48 Fun Facts About Netflix (Company)

Which 2018 Netflix thriller set off a viral challenge in which people did everyday tasks blindfolded?

Bird Box inspired so many risky blindfold stunts that Netflix tweeted a plea for people not to hurt themselves.

Before launching Netflix, what did its founders post to Hastings's home to test whether discs survived the mail?

A music CD reached Hastings's home intact, and in April 1998 the pair launched Netflix as a DVD rental website.

What is Netflix's stock ticker symbol?

NFLX plunged more than 35% in one day in April 2022, after Netflix reported its first subscriber loss in more than a decade.

Which South Korean survival drama became Netflix's biggest series launch in 2021, reaching 111 million accounts in 17 days?

Squid Game began as a film script Hwang Dong-hyuk wrote in 2009, a decade before Netflix turned it into a series.

Which Netflix series sent Kate Bush's 1985 song 'Running Up That Hill' back up the charts in 2022?

Stranger Things used the song in its fourth season, and it shot to the top of the UK and US iTunes charts, 37 years after first peaking at No 3 in Britain.

Which series was marketed in 2013 as the first "Netflix Original"?

Netflix had ordered the Kevin Spacey drama straight to series from MRC in March 2011.

Which country was Netflix's first international market, in 2010?

Canada came first, and in 2017 Netflix pledged CA$500 million over five years to make content in Canada.

What did Netflix warn in April 2022 it would crack down on, estimating 100 million households were doing it?

Password sharing was flagged as Netflix reported losing subscribers for the first time in more than a decade, with 30 million sharing households in North America alone.

What was Netflix's streaming feature called when it launched alongside DVD rentals in 2007?

Watch Now at first capped viewing at an hour for each dollar of a subscriber's DVD plan, but Netflix lifted the limits a year later.

In which California town is Netflix headquartered?

Los Gatos, California was already home in 2007, when Netflix was shipping DVDs from 42 distribution centres across the US.

In 2000, which video-rental giant turned down the chance to buy Netflix for $50 million?

Blockbuster laughed Netflix's founders out of the room, and a decade later, in 2010, it filed for bankruptcy.

Hastings's oft-told founding story involves a $40 late fee on which film?

Apollo 13 is the film in Hastings's story, but co-founder Marc Randolph has since disputed the tale.

What was Netflix's ad-supported tier called at its 2022 launch?

Basic with Ads launched in 12 countries at $6.99 a month in the US, months after Netflix's first subscriber loss in more than a decade.

What is the title of Netflix's Formula One docuseries?

Drive to Survive's drivers teamed up with golfers from Full Swing for The Netflix Cup in November 2023, the streamer's first live sports event.

Which Netflix executive became co-CEO in January 2023?

Greg Peters, a physics and astronomy graduate who had been chief operating officer, had spearheaded Netflix's expansion into games.

Which Norwegian drama starring Steven Van Zandt was promoted in 2012 as Netflix's first exclusive series?

Lilyhammer's Norwegian premiere was held back for weeks because the show contained product placement not allowed on Norwegian TV at the time.

Which 2018 Black Mirror film let Netflix viewers choose what its main character did next?

Bandersnatch won two Emmys, but Netflix removed it from the service in May 2025.

Which actress played chess prodigy Beth Harmon in Netflix's 2020 miniseries The Queen's Gambit?

Anya Taylor-Joy's Beth Harmon set off a chess boom, with Goliath Games saying its chess set sales rose more than 1,000%.

How much was the Netflix Prize for beating its recommendation algorithm?

$1,000,000 went to the 2009 winners, but Netflix dropped a planned sequel contest in 2010 after a lawsuit and privacy concerns.

Netflix's abandoned "Netflix Player" hardware project was spun off as which company?

Roku grew out of Netflix's shelved box, which Hastings dropped so other device makers would keep building in Netflix support.

What name did Netflix briefly give its planned DVD-rental spin-off in 2011?

Qwikster was widely ridiculed, and within weeks Netflix dropped the plan and kept DVD rentals under its own name.

Which AMC show is considered the first to benefit from the "Netflix effect"?

Breaking Bad's final eight episodes premiered to 5.9 million viewers, more than double the fourth season premiere's 2.6 million, after fans binged it on Netflix.

What is the name of the Obamas' production company that signed with Netflix in 2018?

Higher Ground Productions was set up to lift up diverse voices, making a mix of docu-series, documentaries and features for Netflix.

What is the name of the management rule behind Netflix's demanding culture?

