I guess when you hear this story, you’ll think “I hate it when that happens!” The entrepreneur who missed this opportunity will live to see it destroy his core business it seems.
From Dane’s Blog
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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