That Will Never Work: The Birth of Netflix and the Amazing Life of an Idea

That Will Never Work: The Birth of Netflix and the Amazing Life of an Idea by Marc Randolph is a great book about a particular company that illustrates how an idea develops. Note that I didn’t say a “great idea.” Most ideas don’t start out great.Most business creation stories feature a great flash of insight. The insight becomes a great company through a series of flawlessly planned and executed steps. But life is not like that. Most ideas don’t start out great. They don’t happen all at once. They evolve. And companies don’t become great because of great strategies elegantly executed. They aren’t great right of the gate. Instead, they become great by meeting challenges.Netflix is like most companies, except you can add a lot of testing to the mix. Marc Randolph calls this book, “a memoir, not a documentary.” He tells you the story of the early days of the idea and the company that became Netflix the way he might do it over a glass of wine on the deck on a late summer afternoon.If you were listening to Marc, you might take a sip of wine and ask him to explain a term or two you don’t understand. He’d give you a quick, but helpful answer. He does that in the book. You’ll find explanations of terms like “dilution” and “collaborative filtering.”He gets the emotional parts right. Many stories of great companies leave out the parts about being scared to death or being uncomfortable. Take another sip of wine, while Marc lays them out, including how hard it was to ask his mother for start-up money. That Will Never Work reminded me of Phil Knight’s Shoe Dog. Both show the messiness of getting from start up to success. Both illustrate the role of luck. Marc would probably take a deep breath and a sip of wine before telling you about the times Netflix came close to being another failed company.There were some big plusses for me. I loved the fact that Marc tells about how he maintained a strong relationship with his family. There are a lot of Silicon Valley “successes” where I think, “I’d love his bank account, but I wouldn’t want his life.” Marc Randolph does the rest of us a service. He shows us an example of success without shredding personal relationships. I loved the humility. Not big-time-big-deal-big-business-success humility, digging a big toe in the dirt for effect. This is real humility. It’s humility that recognizes the contributions of other people and the role of luck and how many times he screwed up. It’s real life humility.So, what’s not to like?You won’t like this book if you’re looking for a simple formula you can copy. You won’t like it if you want to know “The Secret” of Netflix success. This is more like the advice I give my grandsons. Work hard. Treat people right. Keep getting up after you stumble. In a Nutshell That Will Never Work is for you if you want to look at the reality of start-ups and innovation. There are no bulleted lists of key points, but there’s a lot of wisdom packed in the stories.

Business ideas are easy to brainstorm. Improving the way people do things and seeing an idea through to fruition is hard. More difficult is believing that your idea is worthy enough to risk starting a new company.How a company makes it from conception to prominence is what Netflix co-founder Mark Randolph reveals in his book: “That Will Never Work”. His story begins on a daily carpool with his friend and co-worker Reed Hastings. Their daily ritual included brainstorming new business concepts that pop into their heads. Things are getting a bit stressful for Randolph who will soon be out of a job as Hastings is selling the tech company Randolph works for.Randolph is never short on ideas which he numbers and tracks in a notebook. His brainstorms, include personalized shampoo, dog food, and baseball bats. Some ideas are vetted, others are quickly shot down. One day Randolph floats a service that could mail movie videos direct to consumers without charging fees. The thought strikes a chord with Hastings who fears telling his wife about $40 in late fees he owes at a local video store. The conversation continues. Both agree that Randolph should form a company to pursue the concept and Hastings will initially fund it.It should be made clear that this isn’t exactly a rags-to-riches story. The two Netflix co-founders worked in California’s Silicon Valley for several years, understanding the nuances of pitching a concept, garnering investment money, and building a business to scale.When Netflix begins in 1997 and the company begins to hire employees, there are few movie DVDs available. Popular movie videos are mostly available in a bulky to mail VHS format. More importantly, DVD players are still in their infancy and Netflix is gambling on a customer rental model that has yet to form.As customers slowly adapt to the virtual video store concept. Netflix is selling more (but less profitable) videos than it is renting them, while wasting money on coupon deals with the major manufacturers that sell DVD players. It’s only after an experimental subscription model gains traction that the company shows promise.This chicken before the egg puzzle makes up the compelling portion of “That Will Never Work”. Randolph is candid with recounting how the company struggles to keep afloat while it waits for consumer behavior to catch up with Netflix’s perceived potential. The world slowly adapts but at the eleventh hour, the California tech bubble bursts and Randolph and Hastings fear that it’s too late.With Netflix close to insolvency, one of the book’s strangest twists is a long anticipated meeting with the then juggernaut Blockbuster Video. Randolph and Hastings pitch the idea of Blockbuster purchasing Netflix for $50 million. Blockbuster almost laughs the assembled Netflix team out of the room. Months later the subscription rental model finally catches fire and Netflix has the last laugh.Told as an entertaining first-person narrative, Randolph’s behind the scenes anecdotes reveal his strengths and also his blind spots. As he looks back at the evolution of Netflix, he points to instances where the company almost collapsed, giving major credit to his staff and their determination to always rebound from adversity. Oh, and that interesting title: “That Will Never Work”? It was Randolph’s wife’s response when he first told her about his Netflix brainstorm.

