As equity changes are completed, Ronan needs to rush to San Francisco as soon as possible to inspect Netflix on the spot. It is impossible to leave too much time for Mark Randolph. If Mark Randolph does not make a decision for a long time, he can only start a backup plan.

Of course, that would cause a lot of trouble.

Perhaps it was because he had devoted too much effort and enthusiasm to Netflix. After just three days, Mark Randolph gave Ronan an exact reply, saying that he would continue to stay at Netflix and serve as CEO.

This saves a lot of trouble from Ronan and ensures that Netflix achieves a smooth transition after equity changes.

Then, accompanied by Mark Randolph, Ronan arrived at Netflix's headquarters in St Andrew's city of San Francisco.

This is an office park located next to Scotts Valley Highway 17. It is transformed from the office space of a bankrupt bank branch. It is not very large and has a relatively outdated decoration.

The office also seems to reflect Netflix's current financial difficulties.

As soon as he entered the office area, the green carpet was shining brightly. Mark Randolph said to Ronan half-jokingly: "This is the color of US dollar bills that everyone desires."

Ronan nodded, but his eyes were attracted by the thick metal armored door on the wall opposite the office area.

Mark Randolph introduced: "It used to be a bank vault, but later it was transformed into Netflix's warehouse with the next office area."

Ronan said: "Let's go over and take a look."

In the attention of Netflix, Ronan walked through the narrow office area, where dozens of rows of folding desks and cheap office chairs were placed, with top-notch computers in this era. On several open computer monitors, there were expensive Oracle software running.

After passing through the office area, Ronan followed Mark Randolph into the warehouse.

In addition to the small office room at the door, the huge warehouse is filled with shelves, full of DVDs.

Mark Randolph introduced the person in charge of the warehouse area to Ronan. Ronan also chatted with him for a few words, and then asked Connie next to him to record the relevant personal information.

After visiting the warehouse, Ronan returned to the office area, and Mark Randolph quickly convened all the company staff to have a meeting.

Facing all Netflix’s employees, Ronan said little much, mainly to stabilize personnel and make a smooth transition.

Equity changes will always have various impacts on the company, and personnel must be stabilized.

As long as Netflix does not resign on a large scale, it will not cause much problem.

After Netflix's staff gathered in the office area, Ronan and Mark Randolph came to a high platform in front of the warehouse door.

"I'm Ronan Anderson, for a self-introduction," Ronan shouted, "Owner of Hollywood Relativity Entertainment Group, a film producer."

His voice is loud enough: "Just last week, Relativity Entertainment completed its full acquisition of Netflix. Many people may have heard some rumors. I hereby declare that Netflix's company structure and business policies will not change. For this reason, I specially invited Mr. Mark Randolph to serve as the CEO of Netflix after the equity change."

Mark Randolph smiled and said, "Everyone, we are all old friends, so I don't need to introduce myself, right?"

As soon as these words were said, a lot of laughter came from below, and the alert and suspicion in the eyes of many employees dissipated.

With Mark Randolph as CEO, not only ensuring the continuity of Netflix, it can also effectively calm people's hearts.

This is also one of the reasons why Ronan personally sent an invitation.

Ronan said at this time: "Netflix's plan and purpose will not change. Build a website to have an attractive, convenient user interface and smooth running backend, and deliver DVDs to customers quickly and completely."

After this sentence, there was not much warm applause coming from below.

Many of Netflix employees were relieved. They were not afraid of the company's equity change. Strictly speaking, there was no difference between working for the former boss and the current boss. What they were afraid of was that the new boss began to struggle after taking over, causing unstable jobs.

This job has a good income. If you change your job rashly, you will have an accident and your mortgage, car loan and credit card will collapse.

Ronan continues to stabilize people's hearts: "Starting on January 1, 2002, Relativity Entertainment will inject US$100 million into Netflix over a one-year period to improve the office environment and employee welfare benefits, and promote the company's business development!"

After reconciling the company's staff, Ronan immediately convened Netflix's management to hold a meeting.

This time, when I came from Los Angeles, in addition to Mark Randolph accompanying Connie and assisting, Mary and Garcia also came to St. Andrew with Ronan.

The management meeting is still mainly stable. In a short period of time, Ronan will not let Netflix make many changes. Netflix's existing business and business direction are not a problem. What really causes Netflix's current difficulties is due to the general environment, and on the other hand, Netflix lacks the necessary funds for development.

