22 ms·

At Netflix, Radical Transparency and Blunt Firings Unsettle the Ranks

255 points by tysone 8y ago

magnalesca 8y ago
Got an offer with Netflix, after the second round of negotiation they take back the offer because offer negotiation was not an option and they see a problem in culture fit. :)
Multicomp 8y ago
Outline link: https://outline.com/PTGkER https://outline.com/PTGkER
- ricopags 8y ago
  First time seeing Outline. How in the heck is that legal/welcome in Chrome Web Store? Hm, are you just violating their TOS and they're putting the onus on WSJ to ask them to take down your link: https://outline.com/dmca.html https://outline.com/dmca.html
  - number_six 8y ago
    Yes, it is on the copyright owner to take it down. I use it often on news websites as it allows you to by-pass most soft paywalls.
  - Multicomp 8y ago
    I didn't use the Chrome Web Store (or Chrome), I used outline.com I learned of its existence through other users pasting similar links with articles that involve paywalls. Previous instances of posting outline links to get around client-side only paywalls have not been fussed at, so I interpreted that to mean acceptance of the practice. Someone educate me?
    - greenyoda 8y ago
      The HN FAQ says that workarounds for paywalls are OK: Are paywalls ok? It's ok to post stories from sites with paywalls that have workarounds. In comments, it's ok to ask how to read an article and to help other users do so. But please don't post complaints about paywalls. Those are off topic. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html Obviously, outline.com wouldn't work unless WSJ explicitly allows them to bypass its paywall. (I have no idea why WSJ does this.) If it's OK with WSJ, I don't see why people should have ethical problems with it.
- neonate 8y ago
  Also http://archive.is/xK79K http://archive.is/xK79K.
draw_down 8y ago
> An effort more recently by Mr. Hastings to allow Netflixers to see the salaries of any other employee, regardless of rank, was soundly defeated in a company poll of executives. I love transparency!!
refurb 8y ago
“When life gives you lemons,” he said, taking a swig on stage, “you make lemonade.” Are you serious? What is it with the trite theatrics?
- bradknowles 8y ago
  Okay, so I will pee in the cup -- on stage, right in front of them. Now let's see if they drink that lemonade.
- stephengillie 8y ago
  A problem with that old saying is it ignores the vast amount of sugar needed to make lemonade.
  - abugheratwork 8y ago
    I was wondering if he just stood there and drank straight lemon juice while he talked about lemonade.
- booleandilemma 8y ago
  People fall for it.
- notJim 8y ago
  This story is honestly one of the most unhinged things I've ever heard.
  - refurb 8y ago
    If he had just recited the saying in an offhand way my response would likely be limited to rolling my eyes, but the fact someone at the company said “it’ll really hit home if you bring an actual lemon on stage...” makes me think the leadership is bonkers.
stevenjohns 8y ago
> Richard Siklos, a Netflix spokesman, said the company only fires employees for performance reasons, not because managers don’t like them Oh how I wish I could have had that. I've had an experience in the past where I was dismissed because my manager decided he just didn't like me anymore. Although I was the best performing, most senior developer on the team and was doing all the hiring and mentoring of others, it didn't save me. Within two months I went from having a glowing performance review that recommended me for a management role to being summarily dismissed for "attitude."
- throwaway4195 8y ago
  I had the exact same experience with a well known startup in SF. I got a glowing "Outstanding" review in the previous quarter. My manager left and the new manager who came in took just 15 days (with a single one on one meeting) to decide she din't like me and fired me without offering much of a reason.
  - bradknowles 8y ago
    UT Austin was much like that for me. Highest possible ratings from the previous manager, and then the new manager was hired. Technically, I was caught in the campus-wide 10% across-the-board layoffs, but it's very clear why I was made eligible for that list. Funny that it happened to be the same month that I was recovering from surgery to remove my cancerous thyroid gland.
    - artwr 8y ago
      For what it's worth, I am sorry that happened to you. That's terrible.
