That Will Never Work

by Marc Randolph

  Reed and I viewed these failures with—I have to admit it—a little bit of schadenfreude. One of our pastimes that year was scrolling through entries on Fucked Company, the cynical website of record for troubled and failing dot-coms, thinking that could have been us, even when reading about obviously mismanaged and doomed-from-the-start entries.

  But we were especially concerned to read about the troubles of Kozmo.com, an urban delivery service that had launched in 1999 promising to deliver a huge range of products—including DVDs—to customers’ homes within an hour. In 1999, we’d worried that Kozmo would enter the rental market and use its one-hour delivery to crush our slower service. But as Kozmo floundered through 2000, first squandering the $280 million it had raised from investors (including a $60 million investment from Amazon!), and then canceling its planned IPO, we found ourselves wondering if the company’s prominent failure would doom everyone else in their category—no matter how tangentially.

  Fortunately, unlike Dr. Koop, Boo.com, or Webvan, we actually had a business model that made sense. A subscription to Netflix cost a user $19.99 per month—on average, $4 more than it cost us to actually provide the service. We made money on every transaction. Basic economics.

  We had a different problem than the Dr. Koops or Webvans of the world: we were successful, and success is expensive.

  In fact, we were drowning in our own success. The faster new customers poured in, the faster money poured out. Our business model was hard to explain to potential customers, but we knew that if people tried our service, they’d be hooked. That’s why everyone who wanted to try Netflix got their first month free. That was expensive.

  What’s more, we were a subscription service. Rather than charging our customers an annual fee when they signed up, we charged them a smaller amount each month. So when you added it up, we were in a perpetual cash crunch: we had to pay the full cost of every free trial all at once, up front. But the money we could use to pay it all back dribbled in slowly, month after month. The faster we gained customers, the more these up-front payments outweighed the much smaller amount we collected in monthly charges.

  Basic economics again. And unfortunately, not so favorable to us. Our company was successful, but it had a voracious appetite for cash in an environment where cash was hard to come by. After the dot-com bubble burst, venture capital—which had once been comically easy to acquire, if you had a “.com” in your name—had become not just hard to get but almost completely unavailable.

  It was time to seek strategic alternatives.

  Sound like jargon? That’s because it is. Silicon Valley is full of nonsense phrases just like it. For instance, when someone says that he’s leaving to spend more time with his family, what that really means is my ass got fired. When someone says this marketing copy just needs some wordsmithing, what they really mean is this sucks and needs to be completely rewritten. When someone says we decided to pivot, what they really mean is we fucked up, royally.

  And when a company decides to seek strategic alternatives, what they’re saying is: We’ve got to sell this sucker. And fast.

  We’d come a long way since declining Amazon’s hazy low-eight-figure offer. The company had totally revamped its business model, undergone enormous growth, and become synonymous with online rental of DVDs. So the obvious strategic alternative this time wasn’t Amazon but our biggest brick-and-mortar competitor: Blockbuster.

  Blockbuster had been the brainchild of Wayne Huizenga, who in the late 1980s saw an opportunity to “roll up” the still mostly mom-and-pop video stores that dotted the country. Rapid expansion in the 1990s—at one point, the company was opening one new store every day—had given them a near monopoly on video rental and had made them one of the most ubiquitous brands in the country. They were king of the world in 2000, but we had no idea if they even knew who we were. Or if they cared.

  As big a deal as we were online, we did a fraction of the business they did. We were on track to do $5 million in revenue in 2000—Blockbuster was aiming for $6 billion. We had 350 employees—they had 60,000. We had a two-story HQ in an office park in Los Gatos—they had 9,000 stores.

  They were Goliath. We were David.

  But we knew that e-commerce was the future. If Blockbuster wanted to survive, it needed to develop an alternative to brick-and-mortar stores. If they recognized that, they might want to do what larger companies always did when faced with an upstart competitor—buy it. Eliminate the competition and save money on development, all in one fell swoop.

  Reed had asked Barry McCarthy to reach out to his contacts at Blockbuster to try to get a meeting. We’d asked our VCs to tap into their networks. We’d done whatever we could to try to get Blockbuster’s attention. But as of the corporate retreat that September, we’d heard nothing. Not even crickets. Silence. It looked like we would have to get out of this on our own.

  It’s common knowledge that things in Silicon Valley are pretty casual. There’s not a lot of room for suits, ties, that sort of thing. People have come to understand that it’s a sign of great respect if I shave for a meeting.

  I think the reason the Valley is so casual is because, unlike most industries, tech is about as close to a true meritocracy as you can get. In many disciplines, being a smooth talker or a snappy dresser can grease your ascent to the executive suite. But in Silicon Valley the only thing that really matters is the quality of your work. It’s a programmer’s world, with a programmer’s ethos. Every programmer is accustomed to having their code subjected to peer review, in which fellow coders evaluate its brevity, elegance, cleverness, simplicity, and ultimate effectiveness. It’s all there in black and white. It matters not at all what you look or dress like; what you talk or smell like. You don’t need to speak English. If your code is good, you’re in. If your code sucks, it’s immediately apparent to everybody.

