The idea for what company originated when Reed Hastings paid $40 in fine for returning Apollo 13 well past its due date?
Reed Hastings spent two years thinking about how to avoid similar problems at his next startup. In 1997 Hastings and Marc Randolph co-founded Netflix, offering flat rate movie rental-by-mail to customers in the United States by combining two emerging technologies; DVDs, which were much easier to send as mail than VHS-cassettes, and an online Web site to order them from, instead of a paper catalogue. Headquartered in Los Gatos, California, Netflix has amassed a collection of 100,000 titles and over 100 million subscribers. Hastings had the idea for Netflix after his company was acquired. "I had a big late fee for 'Apollo
Reed Hastings your pocket, starting a business doesn't seem too intimidating." After returning from the Peace Corps, Hastings went on to attend Stanford University. He graduated in 1988 with a master's degree in computer science. Hastings' first job was at Adaptive Technology, where he invented a tool for debugging software. He met Audrey MacLean in 1990 when she was CEO at Adaptive Corp. "From her, I learned the value of focus. I learned it is better to do one product well than two products in a mediocre way," says Hastings. Hastings left Adaptive Technology in 1991 to found his first company, Pure