    - technofiend 8y ago
      Ouch!! That's heartless. Got recruited into a role by a friend who a few months later decided to pack up and go back to his previous company. My gall bladder died and went necrotic nearly killing me. I came back from the hospital to find an email telling me my job had been eliminated.
jedberg 8y ago
> Richard Siklos, a Netflix spokesman, said the company only fires employees for performance reasons, not because managers don’t like them That's not true at all. The company fires people all the time because their skills just aren't necessary. I mean I guess technically it's a layoff, but a layoff and getting fired are functionally the same at Netflix as they both come with the same severance. When we moved to AWS, there were plenty of folks who were let go because their expertise was in physical infrastructure and they had no desire to learn about the cloud. They were stellar performers, their expertise just wasn't needed anymore. I very much enjoyed working in a culture where both hiring and firing were easy to do, to make sure that the team was always the right people at the right time.
- hn_throwaway_99 8y ago
  > but a layoff and getting fired are functionally the same at Netflix as they both come with the same severance. I actually think that's a really great policy. I've seen layoffs done under the guise of "underperformance" (i.e. with no severance) and it's really shitty. Giving everyone severance is a just fairer way to say "the business has fundamentally changed".
- ghaff 8y ago
  That's really a third category and happens all the time when companies shift strategies or just evolve product lines over time. Sometimes there's a transition path to a new role but, even (or especially) if you're the world expert in X and there's no need for an expert in X any longer, there just isn't a place for you (especially at a salary commensurate with world expert status) any longer. It doesn't need to be about not being willing to learn new things. It can be about having expertise and there still being a market for continuing to develop that expertise elsewhere.
- autokad 8y ago
  > "I mean I guess technically it's a layoff, but a layoff and getting fired are functionally the same at Netflix as they both come with the same severance." hmm, but unemployment is a concern too, and you wouldn't get that if fired?
- 8y ago
strict9 8y ago
>Many employees say they see the keeper test as a guise for ordinary workplace politics while some managers say they feel pressure to fire people or risk looking soft. I worked for a place like this. Regular firings, sometimes every month. The CEO (who also self-funded the company) believed that regularly letting people go was a way of eliminating bad apples and forcing people to work harder and smarter. Similar to Netflix philosopy, but on a smaller scale. Firings happened for all the reasons you'd think--politics, cliques, not being a "cultural fit." "Not being a team player" was often code for not trying hard enough to make your lead look good. It was toxic and led to massive tech debt accumulation, as a succession of engineering managers all made new and different decisions on frameworks and technologies as soon as they were hired. Very little institutional knowledge. Implicit quotas for regularly letting people go is just an insane way to run a business. (edit: clarity)
- stephengillie 8y ago
  > The CEO ... believed that regularly letting people go was a way of eliminating bad apples and forcing people to work harder and smarter. Microsoft called it Stack Ranking.
  - Phlarp 8y ago
    Rank and Yank
  - StudentStuff 8y ago
    Its obviously done Microsoft so much good /s
  - strict9 8y ago
    Presumably it wasn't structured like MS's stack ranking, it was arbitrary. It's a weird feeling to come in regularly and be uncertain if you'd still be employed by the end of week, but not for anything you specifically did. Now that I think about it, it was a bizarrely nepotistic environment. An engineering manager would hire their friends, many speculated as at least partial insurance against being fired. But once that manager was gone, job security for those people was also gone. Weird how people put up with madness like that when your field is in high demand.
hn_throwaway_99 8y ago
I recently quit a job that had me burned out, and in the meantime I've decided to take a couple months off before my next job. My biggest fear in going back is that I feel like now that I have 0 tolerance for the corporate culture bullshit that permeates all large organizations. I don't really even fault Netflix for what they're doing (I've certainly seen much worse) but I've determined that to function that pretty much all large organizations have to do this weird theatrical dance that separates them from their humanity, and no one (or sometimes too many people I guess??) are willing to call them out on their bullshit. Oh well, guess I could always be an Uber driver.
