Marc Randolph

Diversity is not a skin thing, necessarily. Diversity is you have people around the table who have different backgrounds and different experiences and think differently.

Usually, when I give talks, I'm 100% there, 100% present.

By being courageous enough to state the difficult truth, the most important reputation that you will preserve is your own.

Now, I love a good factory tour. Drop me into a bottling plant, an automotive assembly line, or a jellybean factory, and I'm happy as a clam at high tide.

Silicon Valley loves a good origin story.

The lessons I learned starting Netflix - and over a lifetime of entrepreneurship - are broadly applicable to anyone with a dream.

People imagine that Netflix sprang fully formed into a global streaming giant, but Netflix might have been personalised sporting goods - or customised shampoo - or even pet food, since these were all ideas that I pitched Reed Hastings in those first months.

If you apprentice yourself to the smartest people who will take you seriously, you will learn at every step. You'll learn their special language. You'll see what real people do. Your interests might surprise you. They will evolve. And you'll be well-positioned to take advantage of whatever opportunity life throws your way.

The role of a founder-CEO is extremely lonely. You can't always be fully forthcoming with your board or investors or employees.

One of the key lessons I learned at Netflix was the necessity of focus.

Collaborative decision-making is very poor in crises.

As entrepreneurs, or artists, or just people with dreams, the worst thing you can do is get so caught up in planning the perfect idea that you never get around to actually... well, doing it. I call this building castles in your mind.