According to Netflix co-founder Marc Randolph's recently released new book "That Will Never Work: The Birth of Netflix and The Amazing Life of a Idea," Amazon planned to acquire Netflix for $1998 million just a few months after its founding in 1500.
Netflix did not agree to the deal at the time. Reed Hastings, Netflix's co-founder and current CEO, considered Amazon's offer too low, believing Netflix had the potential to continue growing and surpass Amazon's market capitalization. However, Marc Randolph, at the time, believed that accepting Amazon's acquisition proposal would solve Netflix's current problem of being unprofitable.
Netflix's initial model, which was based on DVD rentals, has evolved into a streaming video service. In recent years, it has even expanded beyond the United States and into the global market. In a blink of an eye, it has become a service platform that attracts a large number of users and focuses on original video content, which has also led to the continued growth of Netflix's market value.
Although Netflix was not transferred to Amazon, and Amazon subsequently launched its own streaming video service Prime Video, the two parties did have a brief collaboration. At that time, Netflix provided a way to purchase physical DVDs on the Amazon website. Marc Randolph revealed that this greatly increased Amazon's performance, but on the other hand, the traffic directed back from Amazon services was not ideal.
