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> The best thing you can do for employees—a perk better than foosball or free sushi—is hire only “A” players to work alongside them. Excellent colleagues trump

> The best thing you can do for employees—a perk better than foosball or free sushi—is hire only “A” players to work alongside them. Excellent colleagues trump everything else. > Most companies spend endless time and money writing and enforcing HR policies to deal with problems the other 3% might cause. Instead, we tried really hard to not hire those people > Netflix didn’t pay performance bonuses, because we believed that they’re unnecessary if you hire the right people. Oh, so that's what you're supposed to do! Of course, you must mean you have a foolproof system for finding "A" players in your candidate pipeline then, and then it's just a matter of selecting only the best! Sorry for the snark, but these things are practically truisms. Everybody wants to hire the very best people. Everybody wishes they didn't need incentive structures, because in an ideal world everybody is always incentivized to just do great work all the time because they're such an "A" player. But really, unless they back it up with any real evidence that they've actually solved the hiring problem and found a reliable way to determine who the good candidates are, I'm more apt to call the whole thing luck. Or maybe, just maybe, all the things Netflix is doing (lax vacation policies, no bonuses, easy to fire people) are just things companies should be doing regardless of how supposedly good at hiring they are. > We also believed in market-based pay and would tell employees that it was smart to interview with competitors when they had the chance, in order to get a good sense of the market rate for their talent Oh god, so it is true! We've had a few Netflix candidates interview, seem a great fit for a position, made them an offer, and they just reject it and never talk to us again. A rumor got around that Netflix candidates are all just using the interviews as leverage instead of being actually interested in the job. As a result, we no longer interview candidates who are currently working at Netflix, because we can never believe that they're serious about it. It's a huge risk to your employees to do something like this, because once word gets out about it, it becomes seriously difficult to explore other jobs while you're still employed.