- fapi1974 8y ago
  The good/bad thing about going back to corporate is that the initial euphoria of stability and lack of stress offsets the frustration at meetings and politics. As the first declines, your ability to deal with and ignore the second increases. Equilibrium ensues until you next get the startup itch.
- draw_down 8y ago
  I guess so, but it’s not like you have to believe in the dance with your heart and soul in order to perform it. I think this is a “pick your poison” situation. If you freelance you need to kiss clients’ asses, in a smaller org there are politics as well, just expressed differently.
- StreamBright 8y ago
  Becoming a contractor is always an option.
Arubis 8y ago
Wow. I can literally feel my neck and shoulders bunching up just _reading_ this. If I wanted to live in a fear-based culture every day, I'd join the armed forces--at least that way I could shoot back.
- dunpeal 8y ago
  Also, I don't think after you get KIA in the armed forces, they hold a special funeral where your commanding officer tells your entire battalion that you were a coward and a poor soldier so justifiably you got shot.
  - jhall1468 8y ago
    Pretty sure you don't die when you get fired from Netflix. You go work for a different FANG for a lower base salary. Little bit much with that analogy.
    - dunpeal 8y ago
      I didn't choose this analogy, GP did. That said, I do think it conveys - somewhat hyperbolically - the premise that your own managers and teammates are encouraged - as a matter of policy - to disparage you and your performance once you are forced out of the outfit.
- omegaham 8y ago
  Also, the military has pretty great job security, with the only genuine cutoff happening between E5 and E6. I worried about a lot of things during my time in, but getting fired was not one of them.
  - Jagat 8y ago
    He's not talking about being fired. He's talking about getting killed/injured in action.
- abritinthebay 8y ago
  If it was a fear based culture I would agree with you - I’ve worked in those & left as fast as I could. Netflix is not even close to that in my experience, nor have I seen any evidence of that in the engineering teams around me. Of course some teams may be different-and it certainly is different to how many companies operate-but the article seems to be unfairly characterizing the culture based on grumbling from a few disgruntled ex employees.
Zelphyr 8y ago
Some of these companies are sounding more and more like the embodiment of The Circle with Tom Hanks and Emma Watson. I've experienced it on a smaller scale years ago when it wasn't nearly this bad. Little things like feeling like an outsider for not using the cultural lingo. And I'm all for constructive candor but to do so you have to remember to a) know your audience and, b) ease people into it. Otherwise you're just being a dick.
crazygringo 8y ago
> Richard Siklos, a Netflix spokesman, said the company only fires employees for performance reasons, not because managers don’t like them From what I've seen, managers give poor performance reviews or "metrics" when they don't like people. This feels like a distinction without a difference.
- dunpeal 8y ago
  I've never seen an employee getting fired "because their manager didn't like them". I've seen plenty of employees getting fired because their manager, who didn't like them, gave them a bad review. In fact, across companies and even industries, being disliked by your manager is the single most reliable way to get fired. Anyone claiming you can be disliked by your superior yet reliably keep your job - is BSing you. Since this is, essentially, what the spokesman is stating, then I call typical PR BS.
  - darkerside 8y ago
    OTOH your feelings for your reports correlates highly with the quality of work they're putting out
    - quasse 8y ago
      That assumes most managers are skilled / engaged enough to correctly judge the quality of work put out by the individuals working under them. My personal experience puts that at about 2/4 as far as previous managers go.
      - darkerside 8y ago
        Sometimes the disconnect is that your idea of quality work is different from your manager's. Although at the end of the day, that's your manager's fault anyway (because keeping that alignment is literally the manager's job).
    - dunpeal 8y ago
      Sure, correlates highly, but not perfectly. Some people just don't get along. It's a fact of life. Managers are humans, and they detest working every day with people who rub them the wrong way. Couple that with upper management at Netflix pressuring managers to hit firing quotas, and you can be sure who is chosen to be sacrificed on the altar of that particular metric...
AWildC182 8y ago
I think the headline misconstrues the issue. There's nothing wrong with transparency, but there are plenty of issues with airing dirty laundry and having, quite apparently, sociopathic upper management.