  In a place where you’re evaluated solely on the quality of your work, no one really cares about your appearance. That carries over, too. Even those of us who wouldn’t know a line of code if it wrapped itself around our necks and sang the national anthem still get to take advantage of the fact that some fraction of the company shows up each day in shorts, Birkenstocks, and stained Star Wars T-shirts.

  If things are that relaxed during the regular workweek, you have to really work at it when you go on a retreat. Here’s what I packed for three days and two nights at Alisal:

  Two pairs of shorts

  One Grateful Dead tank top

  One tie-dyed T-shirt

  One pair of flip-flops

  One Life Is Good baseball hat, to be worn ironically (I hate that brand)

  One pair of Oakley sunglasses

  Three Harley Davidson rub-on tattoos: one Harley logo, one flaming hog, and one buxom bikini babe

  In case you’re wondering why I bought Harley Davidson rub-on tattoos, the answer is simple: I thought it would be funny. (That’s the ruling criterion for a lot of my behavior.) Despite the casual dress code of the normal workweek, employees at Netflix were required to wear shirts in the office. So no one, up to this point, knew whether or not I was sporting ink under the corporate-branded swag I usually wore. I was pretty sure no one suspected that the forty-five-year-old dad would be inked up, even if he was from Santa Cruz. So how better to lighten the atmosphere than to peel off my Built to Last tank top at the pool and let the gossip fly?

  What can I say? I’m easily amused.

  When I think back to our 2000 retreat, I don’t remember any of the business that we conducted. I don’t remember discussions about apportionment of investment, realignment of priorities, departmental initiatives, or any of the other corporate bullshit we might have felt honor-bound to spend some time on.

  What I remember are the things that built culture.

  Alisal offered the usual activities that I’m sure most companies would have engaged in—horseback rides, trust falls, tennis—but at Netflix we were wired a little bit differently. Inspired by our employee onboarding, the highli
ght of our retreat was to be a skit throw-down between the Netflix departments, each of which would enact a scene from a recently released DVD.

  As luck would have it, one of the biggest DVD releases of that summer was the Kirsten Dunst vehicle Bring It On. Remember that movie? If not, here’s the synopsis we used on the website:

  Torrance Shipman’s cheerleading squad at Rancho Carne High School in San Diego has got spirit, spunk, sass, and a killer routine that’s sure to land them the national championship trophy for the sixth year in a row. But the road to total cheer glory takes a shady turn when they discover that their perfectly choreographed routines were in fact stolen from the Clovers, a hip-hop squad from East Compton.

  Sounds like my kind of thing, right?

  The only option, clearly, was for the entire executive team at Netflix to dress in cheerleading outfits and do a team cheer. Imagine us all chanting Brrr…, it’s cold in here! / There must be some Netflix in the AT-mosphere! Imagine Reed Hastings in a cheerleader outfit, pom-poms in each hand. And me and Ted Sarandos, representing the squad from East Compton, in do-rags, oversize jerseys, baggy shorts, and a lot of gold chains, letting loose a rousing rendition of that summer’s mega-smash by the Baha Men, “Who Let the Dogs Out.”

  Did I mention that alcohol was involved?

  Later that night, we had a full banquet, with hundreds of us squeezed together at long wooden tables covered in red-and-white checkered tablecloths, eating heaping plates of ribs. Our invitation had specified “Ranch Formal” dress, without any details about what “Ranch Formal” actually was. Interpretation ranged from my lederhosen (don’t ask) to Reed’s tuxedo (nattily paired with a straw hat) to product manager Kate Arnold’s vintage red gingham dress.

  It was hot, it was loud, and the group was quickly feeling the effects of the open bar, which served cocktails in quart-sized mason jars. Boris had somehow convinced one of the bartenders to give him a bottle of ice-cold vodka, a tray, and dozens of shot glasses, and he was drunkenly wandering around the mess hall, solemnly asking everyone he encountered the same question: “Are you een?” This was remarkable in and of itself, because Boris rarely spoke. I’m sure most of the office didn’t know what his voice sounded like, or that he had a strong accent, until that night.

  “Are you een?” he’d say, holding the tray on his shoulder like a waiter, a solemn expression on his face.

  Many people, I’m sure, had no idea what he was talking about. Many people, I’m sure, got vodka shots that night just because they looked confused and didn’t say no. Boris, at any rate, took shots regardless of what your answer was. (For a while, anyway. I faintly recall seeing him asleep on a picnic table before dinner was even over.)

  Just as things were starting to get wonderfully out of hand, I decided that I would bring the whole group together in song. Pulling several folded pages out of my pocket, I clambered up onto one of the long benches and, wobbling slightly, banged a spoon on the regrettably empty mason jar that had once held my gin and tonic. The crowd quieted.

  Using the melody from “God Rest You Merry, Gentlemen,” I began:

  Come join me friends and raise a glass to toast our newfound luck.

  Each week from every member we now extract a buck.

  It seems Marquee was just the key

  To prove that we don’t suck!

