When Netflix Founders Tried Selling The Company To Amazon, Blockbuster: 'They Laughed Us Out Of The Room'

Marc Randolph, co-founder and first CEO of Netflix Inc. NFLX, shared some of his “favorite memories” to celebrate the streaming giant’s 25th anniversary. 

What Happened: Randolph went down memory lane to share some of the highlights of Netflix’s journey as one of the most popular streaming giants in the world — and it might give aspiring entrepreneurs a touch of thrill and encouragement. 

On Thursday, he reminisced about the time when he and Reed Hastings flew to Seattle “to talk about selling Netflix to Amazon” – imagine if that had happened. 

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He said the “meeting went well” and Amazon.com, Inc. AMZN founder Jeff Bezos “floated a price of $15 million” — not a “bad payday for less than 12 months work,” but they weren’t ready to “hand someone else the keys.”

Randolph concluded the post by saying the meeting wasn’t a sales trip but a “commitment ceremony.”

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…

— Marc Randolph (@mbrandolph) April 13, 2023

He also shared the time when in 2000, “at the depth of the dot com crash,” they tried to sell Netflix to Blockbuster — the movie rental chain that went bankrupt in 2010 — for $50 million. “They laughed us out of the room.”

In 2000, at the depth of the dot com crash, Reed Hastings and I tried to sell Netflix to Blockbuster for $50 million dollars. They laughed us out of the room.

Today, the company they could have bought for $50 million has a market cap north of $150 billion. And the company that…

— Marc Randolph (@mbrandolph) April 13, 2023

While Netflix began in 1997, the company launched NetFlix.com on April 14, 1998. 

Why It’s Important: An analyst at Needham weighed in on the competitive dynamics among the biggest players in the streaming segment, saying Walt Disney Company’s DIS Disney and Amazon’s Prime Video beat both Warner Bros. Discovery, Inc. WBD and Netflix. She credited it to the better OTT strategy, tactics and deeper pockets of Disney and Amazon. 

According to the Global SVOD Forecasts 2022, Netflix will add 31 million subscribers between 2021 and 2027, despite losing four million subscribers in North America. 

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