The incredible untold story of how Netflix went from concept to company — all revealed by co-founder and first CEO Marc Randolph.

Once upon a time, brick-and-mortar video stores were king. Late fees were ubiquitous, video-streaming unheard of, and widespread DVD adoption seemed about as imminent as flying cars. These were the widely accepted laws of the land in 1997 when Marc Randolph had an idea.

It was a simple thought – leveraging the internet to rent movies – and was just one of many more proposals that Randolph would pitch to his business partner, Reed Hastings, on their commute to work each morning. But Hastings was intrigued, and the pair – with Hastings as the primary investor and Randolph as the CEO – founded a company.

Now with over 150 million subscribers, Netflix’s triumph feels inevitable but the twenty-first century’s most disruptive start-up began with few believers and calamity at every turn.

From idea generation to team building to knowing when it’s time to let go, That Will Never Work is not only the ultimate follow-your-dreams parable but also one of the most dramatic and insightful entrepreneurial stories of our time.

Written by co-founder and former CEO Marc Randolph, That Will Never Work is the behind-the-scenes origin story of Netflix, and how it went from idea to global brand.

It’s clear from the first few pages that Marc Randolph always preferred to work for himself. He’d previously co-founded the magazine MacUser and also worked in the marketing department of a software giant. But it wasn’t enough — it wasn’t what he wanted to continue doing. Every day on their way to work, Marc would pitch ideas to his friend Reed Hastings, who had the brains to recognise a good business prospect and the money to fund a start-up. Some of Marc’s ideas included personalised dog food, personalised baseball bats, and a shampoo delivery service.

And then Marc thought of renting videotapes.

“Every idea I brought to the whiteboard was bad, even if Christina and Te’s research made it clear just how implausible some of my middle-of-the-night revelations for a new business were, I knew that eventually we’d land on something good.”

That Will Never Work highlights Marc’s motivation and determination, his hard work and his never-give-up attitude. After he and Reed founded Netflix, Marc worked long hours every day to achieve everything that needed to be ticked off the To Do list. He employed a small, dedicated group of staff to help with the necessary tasks, and with every new problem that arose — and there were a lot — he had to find a way to solve them.

When I finished this book, I didn’t think that Marc’s success was ‘lucky’. His success was earned. He worked incredibly hard to build that company, and with a little help from investors and employees who knew more about postal services, finances, HR, PR, web design etc, he was able to launch Netflix.

I lost count of how many times things unravelled in the team while they were in the beginning stages of launching Netflix — technology they didn’t understand, posting systems that didn’t allow for what they wanted, servers that weren’t equipped to handle launch day. It wasn’t smooth sailing, and even when they solved one issue, something major was around the corner.

You can’t read this book and not feel complete admiration for the entire team in those beginning years. They’re the reason Netflix is now a global giant; they put blood, sweat and tears into launching the brand.

“I was learning that when you’re in charge, it ultimately falls on you to ensure that the most basic elements of office life — telephones, printers, staples for the stapler — are there for your workers…Not only that, I had to make decisions about things I’d never considered. Did we want the office cleaned weekly or biweekly? How do you organise keys? Which bank should we use?”

Towards the end, when Marc discusses his departure from the company, some of the language and vocabulary reads a little bitter. It feels like Marc is continually trying to justify why he left the company — like he’s trying to convince the reader that he made the right decision at the time. I think the ending could’ve been edited a bit more, perhaps to take out some of the emotional information and conclude it on more of a practical note.

It is rather funny to read about their failed meeting with Amazon and Blockbuster, considering Blockbuster is now practically non-existent and Amazon had the chance to absorb an incoming Netflix, and instead, opened up the gates for a major competitor.

This book will only interest people who read the blurb and feel intrigued. I love reading about the conceptual journey of major companies — I find the journey from idea to fame completely fascinating. This book is for people like me. Highly recommend.

Thank you to the publisher for mailing me a review copy in exchange for an honest review.

That Will Never Work: The Birth of Netflix and the Amazing Life of an Idea
Marc Randolph
October 2019
Hachette Publishers

In 2005, Chloe Higgins was seventeen years old. She and her mother, Rhonda, stayed home so that she could revise for her exams while her two younger sisters Carlie and Lisa went skiing with their father. On the way back from their trip, their car veered off the highway, flipped on its side and burst into flames. Both her sisters were killed. Their father walked away from the accident with only minor injuries.

This book is about what happened next.

In a memoir of breathtaking power, Chloe Higgins describes the heartbreaking aftermath of that one terrible day. It is a story of grieving, and learning to leave grief behind, for anyone who has ever loved, and lost.

The Girls by Chloe Higgins is a memoir about the death of Chloe’s two sisters in 2005, and the aftermath.

While Chloe was studying for her HSC at the family home in Western Sydney, her father and her two sisters were on their way from an annual trip to the snowfields. On a highway near Canberra, Chloe’s father veered off to the other side of the road — presumably falling asleep — and he hits another car. Their vehicle flips and the back of the car bursts into flames. Chloe’s two sisters are killed, but their father walks away with minor injuries.

This is a memoir about grief, and what comes after a tragic event. It’s about how Chloe’s life went down a very different path than what she’d have planned as a young girl.

The Girls is tender and well-written, but also just very heartbreaking. People all over the world experience heartbreak, grief, and death every day, but when you focus on one person’s story and read beyond the tragedy, you realise the effect such events can have on a person’s health and wellbeing. We read about Chloe’s life beyond the death of her sisters, and we experience how her and her parents have attempted to move past the car accident.

“I am ashamed by how little I remember them. I’ve been reading books lately where people write their memories of losing a husband to cancer, their eyesight at eighteen, their father to the Vietnamese/American War.”

Chloe turns to sex work, drugs, alcohol and self harm to cope with her loss. In a way, focussing on these activities helped her avoid thinking about or remembering her sisters.

It’s stomach-dropping to read about Chloe’s father’s reaction to the accident — his guilt, his tears, his mental deterioration. Chloe does her best to maintain a relationship with her mother and father, but it’s complicated for all parties. They’re coping in the only ways they know how, and Chloe — being the only child left — sometimes finds it easier to not be at home.

“Sometimes I am well for weeks at a time: my head is clear, it is easy to smile, I feel less tension than usual around other people. I spent years working out how to get to this place, and often it comes down to routine.”

The plot jumps around a little, and at times feels a little uneven and jolting. The first third of the book centres around the girls, the accident, and the aftermath of the accident. The middle third of the book is years later when Chloe is in psychiatric care and is then working as a prostitute. The final third focuses on the girls again. The back and forth did feel a little inorganic, but the writing is beautiful and lyrical — poetic, even.

One of the toughest sections of the book is reading Chloe’s father’s diary entries from after the accident. He regained very little memories of that afternoon, and so he relies on information from others to understand what happened.

At first, they thought it was a car fault. But then after eye witness statements, it’s clear that Maurice fell asleep at the wheel. This information is incredibly difficult for him to swallow, and even in the present, he tries to find other reasons why the accident may have happened.

“We have a good day at the beach, Kris and I. I am glad Mum made him get the razor off me, but I like the little scab that is forming across my wrist. I don’t want anyone else to see it, just my parents and Kris, so they will know I need help.”

An exploration of grief, family, understanding and identity, The Girls is a devastating, harrowing read. It’d be a tough read for anyone, even if you don’t have children yourself, but the messages within its pages are important, relevant and universal.

Thank you to the publisher for mailing me a review copy in exchange for an honest review.

The Girls
Chloe Higgins
September 2019
Pan Macmillan Publishers