Marc Randolph Quotes

Marc Randolph

Profession : Businessman

Birth : April 29, 1958

At Netflix, we realized that we weren't in business with the Toshibas and the Sonys of the world. We were in business with the guy sitting at home trying to find a DVD to watch. If we had the courage to focus on him, everyone - movie studios, electronics companies, Netflix itself - won.

Marc Randolph

No one knows what's a good idea or a bad idea until you try it.

Marc Randolph

As entrepreneurs, or artists, or just people with dreams, the worst thing you can do is get so caught up in planning the perfect idea that you never get around to actually... well, doing it. I call this building castles in your mind.

Marc Randolph

Iteration, not ideation, is the most important part of early stage entrepreneurship. You have to have a lot of ideas - a lot of bad ideas - if you want to end up with a good one.

Marc Randolph

Negotiation is empathy. It's almost trite to say that if you can't put yourself in the seat of the other person you're speaking with, you're not going to do well. It's not about being a bully, not about making offers people can't refuse.

Marc Randolph

My father was an investment banker, a stock broker.

Marc Randolph

Pitching a concept well is certainly important, but ultimately you have to build it.

Marc Randolph

When an opportunity comes knocking, you don't necessarily have to open your door. But you owe it to yourself to at least look through the keyhole.

Marc Randolph

In fact, I'm happy to go on record as saying that the ability to create a reality distortion field is right up there alongside optimism as an entrepreneur's most valuable weapon.

Marc Randolph

Here's a simple truth: When you surround a good idea with brilliant people, it changes. No matter how much you plan, great ideas have a mind of their own.

Marc Randolph

I just always believed we would succeed. Even when everyone else said my ideas were ridiculous. Even when we were almost out of money. Even when the metrics were all upside down. I always have confidence that I'll figure something out. I just have that confidence that things are going to work out fine.

Marc Randolph

By being courageous enough to state the difficult truth, the most important reputation that you will preserve is your own.

Marc Randolph

One of the key lessons I learned at Netflix was the necessity of focus.

Marc Randolph

People imagine that Netflix sprang fully formed into a global streaming giant, but Netflix might have been personalised sporting goods - or customised shampoo - or even pet food, since these were all ideas that I pitched Reed Hastings in those first months.

Marc Randolph

Back in the early days at Netflix, it wasn't unheard of for me to tell prospective hires that I could see our stock going to a hundred dollars someday.

Marc Randolph

When I first met Jeff Bezos back in the late 90s, the only automated thing in his office was a rotating fan, gently blowing across a pair of identical blue shirts he'd hung on a water pipe behind his desk.

Marc Randolph

Two-sided markets are notoriously finicky.

Marc Randolph

At a startup, it's hard enough to get a single thing right, much less a whole bunch of things. Especially if the things you are trying to do are not only dissimilar but actively impede each other.

Marc Randolph

When someone uses 'low eight figures,' that means barely eight figures.

Marc Randolph

When I was 23, I was quite possibly the worst real estate agent in New York. I was working for my mother's agency in Chappaqua, and no one was buying houses. In eight months, I made zero sales. I rented one apartment.

Marc Randolph