Enjoyed the way ideas, ideals, problems and progress were shared as well as the space given to the team, the people that made the culture and the company.I enjoyed the first half a lot more (maybe related to it more too) and was (not-so-pleasantly) surprised when the book ended around 2002/3. The final wrap-up was nicely done but it’s unfortunate that despite all the build up regarding the move to digital, we didn’t get to read about how David became Goliath.Already recommended to others!

I wasn’t expecting this story to be as entertaining and detailed as it was. Loved it and I recommend! Learned some great things as well!

One of the best business (or any) books I've read. Randolph's writing style and "voice" are funny, clever and this book is a fast read. Want to learn how Netflix started, all the crazy ideas they had (before Netflix) and get an inside view of what it took to build this tech and media giant - get the book. The flow of the story, the authentic and often times, humble admissions by the writer gave me the feeling that I was there, that it was real and it took a lot of hard work to pull this off. Highly recommend this book for entrepreneurs, students and I even bought one for my kid. I also subscribe to his newsletter and watch the podcast (I only stay subscribed to 3: Marc Randolph, James Clear (Atomic Habits) and Guy Kawasaki).

Marc R. does a great job writing about a topic he knows well… the start of Netflix.Fair to say I’ll have to read Reed Hastings book 📕 now. Reed appears to be the BSD between the duo.

“You see, a startup is a lonely place. You are working on something that no one believes in, that you’ve been told time and time again will never work. It’s you against the world. But the reality is that you can’t really do it on your own.” ― Marc Randolph, That Will Never Work: The Birth of Netflix and the Amazing Life of an IdeaCo-founder and former CEO of Netflix, Marc Randolph takes you through the initial days of building our favourite binge-worthy OTT platform-NETFLIX. When he came up with the idea of Netflix, people said, “That will never work”. But he never stopped believing in his idea because he knew that he had the potential to make this idea a success.So back in 1997, in times when the internet was new, in times when people rented or bought movies from physical stores, Marc and his co-founder Reed Hastings came up with the idea of ‘DVD by mail’. The book takes you along their journey from starting with DVD rentals to securing an IPO.The book also highlights the days when ‘Amazon’ and ‘Blockbuster’ (chain of DVD rental stores) proposed to acquire Netflix, but Netflix didn’t give in as they were still at a very nascent stage. It also gives you a peek into the struggles of being an entrepreneur, of fighting against the odds. Marc also talks about his incredible partnership with co-founder Reed Hastings, about the culture at Netflix offices, about how he maintained a work-life balance by giving enough time to his family as well.The book is an inspiring yet very entertaining read. Just like Netflix, this book is a binge-worthy read. You win with their wins; their hits and misses feel personal too! This book is my next favourite in line after reading ‘Shoe Dog’. Highly recommended for budding entrepreneurs, startup founders and for anyone who wants to venture into the business world.After reading this one, I am excited to read ‘No Rules, Rules’ by Reed Hastings!Rating: 5/5

A great insight into what drives great ideas, the self belief, the self doubt and the need for building a team of good people who share values.

Very interesting stories, written with humor, loved it!

Si vous avez aimé Shoe Dog, ce livre est fait pour vous. On y apprend toutes les coulisses de Netflix avec un certain humour. Ce livre se dévore tant c’est intéressant !

One of the best book I ever read.This book took me on an absolutely incredible state...I definitely love it!