- tareqak 8y ago
  Isn't it actually selective transparency that's just passed off as transparency? Just because someone states reasons A, B, and C as the supporting evidence behind a decision doesn't necessarily mean that those three were the only reasons.
  - AWildC182 8y ago
    Yea, you're definitely right. The direction I was going was more along the lines of "you're fired because x/y/z" instead of "hey everybody, this person was fired because x/y/z, they are now available as a blame dumping ground for all your problems."
- strangerlands 8y ago
  Transparent lies are still lies.
  - AWildC182 8y ago
    See my response to tareqak. I mostly disagree with the way the headline is written as it implies that transparency is bad. Obviously the article dives much further into the issue but since when have people bothered reading such things? :)
ergothus 8y ago
Is this "here's an article talking about the corporate culture of company X" a recent thing (I can recall Netflix and Amazon recently at least), or is it a long-running trend? (has this happened to IBM, Oracle, GM, American Airlines, etc?) I suspect the latter, but honestly once I get the gist I stop reading, so I've likely forgotten many such articles. If it's long-running, is there any common thread between them? Do they target companies that have extreme cultures...or do they just target big companies and describe the cultures in extreme ways?
southphillyman 8y ago
Not to rationalize the environment there but I feel like Netflix is pretty transparent about being a difficult place to work and compensates for the potential stress with above average pay. I feel like most people who can get hired there are well aware of the work environment they will be entering.
- fossuser 8y ago
  The pay is extreme - top of market, but I think more than people realize (even people in silicon valley). I've heard 400k cash is not that uncommon.
  - strangerlands 8y ago
    It is very common. Senior Software Engineers are commonly at 400+ up to 7-800. Director level for Software, Data Eng, Data Science are very rarely under 600+. VP in the same areas rarely (never?) under 800+.
    - lz400 8y ago
      That looks very high for senior devs and very low for directors/VPs.
      - ahmedalsudani 8y ago
        Low for directors, yes. But the senior engineer figures are in line with what I have heard. The initial offer is never that high though.
        strangerlands 8y ago
        The initial offers are often higher than 400 for Senior Software Eng, Senior Data Scientists, Senior Machine Learning Research Scientists and Engineers. 600 is actually pretty common for experienced people. On paper, there are no Juniors (there are associates in Marketing and Business and I think other teams). They pay top of the market according to their Excel sheets. Netflix does not have "tech lead" or "Principal" roles for the Software or Science teams. It is Senior, then you have Managers (who can be paid less than Seniors), Directors (no senior Directors), VP (no Senior VPs), and C-suite (with comp that is publicly available).
tareqak 8y ago
After reading this article, I can say with a clear conscious that if I had Netflix, then it just failed my keeper test.
perseusprime11 8y ago
Reed thought he was creating a high performance culture without accounting for the very nature of humans. The Netflix culture deck became a blunt instrument for managers to fire people in the name of performance and radical candor. I can’t wait for the lone Netflix engineer to write a great article tomorrow about the great Netflix culture he/she is personally experiencing. Kind of become a standard PR response these days.
- strangerlands 8y ago
  Don't worry, the propaganda machine is already at work. Maybe they will send a CEO-hand-written letter with lemonade mixed with tears.
rednerrus 8y ago
After working in organizations where terrible performance is tolerated, this seems like a breath of fresh air. We've all worked with some asshole/fuck-off who we wish someone would fire. It starts to eat away at morale. I'd rather take my chances an not have to work with the problem children.
- DarthMader 8y ago
  Unless that person is your boss, then good luck. How hard could management be at Netflix? You don't need to coach up people when you can just fire them. The more you delegate, the better you look. Sounds like tenured professors who tell you to just figure it out.
