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A big man, Black ambles around Betfair's offices in shorts and a fleece. In his spare time, he still likes to gamble. The next wager he'll need to make is when to take Betfair public, something he insists won't happen for at least 18 months. "We've got to knock the company into shape," Black says. "We want to get the timing right." It's the biggest bet of all, and not something even a seasoned gambler would take lightly. --By Jennie James/London
THE VIDEO-CLUB KING NETFLIX | U.S.A.
The idea for Netflix, like many other great eureka moments in business, came from a mundane experience. It was 1997, and Reed Hastings was six weeks late in returning a copy of Apollo 13 to his local Blockbuster in San Jose, Calif. The late fee was $40, and the former computer scientist thought to himself, 'Never again.' He came up with a simple solution--so simple that Silicon Valley entrepreneurs are still kicking themselves for not having thought of it first. Netflix customers keep a wish list of DVDs they want to see, in order of preference, on www.netflix.com Netflix then mails out the selected discs. The service costs $22 a month, for which customers get to keep three titles at a time. When they're done with a DVD, they send it back and receive another one.
That's it--no late fees, no standing in line, no walking out of the store with a movie you didn't really want to see. It's working for Netflix's 2 million U.S. subscribers, almost 1 million of whom signed up in the past year alone. In Northern California's Bay Area, Netflix's largest market, the company accounts for an astonishing 10% of all movie rentals. Launched in 1999, the company, based in Los Gatos, Calif., posted its first profit last year ($6.5 million) as revenues grew 78%. It has inspired copycats abroad--Zip in Canada (www.zip.ca) and Lovefilm in Britain www.lovefilm.com) Netflix skillfully exploits two defining consumer trends of the past decade: the ubiquity of the Internet, and the rocket-fueled growth of DVD players. The first commercially available DVD players hit the market only in 1997; by the end of this year, two-thirds of U.S. homes will have one.
Hastings, 43, is modest about his firm. "I'm a funny kind of guy to be running a consumer company," he says, admitting that he would just as soon discuss artificial intelligence. He thinks he can win the battle with WalMart, which launched a copycat service in 2002, and Blockbuster, which plans to try a similar rental program in the U.S. soon. Hastings has an advantage: like Amazon, Netflix relies on ratings--up to five stars--by its members, who are asked to weigh in on what they rent. These ratings go into the system's algorithm, and out come recommendations for movies you never knew you wanted to see. Hastings intends to start a trial download service next year. But downloading is still too daunting for most users, and who wants to watch movies on a PC anyway? "DVDs have got a good decade left in them," he says. For Netflix, chances are it will be a very good decade indeed. --Chris Taylor/Los Gatos
THE GODFATHER OF SECURITY SYMANTEC | U.S.A.