Blockbuster Passed on Buying Netflix for $50 Million. Netflix Is Now Worth $280 Billion.

In 2000, Netflix co-founders Reed Hastings and Marc Randolph walked into Blockbuster's Dallas headquarters with a proposition: buy 49% of Netflix for $50 million. At the time, Netflix was a struggling DVD-by-mail startup hemorrhaging cash, while Blockbuster was a 9,000-store empire dominating the video rental market.

According to Randolph's book "That Will Never Work," the Blockbuster executives "were fighting to suppress laughter" during the pitch. CEO John Antioco reportedly thought the proposal was a joke. After the meeting, Hastings and Randolph left crestfallen.

Blockbuster filed for bankruptcy in 2010. Today, one store remains—in Bend, Oregon—operated as a nostalgia museum. Netflix, meanwhile, pioneered streaming, amassed over 280 million subscribers worldwide, and has a market cap north of $280 billion.

That $50 million "joke" would have been worth roughly 5,600x its asking price. The meeting that "went downhill fast" went down as one of the most catastrophic passes in corporate history. Somewhere, a former Blockbuster executive is still muttering "we'll consider it" into their Netflix-enabled smart TV.