- amyjess 8y ago
  ...until you find out that you are the terrible performer. The Dunning-Kruger Effect is real. You may very well be that low performer everyone else wishes someone would fire, and you wouldn't even know. I'd take having to tolerate a useless chucklefuck on my team over living with a Sword of Damocles constantly hanging over my head. Actually, what I really want is Japanese-style lifetime employment...
booleandilemma 8y ago
Mr. Hastings had recently fired his chief communications officer for saying the “N-word” in full form. The executive, who is white... The race of the speaker shouldn’t matter. Either make the word forbidden (a silly concept to begin with) or don’t.
- k_sh 8y ago
  It's a reclaimed slur - it's meant to be used exclusively by the targeted group. Not respecting that requires you to ignore the painful cultural background of the term. > In sociology and cultural studies, reappropriation (or reclamation) is the cultural process by which a group reclaims terms [...] previously used in a way disparaging of that group https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reappropriation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reappropriation
  - Hasknewbie 8y ago
    I assume the GP, like me, is not American: in most cultures the very notion of made-up taboo words (i.e. words that are forbidden regardless of what context/sentence they're used in) is considered a decadent aberration. Whether you call it "taboo word" or "reclaimed slur" makes no difference.
    - jaster 8y ago
      Sorry I am not American, but in my (European) culture there are some taboo words that are definitely not okay. The equivalent of the American "N-word" being one of those. This is considered to be normal, and people that publicly use this kind of words are generally viewed with contempt. And it could be a reason to get fired from your job. I believe this to be common across Western European countries (even with the current surge of far-right parties).
      - jaster 8y ago
        Damn, my knee-jerk reaction got the best of me and I missed the full context of that what discussed and replied without nuance. Since I cannot edit anymore, let me correct it here: In the country where I work, using such words in a professional context, even for illustrative purpose such as described in the article, would be rather uncommon, would definitely feels weird and at least raise a few eyebrows. But I have to say I don't think it would usually result in immediate outrage and for the speaker to be fired (I can still see this happening, but it would definitely be the odd occurrence). It would probably be considered more of a well-intended-but-slightly-misguided attempt. So we definitely have such taboo words outside the US, but maybe they are not as strong a taboo here...
strangerlands 8y ago
Sure, they fire for performance reasons by setting up one of those kangaroos courts where your voice is nowhere to be heard. The build-up to the inevitable firing is something akin to an Ionesco play, one absurdity after the other. The higher-up gets some sidekicks onboard, people who would sell their grandmother for a half-chewed piece of chocolate, and the smearing campaign begins. The apologist has the words ready: they pay you a lot, they are clear about firing liberally, and you get your severance package. What's to complain about? Unfortunately (for the apologist), there are people who still have some dignity and do not like to be on trial with the kangaroo court. It is better to be punched in a leg than in the face, we all agree on that, but some people – a dying breed, apparently – do not like to be punched at all. The article is a good description of what happens at Netflix, including the creepiness trickling down from the top with the lemonade, although there was never an email from the CEO asking the leaker to expose herself.
- maxxxxx 8y ago
  I remember reading about this a while ago and I thought that it could work for a while but eventually you will attract and accumulate a bunch of cutthroat sociopaths. How do you even assess performance objectively without smart people gaming the system?
  - strangerlands 8y ago
    They don't, of course, people game the system. The trick is recognizing that a good fraction of people in tech at a company like Netflix could disappear tomorrow along with their work and the company would not even notice. So it is not that the fire someone and other people protest because they recognize they have lost "talent". Life goes on, paycheck comes and they are all ready to code again.
- dboreham 8y ago
  Nice to see a mention of Ionesco. Haven't run into him since high school French class..
- dunpeal 8y ago
  > When news of the firing leaked to the trade press, Mr. Hastings, irritated at a very un-Netflix breach of trust, fired off an email to his executive staff saying whoever leaked it should report themselves to HR. Are you a member of Netflix CEO's "executive staff"? If not, how would you know that such an email was never sent?
