Netflix began its life in 1997 as a mail-based DVD rental business. Marc Randolph and Reed Hastings got the idea of Netflix while carpooling between their office and home in California. Hastings admired Amazon and wanted to emulate their success by finding a large category of portable items to sell over the Internet. It was around the same time that DVDs were introduced in the United States and they tested the concept of selling or renting DVDs by mail.
