On Oct. 19, the first episode of Hamilton’s “Entrepreneurial Education Series” aired with host Blake Darcy ʼ78 featuring Marc Randolph ʼ80, the co-founder and first CEO of Netflix. Darcy, the moderator, has held numerous executive roles in the financial-technology industry, commonly referred to as “fintech.” The focus of their discussion was on the “big idea” of entrepreneurship and how to move forward with it and the audience Q&A session revolved mainly around Randolph’s personal experiences as an entrepreneur.
The first topic of discussion was the age-old Silicon Valley myth that every startup is birthed in a single, complete, perfect epiphany from a single founder. Randolph and Blake both shared a knowing laugh at this, having been involved in lots of startups themselves with incredible success. This discussion led to Randolph’s account of the founding of Netflix and its “big idea,” which was fascinating to hear from a first-person perspective.
Randolph worked for Pure Atria, a Silicon Valley software firm, and in its last days before a merger, he came up with the seed of the idea that would later become Netflix. Randolph knew he would lose his job after the merger, so he had decided he wanted to start a startup.
Everyday on his commute to work in those last few months at Pure Atria, he would pitch an idea to Reed Hastings (a fellow NESCAC alum from Bowdoin) and the CEO of Pure Atria at the time, who would become his angel investor and co-founder. Randolph even shared some of the wide variety of ideas he had; one day he was considering creating custom shampoo, the next day he was convinced of custom dog food. As Randolph noted, all of these ideas would lead to some response from Hastings along the lines of “that will never work.”
Eventually, Randolph came up with the idea that would work — a video rental via mail. At the time, it was hard to mail VHS, so the idea of video rental e-commerce was not fully fleshed out. However, soon enough the latest technology, DVDs, arrived and could be mailed. Randolph and Hasting tested if DVDs could survive mail transport by using CDs because DVDs were not yet available and the CD survived. Suddenly, online video rental by mail seemed a lot more possible. At that moment, Randolph remembered thinking to himself excitedly that this might actually work and so Netflix began.
Following the story of Netflix, Darcy and the audience asked Randolph broader questions about general advice for entrepreneurs. One of the first questions asked was how to judge if an idea or product was good or not and when the right time is to move forward with it. To this, Randolph answered that sometimes one gets a good feeling with their idea, but it is also possible to wait too long and completely miss the opportunity.
This answer is as relevant for the aspiring entrepreneur as it is for the seasoned professional. One analogue that seemed to resonate heavily with the audience is Randolph’s likening of entrepreneurship to running for a plane. Half the time the plane will have already left, half the time the plane will have been delayed and the running would have been in vain, but maybe one percent of the time, running would have made the difference. Running for the plane is like obsessing over little details and hesitating to release a product or staying up all night to perfect a presentation when you already have a complete one. Randolph stressed to the audience that having the confidence to say “I am done” is a skill successful entrepreneurs must have.
Despite being incredibly successful with founding Netflix, Randolph also seemed down-to-earth. Toward the end of the talk, Randolph said that he takes the most pride in having such success with Netflix and other endeavors while having a healthy family relationship and enjoying outdoor hobbies.
For college students who may not have a “big idea” for a start-up, there is so much to learn from Randolph. Some students came to the presentation looking for advice on how to develop a big idea and others to learn more broadly about Randolph’s journey after Hamilton.
Despite being a college sophomore with no “big idea” of a start-up in the near future, I got a lot out of hearing Randolph speak. Even though Randolph’s tips were geared towards business endeavors, they can be applied to any person or situation: take chances, keep your family close and be committed and flexible in what you do.
