Blockbuster CEO Rejected Netflix for $50 Million and Called It "Dot-Com Hysteria." Netflix Is Now Worth $150+ Billion.

In September 2000, Netflix co-founder Reed Hastings walked into a Dallas conference room with a simple offer: sell Netflix to Blockbuster for $50 million. Blockbuster CEO John Antioco, who deemed Netflix "a niche business," laughed them out of the room and dismissed the entire dot-com sector as hysterical overreaction. Two decades later, Netflix is worth over $150 billion. Blockbuster filed for bankruptcy in 2010, unable to adapt to streaming. Antioco lived just long enough to watch Netflix become one of the most dominant media companies on the planet while his company became a punchline. Sometimes the dot-com "hysteria" was actually called "the future."