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Opportunity Missed
Netflix to Blockbuster: told you so.
In 2000, Netflix co-founder Reed Hastings flew down to Dallas to meet with then Blockbuster CEO John Antioco. The two were supposed to discuss a partnership, CNET reports, but Antioco didn’t let the discussion go on very long.
Here’s how Netflix CFO Barry McCarthy remembers it: “Reed had the chutzpah to propose to them that we run their brand online and that they run [our] brand in the stores and they just about laughed us out of their office. At least initially, they thought we were a very small niche business.” McCarthy went on to say that “they ignored us and that was much to our advantage.”
Indeed, Netflix went on to achieve more than $1 billion in annual revenue by 2007. Blockbuster, meanwhile, was forced to file for bankruptcy this past September.
Photo by jan-willem.
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Nan on December 14th, 2010 5:02 pm
Another in a long line of anecdotes of Blockbuster arrogance. They deserve everything they got and especially their place on the scrap heap of customer-abusing businesses.
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