kylec 10y ago
We've had a few Netflix candidates interview, seem a great fit for a position, made them an offer, and they just reject it and never talk to us again. We started developing a theory that Netflix candidates are all just using the interviews as leverage instead of being actually interested in the job. Have you considered that you're offering them less than Netflix is currently paying them? Netflix pays a _lot_.
- ninkendo 10y ago
  It's possible, sure. I haven't been involved in the negotiation phase of any of the candidates so I couldn't tell you for sure how much back-and-forth there was. I can only tell you that the company I work for is very competitive here (think top 5 bay area companies.) But when you see that it's literally Netflix's message that employees should go interview somewhere and bring in the offer to get their salary bumped, it starts making you not trust that the candidates are actually serious. (Also I edited my comment after, but before I saw yours: We didn't just develop a theory about it, but there was a rumor that Netflix had this internal policy. I didn't believe it at first but here it is.)
  - greg7gkb 10y ago
    Encouraging people to interview elsewhere isn't just about salary - it's more comprehensive than that. We only want to have people on our team who really want to be there. So people often leave their roles at Netflix to pursue other things. Many move to startups as early employees or founders so it's not at all just a question of compensation.
- alexandercrohde 10y ago
  This seems plausible. This is why essentials (salary range, core hours) should be discussed before or on a phone screen. 1. Looks like netflix pays 200-300k http://h1bdata.info/index.php?em=netflix&job=&city=&year=All http://h1bdata.info/index.php?em=netflix&job=&city=&year=All
  - pfarnsworth 10y ago
    For senior software engineers, they pay ~$400k. Source: friend works there.
    - alexc05 10y ago
      That's a jaw dropping amount.
PhantomGremlin 10y ago
Of course, you must mean you have a foolproof system for finding "A" players in your candidate pipeline then, and then it's just a matter of selecting only the best! Just today I clicked on a linkbait title from Business Insider: http://www.businessinsider.com/the-stephen-curry-nba-draft-2016-6 http://www.businessinsider.com/the-stephen-curry-nba-draft-2... It lists all the people who were drafted ahead of Stephen Curry, "arguably the greatest basketball player in the world right now". Curry was drafted seventh. The others were: 1) Blake Griffin, 5 all star games 2) Hasheem Thabeet, 0 all star games 3) James Harden, 3 all star games 4) Tyreke Evans, 0 all star games 5) Ricky Rubio, 0 all star games 6) Jonny Flynn, 0 all star games Even in the very limited domain of professional basketball, it's impossible to predict who will be the superstars and who will quickly wash out of the league. In the real world, it's much more difficult!
- douche 10y ago
  To be fair, that draft involved: A.) The 7'+ guy - because being able to chew gum and walk at the same time is rare at that height, and deserving of a number 2 pick - see Sam Bowie in 1984, over MJ. B.) Minnesota inexplicably picking two point guards back-to-back. Dumb, dysfunctional teams frequently make poor draft decisions. C.) All six players were drafted into the Western Conference, which has been consistently more talented and more competitive than the East since Jordan retired the second time. Tyreke Evans could probably have gotten a couple All-Star nods in the East - after all, he did win Rookie of the Year, gunning for an awful Kings team. D.) Curry fit the archetype of the mid-major/small school high-usage gunner coming into the draft. He put up incredible numbers, but against second and third-tier competition, as pretty much the only scoring option on his teams. This doesn't often translate to the NBA level. See Jimmer Fredette, or Adam Morrison, or Doug McDermott.
shados 10y ago
Everyone say they want to only hire A players, then crappy people interview, and they get an offer anyway because "they had so much potential!", "we can train them where other companies didn't", and "I didn't think he sounded THAT much of an asshole". Oh, and the ever popular "I think we have enough easy shit to do for this guy to be useful!". And then it goes to hell.
- amyjess 10y ago
  > Oh, and the ever popular "I think we have enough easy shit to do for this guy to be useful!". I knew a guy who was hired for similar reasons: the company needed a warm body to do some really basic scripting, so their sole criteria was "does this guy have a beating heart and working hands?". They ended up hiring the 17-year-old high-school dropout who was working in the coffee shop (owned by his father) at our office building, because the head of software is a coffee fiend and he makes good coffee. Since they just needed a warm body, why not hire him? Over the next year or so, I accumulated so many stories about his antics. The one that tends to shock people the most involved him playfully threatening a co-worker with a knife in the elevator because his co-worker snarked at him for pushing all the buttons. No, he didn't get in trouble for it, but when the co-founder found out (well after the fact), he told him not to ever bring the knife to work again (he said he would've just fired his ass if he actually witnessed it, but he didn't even find out about it until a couple of weeks after it happened). And I have plenty more stories where that came from. He was finally let go when, a year and a half later, he took a second job as a waiter (his dad had long since fired him from the coffee shop), and he focused so much on his new job that he simply stopped showing up at this one or even so much as calling in to tell us he can't make it. After a month of that, he removed himself from the company's Skype groups (yes, we used Skype instead of Slack) because "they were making [his] phone blow up" with stuff he found useless, so the company removed him from the payroll. Even before he stopped showing up, everyone agreed he was a useless do-nothing. It took him three months to return his company laptop after that, and the co-founder was on the verge of filing a police report over it. He only returned it because I walked down to the coffee shop and told his dad the co-founder was so pissed he'd set a deadline on when he'll go to the police, and his dad promptly called him and made him return it that day. His biggest contribution to the company was providing me with enough material to shock and entertain anyone I meet.
eeeeeeeeeeeee 10y ago
Wow, that's really messed up. So they're encouraging their people to waste other companies time? That also is really unfortunate for people actually trying to switch jobs from Netflix because I would also ban them from interviewing if I saw that kind of behavior.

kylec 10y ago

We've had a few Netflix candidates interview, seem a great fit for a position, made them an offer, and they just reject it and never talk to us again. We started developing a theory that Netflix candidates are all just using the interviews as leverage instead of being actually interested in the job. Have you considered that you're offering them less than Netflix is currently paying them? Netflix pays a _lot_.

ninkendo 10y ago
It's possible, sure. I haven't been involved in the negotiation phase of any of the candidates so I couldn't tell you for sure how much back-and-forth there was. I can only tell you that the company I work for is very competitive here (think top 5 bay area companies.) But when you see that it's literally Netflix's message that employees should go interview somewhere and bring in the offer to get their salary bumped, it starts making you not trust that the candidates are actually serious. (Also I edited my comment after, but before I saw yours: We didn't just develop a theory about it, but there was a rumor that Netflix had this internal policy. I didn't believe it at first but here it is.)
- greg7gkb 10y ago
  Encouraging people to interview elsewhere isn't just about salary - it's more comprehensive than that. We only want to have people on our team who really want to be there. So people often leave their roles at Netflix to pursue other things. Many move to startups as early employees or founders so it's not at all just a question of compensation.
alexandercrohde 10y ago
This seems plausible. This is why essentials (salary range, core hours) should be discussed before or on a phone screen. 1. Looks like netflix pays 200-300k http://h1bdata.info/index.php?em=netflix&job=&city=&year=All http://h1bdata.info/index.php?em=netflix&job=&city=&year=All
- pfarnsworth 10y ago
  For senior software engineers, they pay ~$400k. Source: friend works there.
  - alexc05 10y ago
    That's a jaw dropping amount.

