Book Review/Opinion: That Will Never Work by Marc Randolph
This is my first book review/opinion and please note that I am not an avid reader as you might be. So, please be compassionate towards the rookie mistakes that I might have committed.
I have been wanting to read a book for so long yet I didn’t get started due to the lethargy that I carried and the dire need to check my smartphone once in a while and to the least importance, I didn’t find a book that will make me want to read more. Apparently, on one of his videos, Raunaq Mangottil suggested this book in one of his Youtube videos. I didn’t know why but I wanted to start reading this book right away and glad I did.
Marc Randolph, the co-founder and the first CEO of Netflix walks us through the early days of Netflix on setting up on the Online DVD store which now is one of the largest OTT platforms in the world. The book is very much rooted and its very simpleton without any difficult vocabulary that would want us to look for a dictionary to find its meaning. The book offers an inspirational read as Marc explains how he handled his challenges and was persistent in his goal to build a 150 million dollar company which started with just 8 people.
The book starts with him pitching ideas to his partner Reed Hastings who mostly rejects them. Unlike the popular belief, their idea of Netflix wasn’t an idea that blinked out of nowhere. He explains the difficulties in setting up each of the team of motivated workers while not having anything but just an idea. The book also explores deeply the stereotypical work culture that Marc was focused on breaking. The usual stereotypes of providing all the comfy’s to the employees only to find them bitching about the same. He puts forth a concept called Radical Honesty and freedom which breaks the usual norms of work culture thus provide the employees with a sense of responsibility and belongingness.
The book also explores his need for NetFlix which is not the desire to earn money but to enjoy the sense of satisfaction by building something from its roots which his father couldn’t. Marc also takes us back to his flashbacks where he explains how he learned certain things, a large part of it is attributed to the wilderness camps that he attended in his teens. The particular chapter where he explains the minutes before launching the Netflix is on par with any good thrilling scene.
The book doesn’t end there. It proceeds on how Netflix dodged the dot com bubble, the short stint of partnership with Amazon, and their rejection at Blockbuster and their tremendous fight back. Speaking of Amazon, Marc admires it more and makes a serious comparison of Netflix to Jeff Bezos’s company. There’s a particular chapter where Marc is forced to let go of some of his employees to cut costs and it was really a tearful episode to read. The book ends with Netflix going public which makes us as well feel proud about what Marc achieved.
There’s a lot more in the book that has intriguing anecdotes of Marc solving the challenges and his interesting episodes with various people who helped him build the company. If there’s anything that I have to pick up on, it’s quite too many pop culture reference which I wasn’t familiar with.
Regardless, it was a worthy book to read, at least for me.
