Pure Software was founded in October 1991 by Reed Hastings and Mark Box. The original product was a debugging tool for Unix/C engineers called Purify. After adding new products such as Quantify and PureLink, and doubling its revenue every year for four years, Pure Software went public with the help of Morgan Stanley in August 1995. In August 1996, Pure Software merged with Atria to form Pure Atria Corporation. Later in August 1997, Rational Software acquired Pure Atria, giving Hastings the capital to start Netflix.
When Pure Atria was acquired by Rational Software, it triggered a 42% drop in both companies' stocks after the deal was announced. Hastings was appointed Chief Technical Officer of the combined companies and left soon after the acquisition. "I had the great fortune of doing a mediocre job at my first company," says Hastings. "We got more bureaucratic as we grew." After Pure Software, Hastings spent two years thinking about how to avoid similar problems at his next startup, Netflix.
Famous quotes containing the word pure:
“There is no country in which so absolute a homage is paid to wealth. In America there is a touch of shame when a man exhibits the evidences of large property, as if after all it needed apology. But the Englishman has pure pride in his wealth, and esteems it a final certificate. A coarse logic rules throughout all English souls: if you have merit, can you not show it by your good clothes and coach and horses?”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)