Marc Randolph on Building Netflix, Battling Blockbuster, Negotiating with Amazon/Bezos, and Scraping the Barnacles Off the Hull | Brought to you by Wealthfront automated investing, Helix Sleep premium mattresses, and Athletic Greens all-in-one nutritional supplement. More on all three below.Although best known as the co-founder and first CEO of Netflix, Marc Randolph‘s (@mbrandolph) career as an entrepreneur spans more than four decades. He’s founded or co-founded half a dozen other successful start-ups, including, most recently, Looker Data Sciences, which he sold to Google in 2019 for $2.6B. He is currently mentoring a handful of other early-stage companies and advising hundreds of other entrepreneurs. He is also an active seed investor in startups all over the world, author of an internationally bestselling memoir, and host of the new podcast That Will Never Work, where he dispenses advice, encouragement, and tough love to struggling entrepreneurs.When not surfing, mountain biking, or back-country skiing, Marc is a frequent speaker at industry events, works extensively with young entrepreneur programs, sits on the board of the environmental advocacy group 1% for the Planet, and chairs the National Outdoor Leadership School‘s board of trustees.Please enjoy!*This episode is brought to you by Helix Sleep! Helix was selected as the #1 best overall mattress of 2020 by GQ magazine, Wired, Apartment Therapy, and many others. With Helix, there’s a specific mattress to meet each and every body’s unique comfort needs. Just take their quiz—only two minutes to complete—that matches your body type and sleep preferences to the perfect mattress for you. They have a 10-year warranty, and you get to try it out for a hundred nights, risk free. They’ll even pick it up from you if you don’t love it. And now, to my dear listeners, Helix is offering up to 200 dollars off all mattress orders plus two free pillows at HelixSleep.com/Tim.*This episode is also brought to you by Athletic Greens. I get asked all the time, “If you could only use one supplement, what would it be?” My answer is usually Athletic Greens, my all-in-one nutritional insurance. I recommended it in The 4-Hour Body in 2010 and did not get paid to do so. I do my best with nutrient-dense meals, of course, but AG further covers my bases with vitamins, minerals, and whole-food-sourced micronutrients that support gut health and the immune system. Right now, Athletic Greens is offering you their Vitamin D Liquid Formula free with your first subscription purchase—a vital nutrient for a strong immune system and strong bones. Visit AthleticGreens.com/Tim to claim this special offer today and receive the free Vitamin D Liquid Formula (and five free travel packs) with your first subscription purchase! That’s up to a one-year supply of Vitamin D as added value when you try their delicious and comprehensive all-in-one daily greens product.*This episode is also brought to you by Wealthfront! Wealthfront pioneered the automated investing movement, sometimes referred to as ‘robo-advising,’ and they currently oversee $20 billion of assets for their clients. It takes about three minutes to sign up, and then Wealthfront will build you a globally diversified portfolio of ETFs based on your risk appetite and manage it for you at an incredibly low cost. Smart investing should not feel like a rollercoaster ride. Let the professionals do the work for you. Go to Wealthfront.com/Tim and open a Wealthfront account today, and you’ll get your first $5,000 managed for free, for life. Wealthfront will automate your investments for the long term. Get started today at Wealthfront.com/Tim.*If you enjoy the podcast, would you please consider leaving a short review on Apple Podcasts/iTunes? It takes less than 60 seconds, and it really makes a difference in helping to convince hard-to-get guests. I also love reading the reviews!For show notes and past guests, please visit tim.blog/podcast.Sign up for Tim’s email newsletter (“5-Bullet Friday”) at tim.blog/friday.For transcripts of episodes, go to tim.blog/transcripts.Discover Tim’s books: tim.blog/books.Follow Tim:Twitter: twitter.com/tferriss Instagram: instagram.com/timferrissFacebook: facebook.com/timferriss YouTube: youtube.com/timferrissPast guests on The Tim Ferriss Show include Jerry Seinfeld, Hugh Jackman, Dr. Jane Goodall, LeBron James, Kevin Hart, Doris Kearns Goodwin, Jamie Foxx, Matthew McConaughey, Esther Perel, Elizabeth Gilbert, Terry Crews, Sia, Yuval Noah Harari, Malcolm Gladwell, Madeleine Albright, Cheryl Strayed, Jim Collins, Mary Karr, Maria Popova, Sam Harris, Michael Phelps, Bob Iger, Edward Norton, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Neil Strauss, Ken Burns, Maria Sharapova, Marc Andreessen, Neil Gaiman, Neil de Grasse Tyson, Jocko Willink, Daniel Ek, Kelly Slater, Dr. Peter Attia, Seth Godin, Howard Marks, Dr. Brené Brown, Eric Schmidt, Michael Lewis, Joe Gebbia, Michael Pollan, Dr. Jordan Peterson, Vince Vaughn, Brian Koppelman, Ramit Sethi, Dax Shepard, Tony Robbins, Jim Dethmer, Dan Harris, Ray Dalio, Naval Ravikant, Vitalik Buterin, Elizabeth Lesser, Amanda Palmer, Katie Haun, Sir Richard Branson, Chuck Palahniuk, Arianna Huffington, Reid Hoffman, Bill Burr, Whitney Cummings, Rick Rubin, Dr. Vivek Murthy, Darren Aronofsky, and many more. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