Netflix's highest power structure will definitely be rebuilt. Mark Randolph is promoted from chief operating officer to CEO and continues to be responsible for Netflix's daily operations. Ronan personally serves as Netflix's chairman. Mary and her team temporarily take charge of Netflix's financial affairs. In the future, Relativity Entertainment will send a dedicated person to Netflix's chief financial officer.

At the same time, Ronan and Connie's assistant team will stay in St. Andrew for a while to gain a deeper understanding of Netflix at this stage.

After a comprehensive inventory of Netflix's internal situation and various aspects of business, Ronan has gained enough understanding of the company's situation, and Netflix is ​​actually still in its initial development stage.

The most important one is undoubtedly Netflix's online rental business.

Netflix's rental business requires that DVDs be sold and rented based on the principle of self-selectivity. The current rental fee model comes from an improved version of the videotape physical rental store - a rental fee of $4 plus a single disc transportation fee of $2, an additional $3 for each additional disc.

The leaser can keep the video for seven days and then return it with postage paid mail.

If a customer likes a certain film, they can directly purchase it by 30% at the retail price.

In addition, since 2001, Netflix has also launched a monthly fee model for registered users.

This is also the mainstream business model of Netflix's later online leasing, but it is still in the promotion stage.

With the rapid development of the Internet in North America, Netflix has great potential as long as it controls its costs, and it has been struggling with funding issues before, resulting in too few authorized films and TV series in stock.

In 1999, Netflix had only 500 DVD movies in stock, and most of them were old movies.

So far, this number has only risen to 1,200 units.

This is not as large as the number of film libraries in the six major Hollywood companies, and it also contains a large number of documentaries and overseas movies.

Film source is one of the key factors that seriously restrict Netflix's further development.

In addition, the impact of the overall environment cannot be ignored.

In the past two years, DVD players were still too expensive and DVD videos were too few, so they could not fully attract mainstream consumers.

There are also problems in terms of technology. Since the format does not establish a unified standard, even large suppression factories find it difficult to provide standardized copies, so that all DVDs can be played on the same player.

But the good news is that compared with the video tapes of that year, the development of the DVD industry can be described as the speed of light.

The popularity of DVD players far exceeds that of video recorders. In March 1997, the optical-mode DVD player was officially launched in North America, and then 400,000 units were sold in six months.

In comparison, it took more than three years for the video recorder to enter 200,000 households.

At the same time, the price of DVD players fell rapidly. At the beginning of 1999, the average selling price was still $1,000, but now it is less than $300.

The popularity of DVD provides the necessary conditions for Netflix's development.

Perhaps others are still in a hazy stage, but Ronan is very clear that from next year, DVDs will completely get out of that commercial paradox stage - consumers are reluctant to buy DVD players because stores do not generally offer DVDs; retailers are reluctant to sell DVDs in stock because consumers do not have DVD players.

Ronan had already thought of a strategy to promote Netflix, and immediately discussed it with Mark Randolph - by placing Netflix coupons in the player box by DVD manufacturers, promising to consumers to ensure they have the opportunity to try out a library of more than 1,000 movies.

This strategy quickly passed the recognition of Netflix's management. After the first fund of Relativity Entertainment was in place, Netflix quickly formulated relevant plans and prepared to promote implementation.

Ronan also plans to use the media relations network of Relativity Entertainment to conduct commercial promotion for Netflix on a large scale starting from December.

In addition, various advertisements from Netflix will appear on the videos produced by Shahai Entertainment.

These can effectively promote Netflix and bring more customers to Netflix.

Compared with Netflix, Relativity Entertainment is already a very large platform.

When Ronan was about to leave San Francisco, he also discovered something. When Connie was sorting out Reed Hastings' exit office, he found a letter that had not been mailed out.

In this letter written by Reed Hastings to Miterres, he has his actual views on Netflix during this period: I have devoted many years of hard work to Netflix's survival, but we found that it was a piece of shit - unfortunately similar to the actions of entrepreneurs who were ruined in this valley...

From between the lines, Ronan can also see that Hastings really thinks Netflix has come to an end.

In his previous life, Hastings and Netflix survived this most difficult stage and ushered in a turning point in 2002.

But the emergence of relativity entertainment changed everything.

After staying in San Francisco for more than a week, Ronan returned to Los Angeles. Netflix is ​​temporarily focused on stability. In addition to publicity, other actions must be carried out before the company makes a smooth transition.
Chapter completed!