🚨🇺🇸 THE $500 BILLION "WHAT IF": NETFLIX WAS ALMOST SOLD FOR $12 MILLION IN '98... TO JEFF BEZOS As Netflix prepares to swallow Warner Bros Discovery in a $74 billion mega-merger, here's the insane backstory of how close the streaming giant came to never existing. Three wild what-ifs before Netflix's 2002 IPO: 1. BEZOS TRIED TO BUY IT FOR PENNIES In 1998, just two months after Netflix launched, Jeff Bezos flew the founders to Seattle and offered "somewhere in the low eight figures" to acquire the company. Reed Hastings, who owned 70%, said no. 2. BLOCKBUSTER LAUGHED THEM OUT OF THE ROOM In 2000, during the dot-com crash, Hastings and co-founder Marc Randolph flew to Dallas to pitch Blockbuster on buying Netflix for $50 million. CEO John Antioco essentially laughed at them. "We can build this ourselves," Blockbuster thought. They couldn't. 3. BERNARD ARNAULT SAVED IT FROM BANKRUPTCY By 1999, Netflix was about to run out of money. The world's richest man, LVMH's Bernard Arnault, invested $30 million in July 1999, becoming Netflix's largest investor and keeping the company alive. Today Netflix has a $400+ billion market cap and just bought Warner Bros and HBO. Bezos could have had it for $15 million. Blockbuster could have had it for $50 million. ...