Netflix, Inc. is an American media company founded on August 29, 1997 by Reed Hastings and Marc Randolph in Scotts Valley, California, and currently based in Los Gatos, California, with production offices and stages at the Los Angeles-based Hollywood studios (formerly old Warner Brothers studios) and the Albuquerque Studios (formerly ABQ studios). It owns and operates an eponymous over-the-top subscription video on-demand service, which showcases acquired and original programming as well as third-party content licensed from other production companies and distributors. Netflix is also the first streaming media company to be a member of the Motion Picture Association.

Netflix initially both sold and rented DVDs by mail, but the sales were eliminated within a year to focus on the DVD rental business. In 2007, Netflix introduced streaming media and video on demand. The company expanded to Canada in 2010, followed by Latin America and the Caribbean. In 2011, the service began to acquire and produce original content, beginning with the crime drama Lilyhammer.

The company is ranked 117th on the Fortune 500 and 219th on the Forbes Global 2000. It is the second largest entertainment/media company by market capitalization as of February 2022^[update]. In 2021, Netflix was ranked as the eighth-most trusted brand globally by Morning Consult. During the 2010s, Netflix was the top-performing stock in the S&P 500 stock market index, with a total return of 3,693%.

The company has two CEOs, Greg Peters and Ted Sarandos, who are split between Los Gatos and Los Angeles, respectively. It also operates international offices in Asia, Europe and Latin America including in Canada, France, Brazil, the Netherlands, India, Italy, Japan, Poland, South Korea, and the United Kingdom. The company has production hubs in Los Angeles, Albuquerque, London, Madrid, Vancouver and Toronto.

Netflix was founded by Marc Randolph and Reed Hastings on August 29, 1997, in Scotts Valley, California. Hastings, a computer scientist and mathematician, was a cofounder of Pure Software, which was acquired by Rational Software that year for $750 million, the then biggest acquisition in Silicon Valley history. Randolph had worked as a marketing director for Pure Software after Pure Atria acquired a company where Randolph worked. He was previously a co-founder of MicroWarehouse, a computer mail-order company as well as vice president of marketing for Borland. Hastings and Randolph came up with the idea for Netflix while carpooling between their homes in Santa Cruz, California, and Pure Atria's headquarters in Sunnyvale. Patty McCord, later head of human resources at Netflix, was also in the carpool group. Randolph admired Amazon and wanted to find a large category of portable items to sell over the Internet using a similar model. Hastings and Randolph considered and rejected selling and renting VHS as too expensive to stock and too delicate to ship. When they heard about DVDs, first introduced in the United States in early 1997, they tested the concept of selling or renting DVDs by mail by mailing a compact disc to Hastings's house in Santa Cruz. When the disc arrived intact, they decided to enter the $16 billion Home-video sales and rental industry. Hastings is often quoted saying that he decided to start Netflix after being fined $40 at a Blockbuster store for being late to return a copy of Apollo 13, a claim since repudiated by Randolph. Hastings invested $2.5 million into Netflix from the sale of Pure Atria. Netflix launched as the first DVD rental and sales website with 30 employees and 925 titles available—nearly all DVDs published. Randolph and Hastings met with Jeff Bezos, where Amazon offered to acquire Netflix for between $14 and $16 million. Fearing competition from Amazon, Randolph at first thought the offer was fair, but Hastings, who owned 70% of the company, turned it down on the plane ride home.

Initially, Netflix offered a per-rental model for each DVD but introduced a monthly subscription concept in September 1999. The per-rental model was dropped by early 2000, allowing the company to focus on the business model of flat-fee unlimited rentals without due dates, late fees, shipping and handling fees, or per-title rental fees. In September 2000, during the dot-com bubble, while Netflix was suffering losses, Hastings and Randolph offered to sell the company to Blockbuster for $50 million. John Antioco, CEO of Blockbuster, thought the offer was a joke and declined, saying, "The dot-com hysteria is completely overblown." While Netflix experienced fast growth in early 2001, the continued effects of the dot-com bubble collapse and the September 11 attacks caused the company to hold off plans for its initial public offering (IPO) and to lay off one-third of its 120 employees.

DVD players were a popular gift for holiday sales in late 2001, and demand for DVD subscription services were "growing like crazy", according to chief talent officer Patty McCord. The company went public on NASDAQ under the ticker symbol NFLX on May 29, 2002, selling 5.5 million shares of common stock at US$15.00 per share. In 2003, Netflix was issued a patent by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office to cover its subscription rental service and several extensions. Netflix posted its first profit in 2003, earning $6.5 million on revenues of $272 million; by 2004, profit had increased to $49 million on over $500 million in revenues. In 2005, 35,000 different films were available, and Netflix shipped 1 million DVDs out every day.

In 2004, Blockbuster introduced a DVD rental service, which not only allowed users to check out titles through online sites but allowed for them to return them at brick and-mortar stores. By 2006, Blockbuster's service reached two million users, and while trailing Netflix's subscriber count, was drawing business away from Netflix. Netflix lowered fees in 2007. While it was an urban legend that Netflix ultimately "killed" Blockbuster in the DVD rental market, Blockbuster's debt load and internal disagreements hurt the company.