Netflix

Content rights as an asset class once distribution costs collapsed.

Latest filing on file · 2025-12-31

Revenue: $45.2B; FY2025 · USD; 10-K · period ended 2025-12-31Source
Operating margin: 29.5%; FY2025; Operating income / revenue · filingSource
Operating cash flow: $10.1B; FY2025 · USD; 10-K · period ended 2025-12-31Source
Capital expenditures: $688M; FY2025 · USD; 10-K · period ended 2025-12-31Source

Overview

Business model and origins

DVDs were small enough to mail economically — unlike VHS tapes. A subscription model with no late fees would be structurally different from Blockbuster's per-rental, late-fee-dependent model.

2 episodes2026-06 case file as of

Origin

Reed Hastings and Marc Randolph founded Netflix in April 1997 after Hastings supposedly paid a $40 late fee on Apollo 13. The canonical founding story. DVD was the enabling technology: a DVD fit in a padded mailer for under $1 in postage; a VHS cassette didn't. Netflix shipped its first DVD — Beetlejuice — on April 14, 1998. The no-late-fees subscription launched in September 1999. When Blockbuster tried to copy it, Netflix introduced online streaming (2007) and cannibalized its own DVD business before Blockbuster could catch up. When content owners began pulling streaming rights, Netflix launched original content (House of Cards, 2013) and again stayed a step ahead.