Q: What do you think it think it takes to succeed in the sea level of an innovative company?
A: Well, you have to be innovative, which means you have to embrace change. And change is threatening to many people.
I often hear people say they want to be in a company like ours, but they never have been and once they get there the pace of change is very unsettling.
We have taken the Ross Perot approach to evolving the business model. And by that I mean, we try many versions of one thing at the same time and let the market place tell us which thing works best. And then we rapidly iterate on that thing to make it better and better and better and better.The alternative approach would be to study it ad nauseam, pick one, put the one thing in the marketplace and then slavishly work to improve the one thing. That is not the model we have built the business with.
We pride ourselves on our ability to very rapidly iterate. And to test, test, test, test, test, test, test. And let the marketplace inform us about what works.
Transcribed from "Featured Interview: Barry McCarthy, Chief Financial Officer of Netflix," iinnovate podcast, 13 Jan 2008, iinnovate.blogspot.com/2008/01/mccarthy.html (quote starts at 14:56).
