Thread on the fascinating story of @netflix Founder @reedhastings who used to sell Vacuum Cleaners Door to Door during his teenage years:
1) @reedhastings was born in Boston and his father was an attorney in Health and Education department in President Richard Nixon's reign.
1) @reedhastings was born in Boston and his father was an attorney in Health and Education department in President Richard Nixon's reign.
2) He went to Buckingham School in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and sold vacuum cleaners door to door for one year before college.
3) After graduation, he joined Marine Corps officer training and spent college summer in the Marines but he never commissioned into the Marine Corps.
3) After graduation, he joined Marine Corps officer training and spent college summer in the Marines but he never commissioned into the Marine Corps.
4) He commissioned in Peace Corps and went to teach math at a high school in rural Africa for 2 years after college in Swaziland.
5) At Stanford University he did Computer Science in 1988 and joined Adaptive Technology, where he created a tool to debug software.
5) At Stanford University he did Computer Science in 1988 and joined Adaptive Technology, where he created a tool to debug software.
6) He quit his job in 1991 & founded Pure Software that produced products to troubleshoot software but he asked the board to replace him as CEO as he lacked managerial experience to manage the company's growth.
7) Pure Software was taken public by Morgan Stanley in 1995 after that it merged with Atria Software.
8) In 1997, Pure Atria was acquired by Rational Software that triggered a 42% drop in stocks of both companies after the deal was made public and Reed was appointed as CTO.
8) In 1997, Pure Atria was acquired by Rational Software that triggered a 42% drop in stocks of both companies after the deal was made public and Reed was appointed as CTO.
9) He spent two years thinking about how to avoid similar problems at his next startup. He founded Netflix in 1997 that offered movies on DVDs on a rental-by-mail basis & also launched a website to choose and order the movies from.
10) He said in an interview that when he founded Netflix, he had no idea whether customers would use the service or not but it got over 239,000 subscriptions in the first year and today, it has over 210 million subscribers worldwide.
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