The keeper test asks managers whether they would fight to keep someone, and Hastings reportedly applied it even to his longtime product chief.

What is the title of Hastings's 2020 book on Netflix culture?

It was co-written with Erin Meyer.

What internet-speed tool did Netflix launch in 2016?

Fast.com times downloads from Netflix's own servers, so viewers can check whether their internet provider is slowing streams, and it carries no ads.

After a 2008 database corruption halted DVD shipping, Netflix moved its data where?

Amazon Web Services won for its scale, and the move took seven years, with Netflix shutting its last streaming data centre systems in January 2016.

Netflix began its European expansion in January 2012 in which two countries?

The Nordics followed in October 2012 and the Netherlands in 2013.

Which YouTuber-turned-boxer beat Mike Tyson in Netflix's live stream of November 2024?

Jake Paul beat the 58-year-old Tyson on a unanimous decision, while around 90,000 viewers reported streaming outages in the hour before the fight.

Which weekly wrestling show did Netflix agree in 2024 to stream in the US, in a 10-year, $5 billion-plus deal?

WWE Raw left cable channel USA Network to stream live on Netflix every week from January 2025.

Which black-and-white Netflix film won the Oscar for best foreign language film in 2019?

Roma was bought by Netflix after the company's film chief had seen just 12 minutes of footage.

Which team won the Netflix Prize in 2009?

BellKor's Pragmatic Chaos tied rival team The Ensemble's score but won the prize because it had submitted its entry first.

Netflix's billionth DVD, shipped in 2007, was a copy of which film?

Babel, a best picture nominee that year, went to a customer in Helotes, Texas, who was rewarded with a lifetime Netflix subscription.

What was Netflix's first corporate acquisition, in 2017?

Millarworld, home of Kick-Ass and Kingsman, was the first company Netflix ever bought, to turn Mark Millar's comics into its own films and series.

Netflix first trialled mobile games for subscribers in which country in 2021?

Poland got the first public test of games inside the Netflix app, and that November games launched for Android users worldwide.

Hastings taught high-school maths with the Peace Corps in which country?

Swaziland is where Hastings taught maths, having joined the Peace Corps, he said, out of a combination of service and adventure.

Which psychoanalysis pioneer was a great-grand-uncle of Marc Randolph?

Sigmund Freud's nephew Edward Bernays, Randolph's great-uncle, used Freud's ideas to sell Americans on bacon and eggs for breakfast.

Where did Hastings earn his mathematics degree?

Bowdoin gave Hastings his mathematics degree, and in 2025 he gave the college $50 million to create an initiative on AI and humanity.

In 2021 Netflix tied CBS's record of 44 Emmys in one year, led by which royal drama's best drama win?

The Crown won 11 Emmys in all, while CBS, which broadcast the ceremony that year, was shut out completely.

Which video-rental chief executive laughed Netflix's founders out of the room when they offered to sell in 2000?

John Antioco later built a DVD-by-mail rival that briefly grew faster than Netflix, before he was pushed out in 2007.

Which film did Netflix buy and release straight after its Super Bowl LII trailer in 2018?

The Cloverfield Paradox cost Netflix more than $50 million, making the film instantly profitable for its studio.

Whose stand-up special 'Selective Outrage' became Netflix's first global live-streamed event in March 2023?

Chris Rock used the live show to answer Will Smith's Oscars slap, almost a year after it happened.

In which New Mexico city did Netflix buy a studio in 2018 to create its first US production hub?

Albuquerque's ABQ Studios had cost about $91 million to build, and Netflix, snubbing Los Angeles, pledged $1 billion in local production over ten years.

Which Netflix true-crime docuseries became a lockdown sensation after its release in March 2020?

Tiger King followed Joe Exotic's feud with rival big-cat owner Carole Baskin, and its success brought a second season in 2021.

Which 2025 animated musical became Netflix's most-watched film that year?

KPop Demon Hunters launched with only a low-key premiere in June 2025, then overtook Red Notice as Netflix's most-watched film by late August.

What was the name of Netflix's indie-film division, closed in 2008?

Red Envelope Entertainment was shut in 2008 because buying films had put Netflix in competition with its Hollywood studio partners.

Which Netflix co-CEO grew up in Arizona and got his start as a video store clerk?

Ted Sarandos had wanted to be a journalist, but his video store job became a career in home video that led him to Netflix.

Which company agreed to buy Warner Bros Discovery in February 2026 after Netflix declined to match its bid?

Paramount Skydance won, and its offer included paying the $2.8 billion termination fee owed to Netflix for the collapsed deal.