Netflix Ships 2 Billionth Movie

Quoting the Netflix blog:

On April 1 Clay Shannon of Birmingham, Ala. received the two billionth movie, a Blu-ray version of the romantic comedy "Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist," and with it, a complimentary lifetime subscription to Netflix.

I called and emailed Clay to tell him the good news and for the longest time he thought it was an April Fool’s prank. Finally convinced, he was elated. [...]

It took eight years for Netflix to reach one billion shipments -- less time than it took McDonald’s to sell one billion hamburgers -- and just over two years to ship the second billion.

We love Netflix.  It’s essentially unlimited movies for $18 per month -- the cost of a single trip for two to a crusty movie theater.

It’s not hard to see why Netflix is so successful: they somehow manage to simultaneously be the cheapest and best way to get movies.

They seem to have a great corporate culture, too:

Quoting The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette:

When it comes to vacation, Netflix has a simple policy: Take as much as you’d like.  Just make sure your work is done.

Employees at the online movie retailer often leave for three, four, even five weeks at a time and never clock in or out.

Vacation limits and face-time requirements, says Netflix Chief Executive Reed Hastings, are "a relic of the industrial age." [...]

American workers get a median of 10 vacation days after one year on the job and 15 days after five years of work, according to Hewitt.  One in three Americans doesn’t use all his vacation, and barely one in 10 takes a break for two weeks straight, according to the nonprofit research firm Families and Work Institute.  But at Netflix, it’s estimated that most employees take off about 25 to 30 days per year, using the time to stay at home with the kids, travel to Cambodia or visit relatives in India.  It’s "estimated" because Netflix does not record vacation time, said Ms. McCord.

That whole article is worth a read.