Pure Software was founded in October 1991 by

Reed Hastings Wilmot Reed Hastings Jr. (born October 8, 1960) is an American billionaire businessman. He is the co-founder, chairman, and co-chief executive officer (CEO) of Netflix, and sits on a number of boards and non-profit organizations. A former member ...

, Raymond Peck 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 Morgan Stanley is an American multinational investment management and financial services company headquartered at 1585 Broadway in Midtown Manhattan, New York City. With offices in more than 41 countries and more than 75,000 employees, the fir ...

in August 1995. In August 1996, Pure Software merged with Atria Software to form ''Pure Atria Corporation''. Later in August 1997,

Rational Software Rational Machines is an enterprise founded by Paul Levy and Mike Devlin in 1981 to provide tools to expand the use of modern software engineering practices, particularly explicit modular architecture and iterative development. It changed its ...

acquired Pure Atria, giving Hastings the capital to start

Netflix Netflix, Inc. is an American subscription video on-demand over-the-top streaming service and production company based in Los Gatos, California. Founded in 1997 by Reed Hastings and Marc Randolph in Scotts Valley, California, it offers a fi ...

. When Pure Atria was acquired by

, it triggered a 42% drop in both companies' stocks after the deal was announced. Hastings was appointed Chief Technical Officer of the combined companiesWall Street Journal. "Investors Pan Rational's Plan To Buy Pure Atria for Stock" by Don Clark. April 8, 1997. 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,

.Business Week. "Netflix: Flex To The Max" by Michelle Conlin. September 24, 2007.
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Notes

Defunct software companies of the United States {{US-software-company-stub