Tickets, Please
He sneaked into DVD rental through the door Blockbuster took its eye off--the internet.
Vital Stats: Reed Hastings, 41, CEO and co-founder of
Netflix.com
Company: Online DVD rental service
Sales: $76 million in 2001, with more than 600,000
subscribers and a DVD library of 11,500 titles
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Better Late Than Never: "I got a whopping $40 late
fee for Apollo 13. I started thinking, 'How come movie rentals
don't work like a health club, where, whether you use it a lot
or a little, you get the same charge?'"
Going Postal: "We recognized the mail is a very
efficient network. It costs us 37 cents to mail the DVD. That's
100 times cheaper than sending it over the Internet."
Blockbuster Blowout? "Now and then we have our
juvenile fantasies of beating Blockbuster, but whatever success we
have will grow the total market. I'd be very surprised if it
negatively impacts Blockbuster at all."
Prior Commitments: Currently the president of the State
Board of Education in California and already wealthy from a
previous venture, Hastings says this of Netflix's success:
"[It] won't change my day-to-day lifestyle, but it will
[help] me get more schools started and new programs
funded."