  And we soon will be rolling in dough…

  At this point, I held off, waiting for the lackluster call-and-response. A few in the group, sober enough to realize what I was looking for, weakly responded:

  Rolling in dough, and we soooon will be rolling in dough.

  I continued:

  Our engineers built Cinematch and boy it’s doing great.

  Our customers all love how many movies they can rate.

  I doubt they’ll even notice

  that we launched it two months late!

  Or that porn’s always getting five stars.

  (Getting five stars! Or that porn’s always getting five stars.)

  (That’s a true story, by the way. Although Reed had made a decision pretty early on not to ship the really hard-core stuff—Clinton DVD fiasco aside—we were still renting out soft-core pornography in 2000. And the reviews were typically…enthusiastic.)

  The crowd was waking up a bit, singing along.

  Now marketing they’re geniuses, they get the world to see

  How life will be so wonderful once we all use Marquee.

  If that won’t sell

  Then what the hell—

  Just give ’em twenty free.

  Things were loud now, and I picked up speed.

  The finance folks, they try so hard, but still they will not learn

  That Wall Street could care less about the rate our members churn.

  But they’ll drop trou’

  Once we show how

  A profit we can turn.

  And we stop losing bundles of cash.

  At this point, people couldn’t wait to blast out the response, amplified with alcohol-fueled enthusiasm. The next stanza was largely about Reed and Barry, and as I began to sing it, I looked over to try to catch their eye. Reed’s seat was empty, though. And just across the table, Barry sat with his head down, his right hand cupping his phone to his head, the index finger of the other pushed into his ear to block out the noise.

  As I leaned into one of the last stanzas (They fix each tweak, but then next week, Reed makes us change it back!), I could see a commotion starting at the far end of the hall. I could just barely make out who it was. Was that Kate? In her red gingham dress? I could barely see her through the crowd, which was now hooting and hollering, facing away from me.

  I was losing them. The group was even more distracted as the red gingham dress got closer to the middle of the room. And then I saw it—what everyone was yelling about. It wasn’t Kate in the red dress. It was Reed! Wearing that gingham like it had been made for him. And behind him, there was Kate, decked out in Reed’s black tuxedo.

  I could barely breathe, I was laughing so hard. Reed doesn’t really drink—back then, he would get drunk exactly once per year—but when he does, he makes it count. I was just on my way to see if he’d bat his eyes at me when Barry grabbed me by the arm and pulled me into the hallway, away from the noise. He wasn’t laughing at all. He didn’t say anything until the doors to the mess hall had closed behind us, giving us a bit of protection from the mayhem inside.

  “That was Ed Stead on the phone,” he said, referring to Blockbuster’s general counsel. “They want to see us. Tomorrow morning. In Dallas.”

  Barry turned and looked back through the doorway. Reed was now standing on one of the benches, flouncing the ruffles of his dress and curtseying. He was yelling something, too, but we couldn’t hear him over the rapturous noise of the crowd.

  “This is gonna be some red-eye,” Barry said, shaking his head. “I hope he has something to change into before the flight.”

  16.

  Crash

  (September 2000)

  BARRY SLOWED HIS BMW to a crawl as he made the turn into Santa Barbara Airport. In the distance, a faint glow on the horizon was teasing us that it was close to dawn, but in front of us, the road was almost invisible, dark and shaded by the overhanging oak trees that lined the driveway. I almost expected one of them to go full Wizard of Oz on us and start pelting us with acorns.

  I’d been to the Santa Barbara Airport dozens of times, but I’d never been here.

  Barry leaned forward and squinted, trying to make out the faint lettering on a sign. “That way,” pointed Reed from the front passenger seat, stretching a finger toward an even darker driveway cutting off the main road. As Barry turned and steered the car slowly onto the gravel, I could just make out the sign: General Aviation.

  Within a minute or two, we pulled into a parking lot in front of a low wooden building. Flower boxes were in the windows. The roof was shingled. It looked residential, vaguely New England—less like an airport facility than a forgotten c
ottage. Just beyond it was an ornate wrought-iron fence, about eight feet tall. Through the bars I could see the blinking wing lights of a small plane, parked on the runway.

  Barry pulled up to a gate in the fence. Even in the pre-TSA era, it was clear that this was one of those entrances you needed some kind of authority to enter—and that in this case, “authority” translated to “money.” Luckily, we’d wired it earlier that morning.

  Barry rolled down his window and pushed a small red button on the call box mounted next to the gate.

  “Tail number?” a scratchy voice croaked.

  “What’s a tail number?” I whispered to Reed, leaning forward into the gap between the two front seats. Reed turned his head and gave me a look, the same one I often found myself giving my kids at any restaurant fancier than McDonald’s. The look that meant: I can’t take you anywhere.

  The password given, the gate started to glide silently open. Barry rolled up his window and crept the car forward. As we passed through onto the tarmac and drove slowly toward the plane, I looked back and saw the gate sliding noiselessly back into place behind us.

  “No going back now,” I thought to myself.

  Less than twelve hours earlier, as soon as the commotion over Reed’s grand-in-gingham entrance had subsided, Barry, Reed, and I had retreated to a picnic table near one of the Alisal swimming pools.