Netflix was founded on August 29, 1997, in Scotts Valley, California, by Reed Hastings and Marc Randolph.

Quick Scoop

  • Founding date: August 29, 1997.
  • Founders: Reed Hastings and Marc Randolph.
  • Original model: DVD-by-mail rental service, before later pivoting into online streaming.

A tiny bit of story

Back in the late 1990s, Netflix started as an online DVD rental company where users ordered discs on a website and received them by mail, a very different experience from today’s instant streaming. Over time, it evolved into a global streaming platform and content producer, but that origin date—August 29, 1997—remains the key answer to “when was Netflix founded.”

Information gathered from public forums or data available on the internet and portrayed here.