"The Fifty Million Mistake - The meeting where Blockbuster laughed at Netflix" analyzes the most famous missed opportunity in corporate history. In the year 2000, Reed Hastings, the founder of a struggling startup called Netflix, flew to Dallas to meet John Antioco, the CEO of Blockbuster. Hastings offered to sell Netflix for $50 million. The Blockbuster executives laughed him out of the room.Business writer James Thompson explains the context: Blockbuster made millions from late fees, which customers hated. Netflix had a model with no late fees. Blockbuster saw this as a weakness, not the...