PhantomGremlin 10y ago

Of course, you must mean you have a foolproof system for finding "A" players in your candidate pipeline then, and then it's just a matter of selecting only the best! Just today I clicked on a linkbait title from Business Insider: http://www.businessinsider.com/the-stephen-curry-nba-draft-2016-6 http://www.businessinsider.com/the-stephen-curry-nba-draft-2... It lists all the people who were drafted ahead of Stephen Curry, "arguably the greatest basketball player in the world right now". Curry was drafted seventh. The others were: 1) Blake Griffin, 5 all star games 2) Hasheem Thabeet, 0 all star games 3) James Harden, 3 all star games 4) Tyreke Evans, 0 all star games 5) Ricky Rubio, 0 all star games 6) Jonny Flynn, 0 all star games Even in the very limited domain of professional basketball, it's impossible to predict who will be the superstars and who will quickly wash out of the league. In the real world, it's much more difficult!

douche 10y ago
To be fair, that draft involved: A.) The 7'+ guy - because being able to chew gum and walk at the same time is rare at that height, and deserving of a number 2 pick - see Sam Bowie in 1984, over MJ. B.) Minnesota inexplicably picking two point guards back-to-back. Dumb, dysfunctional teams frequently make poor draft decisions. C.) All six players were drafted into the Western Conference, which has been consistently more talented and more competitive than the East since Jordan retired the second time. Tyreke Evans could probably have gotten a couple All-Star nods in the East - after all, he did win Rookie of the Year, gunning for an awful Kings team. D.) Curry fit the archetype of the mid-major/small school high-usage gunner coming into the draft. He put up incredible numbers, but against second and third-tier competition, as pretty much the only scoring option on his teams. This doesn't often translate to the NBA level. See Jimmer Fredette, or Adam Morrison, or Doug McDermott.

shados 10y ago

Everyone say they want to only hire A players, then crappy people interview, and they get an offer anyway because "they had so much potential!", "we can train them where other companies didn't", and "I didn't think he sounded THAT much of an asshole". Oh, and the ever popular "I think we have enough easy shit to do for this guy to be useful!". And then it goes to hell.

amyjess 10y ago
> Oh, and the ever popular "I think we have enough easy shit to do for this guy to be useful!". I knew a guy who was hired for similar reasons: the company needed a warm body to do some really basic scripting, so their sole criteria was "does this guy have a beating heart and working hands?". They ended up hiring the 17-year-old high-school dropout who was working in the coffee shop (owned by his father) at our office building, because the head of software is a coffee fiend and he makes good coffee. Since they just needed a warm body, why not hire him? Over the next year or so, I accumulated so many stories about his antics. The one that tends to shock people the most involved him playfully threatening a co-worker with a knife in the elevator because his co-worker snarked at him for pushing all the buttons. No, he didn't get in trouble for it, but when the co-founder found out (well after the fact), he told him not to ever bring the knife to work again (he said he would've just fired his ass if he actually witnessed it, but he didn't even find out about it until a couple of weeks after it happened). And I have plenty more stories where that came from. He was finally let go when, a year and a half later, he took a second job as a waiter (his dad had long since fired him from the coffee shop), and he focused so much on his new job that he simply stopped showing up at this one or even so much as calling in to tell us he can't make it. After a month of that, he removed himself from the company's Skype groups (yes, we used Skype instead of Slack) because "they were making [his] phone blow up" with stuff he found useless, so the company removed him from the payroll. Even before he stopped showing up, everyone agreed he was a useless do-nothing. It took him three months to return his company laptop after that, and the co-founder was on the verge of filing a police report over it. He only returned it because I walked down to the coffee shop and told his dad the co-founder was so pissed he'd set a deadline on when he'll go to the police, and his dad promptly called him and made him return it that day. His biggest contribution to the company was providing me with enough material to shock and entertain anyone I meet.

eeeeeeeeeeeee 10y ago

Wow, that's really messed up. So they're encouraging their people to waste other companies time? That also is really unfortunate for people actually trying to switch jobs from Netflix because I would also ban them from interviewing if I saw that kind of behavior.