Netflix began in 1997 by mailing DVDs in red envelopes — and reportedly offered to sell itself to Blockbuster in 2000, only to be turned down.

The video-rental giant Blockbuster passed on buying the young company for a modest sum, seeing little threat in mail-order discs. Within a decade Blockbuster had collapsed while Netflix reinvented itself around streaming, in one of the most cited cautionary tales in business.