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

A practical guide to adopting, training and living with a rescue dog, from popular dog trainer and animal behaviourist Laura Vissaritis.

Adopting a rescue dog can be daunting. With anxieties and fears from their previous life, they can carry the weight of the world on their shoulders. But all dogs deserve a second chance – and this book will teach you how to provide it.

Animal behaviourist Laura Vissaritis’s approach to training a rescue dog focuses on one side of the relationship: the human. Because to help your dog change their behaviour, first you must change your own.

By building a relationship based on mutual trust and respect, you will help your dog make the most of their new life. Explaining the underlying psychology and offering clear step-by-step guides, Laura covers everything you need to know, including how to:

– bring home and socialise your rescue dog
– establish routines for essentials like toilet training and walking on a leash
– understand your dog’s body language
– discourage unwanted behaviours such as excessive barking or jumping up
ease their stress, phobias or separation anxiety.

Giving a rescue dog a better life is one of the most emotional, uplifting journeys you can go on. The Rescue Dog will guide you on the path to success.A practical guide to adopting, training and living with a rescue dog, from popular dog trainer and animal behaviourist Laura Vissaritis.

The Rescue Dog by Laura Vissaritis is a practical, honest, glorious guide to owning a rescue dog and all the emotional baggage that can come from that. How can you best train them? Love them? Punish them when they’re bad? This is a fantastic book to keep on your bookshelf, even if you don’t own a rescue dog. Any dog owner will find use out of this book.

This book has advice for all sorts of behavioural problems — barking? biting? anxiety? not playing well with other dogs? Laura is open about the struggles she’s had with her own rescue dogs, but also the struggles she’s seen in other dogs.

Laura’s tone of voice is conversational, but also welcoming. You don’t feel stupid reading her advice. You don’t feel like a complete failure because your dog has a tendency to be a menace and you’re working really hard to try and fix it. Just this morning I yelled NAUGHTY at my dog so loud he dropped his ball and ran to his bed, frightened. Owning a dog, and especially a rescue dog who had a bad start in life, is really difficult sometimes. It’s nice to read a training guide without feeling judged.

“Once your dog understands that sitting results in obtaining a treat, you can transfer this to a range of rewards your dog may want. Your dog may want to come inside, go outside, jump on the couch, get out of the car, or play with the dog fifty metres away.”

Do you know how many dog training books I’ve read in the last couple of years? A LOT. So many books that ‘claim’ to be a training guide, that ‘claim’ to be a helpful companion to being a dog owner. And so many of them were rubbish. They gave basic advice about how a dog responded to life events, or perhaps information about their personalities, but there was no actual advice. No tips. No step-by-step instructions. And I was always so furious when I finished the books and I felt like I’d learnt nothing to help me with my dog, who is beautiful but needy and energetic and who is ‘behaved’ but not ‘well behaved’.

My major problem at the moment is my dog barks inside the house, and not for any particular reason. He only ever barks INSIDE the house, AT me. I can tell he’s trying to communicate to me, but I can’t always work out what he’s saying. Most of the time he’s confused or frustrated and so he barks. I went into this book wanting to learn a technique to stop that kind of barking. Not the kind of barking that a dog does outside at passersby, because that’s not the issue. The kind of barking that’s communicative, but because I don’t speak dog, I can’t work out how to fix the situation.

Page 19 had my answer — training tips to get rid of this exact kind of barking. And I’ve been using the technique since.

Ever since page 19, I’ve been a convert for this book. It will now sit on my bookshelf as a reference for any issues we may have in the future. Finally — a real, proper, helpful dog training guide.

“If your dog is not allowed on your leather couch, but sometimes you don’t mind if they jump up, your dog will always try to access the couch….If you punish them sometimes but allow them up at other times, then all they learn is that they can get up on the couch, and sometimes for no reason, they get punished.”

Not all sections of this book will apply to every dog owner. There were some sections, chapters, or paragraphs in the book that I skipped over because my dog doesn’t present those kind of issues (for example, separation anxiety) .This book is meant to act as a long-standing resource, so that you can put it on your bookshelf and one day, if your dog or perhaps a future dog develops any of these issues, you can go back and read and feel like you know how to tackle the situation.

An honest-to-God proper dog training guide, with actual instructions that the everyday dog owner can apply. Laura is also incredibly honest about her own dogs — their faults and their weaknesses — and it makes you feel like you’re not alone.

Recommended for all dog owners, not just those of you who have adopted a rescue dog. You’ll all be able to learn things from this resource. If you own a dog and they’re not perfect (hint: no dog is perfect) and you’re exhausted from trying different things and you’ve been through two rounds of private dog training (like me!) and you still need some advice, then buy this and keep this. You’ll feel so relieved.

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

The Rescue Dog
Laura Vissaritis
September 2019
Pan Macmillan 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

‘There are no stupid questions, nor any forbidden ones, but there are some questions that have no answer.’

Hédi Fried was nineteen when the Nazis snatched her family from their home in Eastern Europe and transported them to Auschwitz, where her parents were murdered and she and her sister were forced into hard labour until the end of the war.

Now ninety-four, she has spent her life educating young people about the Holocaust and answering their questions about one of the darkest periods in human history. Questions like, ‘How was it to live in the camps?’, ‘Did you dream at night?’, ‘Why did Hitler hate the Jews?’, and ‘Can you forgive?’.

With sensitivity and complete candour, Fried answers these questions and more in this deeply human book that urges us never to forget and never to repeat.

Questions I Am Asked About the Holocaust is a compact, non-fiction title that is exactly as the title suggests. Heidi Fried was a prisoner in Auschwitz and has spent most of her life educating students and children about the holocaust. She has compiled a list of the most commonly asked questions, and answered them for any readers who are interested to know the answers.

There are 44 questions in total — questions about the war, Germany and Hitler. But mainly, the questions are about Heidi’s time in concentration camps.

“Why did Hitler hate the Jews?”
“What languages were spoken at Auschwitz?”
“Were you raped?”
“How many people from your hometown survived the war?”

The book isn’t very long — under 150 pages — so it’s a quick, brief read. Each question has an answer that takes up no more than a couple of pages. Some answers are very short. Half a page at best.

This would be a valuable resource in schools when covering the holocaust and World War II. It allows readers to better understand the experience of the prisoners, and how they processed what was happening to them.

At times, it’s pretty confronting. But mostly, Heidi explains her experiences very rationally and draws more upon her emotional response to things than physical description. There isn’t much graphic detail into what went on, more a factual description and then Heidi’s memory of how she felt during that time.

“Actively fighting back in 1944 would have been suicide. There should have been active resistance before the Nazis gained power. But passive resistance could still be found in Sighet. Communist cells were organised on the sly. It was all very secretive, and I, the youngest member, was allowed to participate in the ideological training.”

Questions I Am Asked About the Holocaust also serves as a warning for the future — Heidi doesn’t want the holocaust to be forgotten, because then that allows for history to repeat itself. She wants what happened to her and the other prisoners to be remembered and reflected upon, so that it never re-occurs.

This book is fascinating because even if you feel like you know a lot of details about the holocaust and concentration camps, this book offers a new perspective. Some of the questions in the book you may have been too embarrassed to ever ask, and yet it’s a little comforting to know that other people have the same questions too.

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

Questions I Am Asked About the Holocaust
Heidi Fried
March 2019
Scribe Publications