, I…

I’m Marc Randolph, co-founder of Netflix & 6 other companies. This is my definition of success:

Blockbuster laughed us out of their offices. We were crushed, desperate and out of options. But sometimes, the only way out is through.

FYI. Voice memos drive me crazy. They shift all the work from sender to receiver. You hit record and ramble for 3 minutes while I’m stuck listening with no way to skim. You’re trading YOUR efficiency for MY time, and if you keep choosing your convenience over mine, don’t be surprised when I stop opening your messages altogether.

You learn by doing. There’s no other way.

Exactly 25 years ago today - on April 14th, 1998, at 8am in the morning, Eric Meyer leaned forward, tapped a few keys on his laptop, and launched Netflix to the world. That first day was a long one.  We crashed our servers. Ran out of mailing labels.  Scrambled to get everything to the post office in time.  But we ended that day with 200 customers. Today, Netflix has more than 200 million of them. Starting with a dozen people squeezed into a tiny office with dirty green carpet, Netflix now has more than 10,000 employees.  It has customers in nearly every country in the world.  It produces it’s own movies.  It makes it own television shows.  It’s brought the world “Netflix and Chill”.  (And I promise, I never saw that last one coming). 25 years ago, we simply believed there “had to be a better way” to rent movies, but along the way we ended up not just changing the way the world consumes content, but how that content is created. We started out just wanting to enjoy work, and ended up showing it was possible to build a culture based on radical honesty, freedom and responsibility. But looking back, I know it could have gone very differently. - What if the DVD had gone the way of the LaserDisc? (Don’t know what a LaserDisc is? My point exactly!) - What if Reed and I had accepted Amazon’s offer? - What if Blockbuster had said yes to our $50 million ask? I can point to hundreds of other forks in the road that may have made the difference between success and failure.  Each of them reminds me of the importance that luck plays in every success story.  (And the role that survivor bias has in the fact that I’m the one telling it). Speaking of luck, what about the people?  Would any of this have happened without the right startup team?  Without Christina Kish?  Te Smith?  Jim Cook?  Eric Meyer?  Mitch Lowe? Where would Netflix be if PureAtria had not acquired Integrity QA; the lucky break that resulted in me sharing an office - and a carpool - with a guy named Reed Hastings. And what would have happened had we not stumbled - more than a year and half into our journey - onto the no-due-dates, no late-fees subscription model that ended up saving us? It’s been an amazing ride, and at the beginning, all I wanted to do was start a company that sold something on the internet.  I ended up with so much more than that. As Netflix closes out it’s first 25 years - and hopefully kicks off it’s next hundred - I’ve never been prouder of what Netflix has become. And I’m proud of everything that we accomplished.  We started out wanting to solve an interesting problem, and ended up proving that a handful of people with a crazy idea and a bit of determination can change the world. But I’m proudest of the fact that I didn’t listen when everyone - and I mean everyone - told me “That Will Never Work”.

We were competing against Blockbuster. They were doing $6 Billion per year. They had 60,000 employees. They had 9,000 stores. Even the idea of taking them on was crazy. But that's what an entrepreneur does. They do the thing that everyone says will never work..

We launched Netflix 25 years ago today. We crashed our servers, ran out of mailing labels, and ended the day with 200 customers. Today, we have more than 200 million. Back then, I just wanted to start a company that sold something on the internet.  We believed there “had to be…

The main thing I’ve learned in 40-plus years as an entrepreneur is that nobody knows anything. Nobody knows if your idea is good or bad. You don’t know if it’s good or bad. You need to test your idea, trial it, collide it with reality. That’s the only way to learn.

25 years ago, In 1998, Reed and I flew to Seattle to talk about selling Netflix to Amazon. The meeting went well, and Jeff Bezos floated a price of $15 million. That wouldn’t have been a bad payday for less than 12 months work, but we thought we were on to something. We had…

No one is going to steal your idea. 🧵

Hi. I'm Marc Randolph, co-founder and first CEO of Netflix. Ask me anything.

Would love to connect with founders who are building cool things. Let me know if that’s you.

Explain your startup to me in one sentence.

FYI. Voice memos drive me crazy. They shift all the work from sender to receiver. You hit record and ramble for 3 minutes while I’m stuck listening with no way to skim. You’re trading YOUR efficiency for MY time, and if you keep choosing your convenience over mine, don’t be surprised when I stop opening your messages altogether.

For many years, Bill Gates used to fly Economy, not because he couldn’t afford First Class, but because he didn’t consider it good value. It’s five or six times more expensive, but only marginally better (and you all get to your destination at the same time). In the same vein, I…

Just curious. Once you bookmark something, how often do you go back and look at it? My retrieval percentage is in the low single digits. Wondering if I’m an outlier - or if bookmarking is simply aspirational for all of us.

For the love of God, capitalize your sentences. And while you’re at it, capitalize proper nouns too. Not doing so isn't a statement. It's just confusing. Picasso drew like a child. But he could have painted the Sistine Chapel if he wanted to. That's the difference between breaking rules on purpose and just not knowing them. Punctuation exists for one reason: clarity. It's a gift to your reader. It says: I respect you enough to make this easy to understand. By all means, break the rules sometimes. But do it deliberately. Do it for a reason. Don't just do it because pressing Shift is too much effort.

You learn by doing. There’s no other way.

My definition of success:

Drop a like if you’re a solo founder. Just want to see something..

No one is going to steal your idea. 🧵

We were competing against Blockbuster. They were doing $6 Billion per year. They had 60,000 employees. They had 9,000 stores. Even the idea of taking them on was crazy. But that's what an entrepreneur does. They do the thing that everyone says will never work..

The main thing I’ve learned in 40-plus years as an entrepreneur is that nobody knows anything. Nobody knows if your idea is good or bad. You don’t know if it’s good or bad. You need to test your idea, trial it, collide it with reality. That’s the only way to learn.

Building Netflix taught me that your first idea is rarely your best idea. We started mailing DVDs, not streaming movies. Stay married to the problem you’re solving, not the solution you THINK will solve it.

When I speak at business schools, I’m shocked at the amount of people who want to be “wealth managers.” More students want to manage other people’s wealth, than create their own from scratch. What are we teaching people?

Blockbuster laughed us out of their offices. We were crushed, desperate and out of options. But sometimes, the only way out is through.