When I first met Jeff Bezos back in the late 90s, the only automated thing in his office was a rotating fan, gently blowing across a pair of identical blue shirts he'd hung on a water pipe behind his desk.
— Marc Randolph
When we were kicking around the idea for Netflix in 1997, proving out an idea was expensive and labor-intensive. There was no Squarespace, no cloud. If you wanted a website, you had to build it from scratch. If you wanted an online store, you had to completely design it yourself.
As entrepreneurs, or artists, or just people with dreams, the worst thing you can do is get so caught up in planning the perfect idea that you never get around to actually... well, doing it. I call this building castles in your mind.
Every successful career I've ever known was filled with long periods of meandering, months or even years when no one knew what would happen next. Look at me: I started as a geology major turned failed realtor.
As Looker got larger, the talented people we hired started to see things that we couldn't. And what had looked like a company the three of us could run out of our houses for a few hours a day became something bigger. Much bigger.
Like most people in 1997, I hadn't ever even seen a DVD, much less watched one.
The lessons I learned starting Netflix - and over a lifetime of entrepreneurship - are broadly applicable to anyone with a dream.
As a student I'd done work with a charity that took inner-city kids from disadvantaged areas and introduced them to hiking and climbing in the wilderness.
When entrepreneurs talk about their success, they rarely talk about luck. I think that's because most of them think the concept denigrates the hard work and smart thinking they put into their projects. But luck is a huge part of any successful business.
That Will Never Work' is my chance to share all the secrets I've accumulated in a 40 years career as a entrepreneur - secrets that can help anyone turn their dream into a reality.
People imagine that Netflix sprang fully formed into a global streaming giant, but Netflix might have been personalised sporting goods - or customised shampoo - or even pet food, since these were all ideas that I pitched Reed Hastings in those first months.
I'm this big believer that culture is not what you say, it's what you do. Who cares about your PowerPoint and about what you've carved into your cornerstone? If it's not being modeled, it won't be readable.
No one knows what's a good idea or a bad idea until you try it.
As software began to be sold to people who would never consider themselves technical, it suddenly became clear that you needed people who spoke their language.
In fact, I'm happy to go on record as saying that the ability to create a reality distortion field is right up there alongside optimism as an entrepreneur's most valuable weapon.
At a startup, it's hard enough to get a single thing right, much less a whole bunch of things. Especially if the things you are trying to do are not only dissimilar but actively impede each other.
If you apprentice yourself to the smartest people who will take you seriously, you will learn at every step. You'll learn their special language. You'll see what real people do. Your interests might surprise you. They will evolve. And you'll be well-positioned to take advantage of whatever opportunity life throws your way.
Some of my fondest memories of the early years of Netflix have to do with our efforts to figure out the most efficient, effective, and fast methods to get DVDs to people all over the country.
Iteration, not ideation, is the most important part of early stage entrepreneurship. You have to have a lot of ideas - a lot of bad ideas - if you want to end up with a good one.
It was a long, circuitous route from my mom's real estate business to Netflix. It didn't happen overnight. Or in a year. Or even in ten years. But it happened.
No one has ever asked me to give a graduation speech. But in my years of working with aspiring entrepreneurs, many of them in college, I've gotten used to giving advice.
Companies become what they want to become.
The real story of Netflix is complicated: an epic tale full of struggle, disappointment, drama, humor, and achievement.
The simple reason I like every idea is that I'm an optimist.
Silicon Valley loves a good origin story.
I played second base.
People are always advised to follow your dreams, but in 'That Will Never Work' I show them how!
Negotiation is empathy. It's almost trite to say that if you can't put yourself in the seat of the other person you're speaking with, you're not going to do well. It's not about being a bully, not about making offers people can't refuse.
I mean, at the simplest level, my entire background was in marketing, which largely is about understanding a customer, being able to be intuitive, being able to be empathetic.
Who knows what form storytelling will take in the future?
Pitching a concept well is certainly important, but ultimately you have to build it.
You pick what your customers want, not what your entrenched business model may require you to do.
One of the key lessons I learned at Netflix was the necessity of focus.
When I was 23, I was quite possibly the worst real estate agent in New York. I was working for my mother's agency in Chappaqua, and no one was buying houses. In eight months, I made zero sales. I rented one apartment.
Now, I love a good factory tour. Drop me into a bottling plant, an automotive assembly line, or a jellybean factory, and I'm happy as a clam at high tide.
I don't know if there's a genetic marker for entrepreneurship. But if there is, it's most likely not a genius for planning. It's a propensity for action - and the ability to put failure behind you quickly. To stop being precious about your ideas.
Long story short: I didn't start out thinking I'd be a tech entrepreneur.
Here's a simple truth: When you surround a good idea with brilliant people, it changes. No matter how much you plan, great ideas have a mind of their own.
Like Netflix, Looker started as nothing more than an idea. Lloyd Tabb and Ben Porterfield were two brilliant engineers who had figured out a better way for businesses to see and analyze their data, and they asked me to join them to help out with the ABCs - that's short for Anything But Coding.
In 'That Will Never Work,' I give readers a clear-eyed insider's look into how one of the least likely startups grew into one of the world's most successful companies.
I just always believed we would succeed. Even when everyone else said my ideas were ridiculous. Even when we were almost out of money. Even when the metrics were all upside down. I always have confidence that I'll figure something out. I just have that confidence that things are going to work out fine.
Luck was a huge part of the Netflix story.
Most people have a kind of survivor bias about luck. When something wonderful happens - when preparation meets opportunity, with excellent results - we think: 'How lucky!' But we don't usually acknowledge all the times when things just... fizzle out. All the times when preparation comes to nothing.
That Will Never Work' is the untold story of Netflix. It's how a handful of people, with no experience in the video business, went from mailing a used Patsy Cline CD and ended up with a publicly traded company.
I am the luckiest guy you will ever meet. The most fortunate guy you'll ever meet.
I'm not sure I want to preserve the old ways just for the sake of saying, 'I don't believe in change.'
Diversity is not a skin thing, necessarily. Diversity is you have people around the table who have different backgrounds and different experiences and think differently.
Back in the early days at Netflix, it wasn't unheard of for me to tell prospective hires that I could see our stock going to a hundred dollars someday.
When someone uses 'low eight figures,' that means barely eight figures.
I'm not a 'but' man. Nothing good ever comes of that word.
