Lore

Multi-Stage Rocket / Capsule Metaphor for Durable Value

Biddle likens a company's growth through the GLEE Model (Get Big, Lead, Expand) stages to a multi-stage rocket: each stage (DVDs, streaming, international expansion, original content, and potentially interactive content) builds specific competencies and is then jettisoned like a spent rocket stage, while a 'capsule' of durable value — for Netflix, selection, value, and speed — persists and is carried through every stage regardless of which business model or platform surrounds it.

Use: when a company's business model or platform is about to change, name the capsule explicitly so it survives the transition, rather than assuming everything built in the old stage carries forward automatically.