In 1998 Reed Hastings co-founded Netflix, offering flat rate movie rental-by-mail to customers in the United States. In 1997 Hastings and Marc Randolph co-founded Netflix, offering flat rate film rental-by-mail to customers in the United States. Headquartered in Los Gatos, California, Netflix has amassed a collection of 100,000 titles and over 44 million subscribers. I got the idea for Netflix after my company was acquired, said Hastings. I had a big late fee for ' Apollo 13 .' It was six weeks late and I owed the video store $40.