[tw04]

>Private companies face a higher cost of capital than equivalent public companies and are unable to borrow as much money as public companies are able to. This is basic finance 101 stuff. Without debt financing, they would not have been able to begin their pivot when they needed to. Netflix is able to borrow at much lower rates than a company with the same financials solely because they are a large public company. Google "equity cushion" if you're unfamiliar with the term.

I guess I took a different finance 101 than you did - it was at an accredited university though, so I'm fairly certain they weren't making things up as we went. I've literally never heard of a public company being able to borrow more because they were public. Quite the opposite actually, as a private company with a solid financial track record isn't subject to the whims of shareholders and short-term quarterly-returns based internal investment.

Now if you're pets.com that is burning through cash like it's water in the hopes of making money 20 years down the road... that's a different story. That's also not Netflix.