If you're fascinated by the Netflix model and what they're trying to achieve then I totally recommend this non fiction read.

It's very American with a lot of bragging throughout and some utterly alien concepts like the comments about the receptionist having to find their own cover while ill. A lot wrong with America and a lot wrong with people who boast about this being a good thing.

It's a quick read otherwise and reasonable entertaining. It almost feels like it is meant as a rebuttal to some other books or 'myths', not quite sure it gives the full picture.

Still, fair play to the guy!

I really enjoyed this insight into the starting years of a world-wide company. I found it very interesting and often inspirational to hear how Netflix succeeded despite such strong competition. I thought the book was very well-written and would definitely recommend it to anyone who likes non-fiction, technology, or biographies.

5/5 from me!

I was intrigued by this book. I thought it would be interesting to read about the birth of Netflix, and I wasn’t disappointed. The author has humour and a writing style that kept me turning the pages, and the story itself is as interesting as I had hoped.

I feel ambivalent about this book. I loved the first half, where Marc tells us all about how they went from initial idea to refined idea to finding a team. I think that's a great example of how a book for enterpreneurs should be: focus on one example, and show what worked and what didn't. In the process, throw in some lingo, and educate us about the things that enterpreneurs should know. It was excellent, and I loved it.

The second half focused much more on small anecdotes that I didn't find fully relevant. I felt like it was dragging just for the purpose of making the book longer, and I didn't find it as full of useful information. As an academic who teaches recommender systems, the Netflix one is one of the examples I always give in my lectures, so it was interesting to discover that it wasn't just about finding things the user might be interested in, but also optimising the company's available resources (yes, I know it's obvious, but I just hadn't seen it from that perspective), so that will be a little addition to next year's class.

Many thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for a free eARC in exchange for an honest opinion.

There are hundreds of books that describe the genesis of companies. The vast majority of these may be worthy, contain the odd nugget of information or, very rarely, be interesting. Most, however, are not.

This book is that rarity. A business start up book that reads like a page-turning novel that can be devoured in one sitting.

Highly recommended.

I was introduced to Netflix sometime in the mid-2000s when a colleague recommended it for renting movies online. I didn’t try it, nor did I think about it again, till their streaming services launched in India and everyone began talking about it.

Netflix’s story began much earlier – in 1997 – when two men would carpool to work, one pitching ideas to the other. Somewhere between customised baseball bats and personalised toothpaste, the conversation veered to how E-commerce was the new wave. Everyone was setting up online shops for anything that could be shipped in a box. Would it make sense to send movies to customers via mail, ordered for rent or purchase through an online catalogue?

Of course, there were a lot of kinks in the chain, the biggest of all being getting ahead of offline competition. Then again, when you think you have an idea that could work, despite people telling you it won’t, you don’t let the challenges hold you back. You simply grab it and run. And that’s exactly what Marc Randolph, along with Reed Hastings, did.

This book is a memoir of founding a tech start-up that grew from 30 employees and 925 video titles to what it is today. It takes you through a company’s journey from dream to concept to creation and the values and culture of its founding team that helped build it. It explores the early years of the business and shatters many popular myths.

I found the author’s personal and professional history especially insightful. This is the part that captures my attention. Ideas don’t come to you in a flash of lightning. It is all the events in your life combined together, leading up to one ground-breaking moment.

I believe that was well captured in the author’s account and is what made this an entertaining read.

That Will Never Work by Marc Randolph. This edition published in May 2020. This ARC courtesy of Netgalley and Endeavour - an imprint of Octopus Publishing.

A very insightful look into business structures and models surrounding popular platforms in the modern age.

Thank you to NetGalley for sending me this book in exchange for an honest review.

I voluntarily read this ARC for an honest review
All thoughts and opinions are mine


As a fairly newcomer to the Netflix phenomenon I was thrilled to be able to read this

Had some difficult initially downloading and would have been much easier to deal with in Kindle format

However, once downloaded I found this a really interesting read. Well researched, this is engrossing
If you are interested in the way things work this is a really great book to pick up

In this crazy time of quarantines and lock downs more people than ever are turning to streaming services for their entertainment, so when a copy of That Will Never Work by Netflix co- founder Marc Randolph came my way I was intrigued to find out how this entertainment giant got off the ground.. Written in a humourously factual style, the book follows the Netflix story from its earliest days, and the the title comes from a comment made by Randolph's wife when he first suggested the kernel of the Netflix idea to her, an idea that grew and changed dramatically over the course of several years before becoming the service that so many people around the globe now subscribe to on a monthly basis.
The idea of using the internet as a means to rent movies, at that time in physical DVD format was first mooted by Randolph and fellow co-founder Reed Hastings on a work commute in 1997, a time where Blockbuster was the king of video rentals and DVDs were new and untested technology , and at first finding people who believed in the idea, and more importantly were willing to invest in it as a viable business proved to be a huge challenge, but eventually the business got off the ground. The next step was to hire the right people to build the site, both the consumer interface and behind the scenes logistics needed to be something different than had ever been seen before, requiring highly skilled and motivated staff. From server meltdowns on day one to the dot com crash of 2000 things did not go smoothly for the start up, but with determination, ambition and a willingness to embrace change when needed, Randolph and his team were able to hang on and grow their idea to global success.
Even with the dynamic ups and downs of the Netflix story, this could have been a dull read, especially for someone who does not have a business background or an interest in that field, but I found it a gripping read. The almost conversational style and real sense of humour and honesty, even when it was less than flattering to the author, made it feel like I was being told a story, and even though I knew how it would turn out, since pretty much everyone on the planet knows what Netflix is, I still never lost interest and found myself rooting for Randolph and his team at every turn.
I read and reviewed an ARC courtesy of NetGalley and the publisher, all opinions are my own,

An interesting and insightful read about Netflix and how it began. It's a story that has you laughing, holding and your breath as you read about the company and the life of its founder.

I couldn’t download this properly which is a shame because it looks like an amazing and detailed look at the changes in which we consume TV and films.