The Ledger
Every statement that passed quotation and attribution checks. Mix any filter with any other: certainty 1/5, debate potential 5/5, or both at once.
why aren't all 30 resolved? a statement only gets an assessment when the public record can support or contradict it. opinions and what-ifs never can, and 0 checkable ones are still open, waiting for their date. predictions held up or didn't; assertions are supported or contradicted. on every card: ▮▮▮▮▮ certainty · ▮▮▮▮▮ debate potential. speakers are clickable
Hastings: Modeling a company on a family is an inferior organizational approach
“Well families are dysfunctional in many ways. And so, yes, I think it's a inferior model.”
Hastings: Firing decisions are driven by instinct via the 'keeper test'
“No. There's, it's not rational when you let someone go. I mean, you want to think it through, but it's an instinct that you could get someone better for that role. So that the test we use is called the keeper test. Would you fight to keep that employee if they…”
Hastings: Netflix uses an 'informed captain' leadership model, not consensus democracy
“We talked about it as the informed captain. The leadership model is to be the informed captain. So the captain of a ship is the absolute ruler of that ship and makes decisions. We want our leaders to feel like they're the captain. It's not a democracy, but the…”
Hastings: High talent density eliminates the need for corporate process and rules
“The core of it was if you had incredibly talented people, you didn't need a lot of process and rules. Netflix was anti-process and rules and pro-talent density.”
Hastings: Generous severance packages save money by accelerating exits and preventing lawsuits
“So I don't think it actually cost us money because it got managers to act more quickly. And it made it easier on the person who was let go because they got, you know what they perceived as a generous severance package. So then, you know, we could be letting go…”
Wood: Steve Jobs rejected Netflix app on Apple TV over hardware rivalry
“And I think Reed sent an email to Steve Jobs saying, are you guys interested in this? And Steve Jobs replied, no, we're not interested because we hear you're building Hardware that competes with Apple TV. And so why would we ever do business with you? You know…”
E-commerce platforms will vertically integrate proprietary brands just like Netflix
“The future of e-commerce was gonna look a little bit like the history of Netflix. That a platform that was streaming other people's content and distributing other people's content would vertically integrate and start to develop their own proprietary content.”
Hastings: Netflix accounts for under 10% of U.S. TV viewing
“Well, if you look today at TV viewing in the United States, as an example Disney's ahead of us. YouTube is, this is combining linear and on demand. YouTube's ahead of us. They're the largest. Disney's ahead of us. Even Paramount's ahead of us, because they all…”
Hastings: Entrepreneurs shouldn't rush going public because it reveals competitive information
“In hindsight, I tell other entrepreneurs that don't be in a hurry to go public because it gives your competitors a lot of information.”
Hastings: Netflix probably would have accepted any Blockbuster offer in 2000
“And I don't remember them actually making an offer or, but I think we probably would have taken any offer, but it was not, it didn't result in any deal transaction.”
Hastings: Taking 20% of store revenue guaranteed Blockbuster's retail collapse
“You take away 20% of the revenue from every store, and that takes away the profit, right? And our customer base was highly distributed, you know, across the U.S., So, we knew that if we got to a certain size that it was like, you know, a billion, it was very p…”
Hastings: YouTube doubled its TV viewing share over four years
“And I would say the big challenger is YouTube because they have doubled in the last four years. Their share of television viewing somewhat in the U S but dramatically around the world”
Hastings: Netflix uses -10 to +10 executive polls for major decisions
“So the thing we instituted on big decisions
Is everybody publicly weighing in, you know, on a 10 to -10?
Is this a wise decision?
So that would affect, like, going into Europe, going into original content, pricing changes, so that everyone knows where everyone…”
Policygenius plans to evolve from broker to first-party insurance issuer
“Eventually, yep. We look at our journey similar to Amazon or Netflix which started in the third party world. Consumer goods in the case of Amazon, content in the case of Netflix, and they eventually moved from third party to first party, where they were actual…”
Dunn: E-commerce platforms will vertically integrate proprietary brands just like Netflix
“The future of e-commerce was going to look a little bit like the history of Netflix. That a platform that was streaming other people's content and distributing other people's content would vertically integrate and start to develop their own proprietary content…”
Hastings: Streaming success relies on improving 1-in-40 hit ratios
“So it's an artistic execution business. And, you know, if we can improve those ratios to from one in 40 to one in 20 to one in 10 to one in five, we'll be a monster. But it's hard.”
Hastings: Netflix outbid HBO for House of Cards without financial justification
“We had to bid against HBO. This was not Kind of junior content. This was first, you know, lead content. HBO was thinking of it. And we came in with a higher financial bid, even though we couldn't justify it at the time.”
Hastings: Netflix would have moved slower on Qwikster if executives spoke up
“And if they had known that they would have spoken up more forcefully, and we probably would have taken a slower, more cautious approach.”
Hastings: Netflix launched too early in 1998 and should have waited
“In hindsight, we were too early. Okay. We should have waited a couple of years to launch.”
Wood: Netflix took 20% of Roku before selling stake to Menlo Ventures
“Right. And so they, I think they got 20% of the company. So after, Netflix invested and we started shipping the Netflix player, we then decided to raise venture money. And so we raised money from a venture capitalist called Menlo Ventures. And then Netflix dec…”
Wood: Hastings allocated 3% of Netflix revenue to background streaming R&D
“And so he actually told me once that he, you know, I, I've allocated, I'll call it three percent of our revenue to keep working on this idea of streaming in the background so that we don't miss the transition.”
Kharraz: Very few scaled companies survive a business model pivot
“Very few companies really change their underlying business model once they have a certain scale and then live to tell about it, right? We know the names of the companies that have done this, like Netflix went from DVDs to streaming, Adobe you know, from box so…”
Hastings: Eight-dollar shipping costs made VHS mail rental economically impossible
“VHS cassettes, which was the way movies were distributed weighed about a pound and cost about four dollars to ship. So if you got shipped a VHS cassette, And then shipped it back. That was eight dollars on top of the three or four dollar rental. So that didn't…”
Hastings: Netflix reached $50 million in revenue at 2002 IPO
“So when we went public two years later, we were at fifty million.”
Hastings: Netflix raised $50 million from LVMH in February 2000
“So we closed that round of them investing fifty million. I don't remember the valuation, but it was a good valuation. And that was February of 2000, and then March of 2000 is when the bubble broke.”
Hastings: Invested initial $2 million to launch Netflix in 1998
“I put in the initial two million dollars and was chairman, and then the site launched in, like, May of 98, roughly”
Poncia: Netflix Appearance and COVID-19 Spurred Surge in Direct-to-Consumer Sales
“Just before the pandemic, we were featured on a Netflix TV show called Ugly Delicious. So about steak. So we were already seeing a decent influx to our online sales because of that. And then COVID hit right in the middle of March. And we definitely saw quite a…”
Neustadter: Hello Sunshine paused The Morning Show, Daisy Jones, and From Scratch
“We had just started shooting Our second season of The Morning Show, and we were meant to have a show, start production for Amazon, a show called Daisy Jones and the Six was going to start in April, and then we had another show for Netflix called From Scratch t…”
Blumenthal: GQ dubbed Warby Parker the 'Netflix of eyewear'
“GQ actually called us the Netflix of eyewear in the article they put.”
Grateful Dead newsgroup was the most popular community on early internet
“In fact it's kind of mind-blowing, but rec.music.gdead, the Grateful Dead news group, was the most popular thing on the entire internet. It was like, in terms of traffic, it was the Netflix of its day, just like the text postings going back and forth”