In the next book Netflixed (which is due out this Thursday), the book discusses how Amazon wanted to partner with Netflix but founder Reed Hastings felt the Amazon CEO was trying to get over on the start up and offered the company $12 million to buy the company.  How  things could have been different if Amazon acquired Netflix in 1999.

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Hastings also wanted to discuss selling Netflix to Amazon if the price was right,” writes Gina Keating, the former Reuters reporter who authored the book. The only problem was that Hastings was “less than impressed with Amazon’s $12 million offer.”

Last week, a Netflix representative said the company would not comment about the book, but Jonathan Friedland, chief communications officer for the company, called this afternoon to deny that Amazon made such an offer.

We do know that Variety and others reported Hastings offered to sell to Blockbuster for $50 million. Blockbuster declined.

At the time, not even Hastings was sure Netflix would find a successful business model, Keatings wrote. Talk about a missed opportunity.

Blockbuster would file for bankruptcy protection in 2010 and billionaire Charlie Ergen’s Dish Network acquired Blockbuster’s assets out of bankruptcy last year. On Friday, Dish gave up on a plan to try to turn Blockbuster into a Netflix rival once more.

During the period when Blockbuster’s business was sinking, Netflix began an extended winning streak in which the company pioneered streaming Internet video, increased subscribers by at least 1 million in each of seven consecutive quarters and saw its market cap reach $16 billion. That was before Hastings tanked the stock last year by alienating customers with the clumsy handling of a price increase and an aborted attempt to split off its DVD operations.