The way people watch movies has changed drastically in the last few years all because of Reed Hastings, the creator of Netflix. When you hear the idea of how Netflix was created you will wish you would have thought of it first. The birth of Netflix all started one day when Hasting was in his car on his way to the gym, when he realized he had a VHS tape still at home that was six weeks overdue.

He knew he would have to pay a $40 late fee and he wanted to avoid the many eye rolls he would receive from his wife. He decided he would make a system where people would be able to order movies and get them shipped to their house for a flat monthly fee of $8.99 with no late fees. Hasting ran into a problem nine years ago because back then movies were on VHS tapes which were too bulky and expensive to ship in the mail.

A friend told him about DVD’s. Hastings went to the store and bought a bunch of movies and had the store mail them to his house to make sure they wouldn’t get destroyed in the mail. Clearly it was a hit as now millions of people across the U.S. are getting movies sent to their houses. Hastings main warehouse is located in Silicon Valley, California. The warehouse holds 26 million DVD’s. There are 40 of these movie filled warehouses, to insure next day delivery.

It was soon brought to his attention DVD’s were slowly becoming a thing of the past. Hastings soon came to realize that streaming movies and TV shows were the next big thing. He created an app on smart phones and devices so people could not only watch movies at home but on the go as well.  After you watch a show or a movie the Netflix system recommends other movies or television show choices based on the previous shows/movies.

Hasting told 60 Minutes he feels the movies that are recommended to customers have transformed the movie business by giving new life to thousands of forgotten films. “Being an entrepreneur is about patience and persistence, not the quick buck and everything great is hard and takes a long time,” says Hastings. He feels that if he can spread new light on forgotten movies and help producers and directors find the right audience through Netflix, that’s enough for him.