When I saw this brief article about the CEO of Blockbuster Video yesterday, I had to do a double-take.
For those too lazy to click, Blockbuster CEO Jim Keyes has no idea why Netflix is successful. He doesn’t seem to understand the fascination; he doesn’t know what the point of stocking older titles is; and he has no interest in watching anything but new releases. That’s pretty much it.
How is this man still the CEO of Blockbuster? Putting aside personal taste for a second, what the hell is this idiot thinking? Why on earth would you admit something like this in an on-the-record interview? How is this man still in charge of a national corporation?
Regardless of which movie rental service you find to be superior (I tend to favor Netflix for various reasons, but that’s another post), how can a public executive of a major company like Blockbuster be so blind to the competition? It’s one thing if Netflix was this upstart little company that is just getting its start. The fact that Netflix has been kicking Blockbuster’s ass in pretty much every facet of the game is the most baffling part of this. It’s as if Jim Keyes suddenly awoke from a decade-long slumber, was not told about the current market or the current movie rental consumer, found out what Netflix was and what they did, and then just started spouting off gibberish.
Frankly, I’m just as confused by Mr. Keyes as he is by the so-called ‘Fascination’ with Netflix the public has. Hopefully for their shareholders sake, the Blockbuster board of directors has a little bit more sense than their top executive.