Helix offers customized mattresses based on their customer's preferences and was selected as the number one best overall mattress pick of 2020 by several publications. Athletic Greens is offering a special deal on their all-in-one formula and a free vitamin D supplement and travel packs with your first subscription purchase.
The speaker shares his experience leading young people from urban backgrounds on backcountry trips and how it helped him learn about decision making, communication, and leadership.
The speaker discusses the importance of taking action and testing out product ideas to determine their success, referencing examples of possible bad ideas for Netflix and the value in experimenting to find what works best.
The founder of Netflix reflects on how he pursued the idea of an online DVD rental site, despite facing skepticism from everyone he pitched it to, and experienced success selling DVDs.
The founders of a company share their experience of walking away from 98% of their revenue in order to focus on building a sustainable rental model, and how they approached making the transition successful.
Mark and Tim discuss the importance of picking a beta name that is so bad that it will not be tempting to use it as the real name for your startup. They also touch upon the GameStop mania and how a friend of Mark's considered using WSB for a spinoff business, reminiscent of the old nickname for porno, skin flicks.
Companies may invite smaller companies to share detailed information, sometimes under the pretext of due diligence, in order to build similar products internally. This could be detrimental to smaller companies facing potential competition from larger ones.
The biggest assumptions that people made about Netflix were that the company's total addressable market was small and that a new release issue would be a problem.
Netflix co-founder Mark Randolph talks about how he and his team had to confront Blockbuster head-on in order to take their business to the next level.
Software developers are often rewarded for adding new features, causing the software to become over bloated and difficult to navigate, leading to distractions and potential hazards for businesses. Removing unnecessary features and "scraping the barnacles off the hull" can help maintain efficient and effective software.
The speaker reflects on the importance of prioritizing self-care in work-life balance and how setting boundaries can lead to increased productivity and healthier relationships.
Discovering two important things about oneself is crucial, even if they are the same thing. Having all the money in the world is pointless if you don't have a strong relationship or activities that make you happy outside of work.
In the "That Will Never Work" podcast, the host shares his experience in helping early-stage entrepreneurs turn their ideas into successful businesses, with the goal of making entrepreneurship more broadly available. The podcast features stories of entrepreneurs who had to overcome various challenges and obstacles to make their ideas a reality.
The speaker proposes a platform that allows people to advocate for issues in a place where it really matters, such as a billboard where people can vote for the one they support. The platform would allow people to put an image, a question, a mantra, or a quote on the billboard to get their message across.
In this podcast, the speaker emphasizes the significance of good sleep for overall performance and encourages people to visit helixsleep.com/tim for a personalized mattress that guarantees the best sleep. Additionally, he promotes his weekly email subscription, providing fun things for the weekend.
The speaker recommends Athletic Greens as a comprehensive formula with multivitamins, multi mineral greens complex, probiotics, prebiotics, digestive enzymes, adaptogens and many other nutrients, adding that it makes it easy to get a lot of nutrition when whole foods are not readily available. Athletic Greens is offering a special promotion to the audience, including a free vitamin D supplement and five free travel packs on their first subscription purchase.