dunpeal 8y ago
> Many employees say they see the keeper test as a guise for ordinary workplace politics while some managers say they feel pressure to fire people or risk looking soft. Postmortem emails and meetings explaining why people got fired are viewed by some employees as awkward and theatrical when the audiences can be dozens or even hundreds of people. So every employee gets to be badmouthed in front of as many as hundreds of former co-workers, as Netflix's special parting gift? What a treat! > Richard Siklos, a Netflix spokesman, said the company only fires employees for performance reasons So Netflix is actively propagating the obvious myth that all terminations are due to poor performance. Not because the nature of the project / technology changed, not because the chemistry between the fired person and key players like his supervisor has unfortunately gone south... No, it is always poor performance. Good luck getting your next job! And to help you on your way out, we'll make sure every single one of your former co-worker hears your former supervisor talking trash about you in very blunt terms. You know, just to make it easier for these same co-workers to provide references to your prospective next employers. Have we said good luck already...? (Netflix employees, why do you accept this?)
- strangerlands 8y ago
  > Netflix employees, why do you accept this? Money, of course. Plus, people working in tech and making very good money are not known for "spine-straightness".
  - dunpeal 8y ago
    > Money, of course. If they are such solid performers, they can get jobs in other FAANGs who pay just as well. Netflix pays well, but does it pay so much better that I should put up with this BS? I doubt. In fact, by keeping up this abusive charade, Netflix is guaranteeing that many of the best candidates will never apply. So my guess would be that their employees aren't the best, but perhaps the best candidates willing to accept this BS.
    - taurath 8y ago
      > Netflix pays well, but does it pay so much better that I should put up with this BS? To the FAANG employee with a PHD who's been "hanging out" making widgets a 1st year programmer could build, the appeal I think is to invite people who want to show off the fire in their belly to do something. And then they make 1st year programmer widgets, but with LOTS of passion and arguments and being told they can be fired at any moment.
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
asdfasgasdgasdg 8y ago
I would really not like to work there, but out of the FAANG companies, Netflix is definitely the most all-in on its quirks. My sense is that the culture at Google, Apple, MS, and FB are all in a cluster compared with the culture at Netflix, which is a real outlier. It's also an outlier in my unwillingness to go there. But I think they and I are both happier that way.
- marssaxman 8y ago
  "FAANG" seems like a bizarrely arbitrary grouping overall, with Netflix as a clear outlier; I understand that it might make superficial sense to an investment banker, but in terms of the businesses they are engaged in and the type of work their employees are doing, Netflix should be dropped from the list and replaced with Microsoft.
  - asdfasgasdgasdg 8y ago
    I think this was "the group of big tech companies with increasing fortunes," which at the time the acronym was coined did not include Microsoft. Anyway this is a popular thing to gripe about on HN recently, but the acronym seems fine to me.
    - marssaxman 8y ago
      Is Netflix really a tech company?
- Stranger43 8y ago
  I newer understood why Apple who is as old if not older then MS and share more culture which the likes of HPE and intel is classified with millennial companies like google or Facebook from the post dotCOM age.
chimtim 8y ago
I am glad I cancelled my subscription early this year and never bought its stocks.
- OJFord 8y ago
  Well, you'd have made a packet on the stock, and could've watched a lot too. Does the value of the subscription really vary according to the company's HR practices? I'm not even sure that of the stock will.
sxp62000 8y ago
When your manager is a sh*tbag, two things can happen: You will either get sick of him/her and switch teams, or you'll keep taking it till the manager decides they really don't want you any more, and they give you a bad review, and a warning. Which basically means you're fired.
bshenanigan 8y ago
It's still a better culture than anywhere else I've worked.
- commandlinefan 8y ago
  It’s the same culture as everywhere I’ve ever worked, with a lot higher pay.
booleandilemma 8y ago
“Being part of Netflix is like being part of an Olympic team,” the company said in a written statement Oh please. Get over yourselves.
- walshemj 8y ago
  Netflix is a fracking online video store for F^%k's sake - not Bell labs
  - pavon 8y ago
    Well, it's not like Olympic athletes are doing anything new and innovative. They are just the best at doing what millions of other people also do. That seems like a decent analogy for Netflix whose basic task isn't groundbreaking, but who has to manage doing it at a scale that rivals anyone else in the industry.
    - hueving 8y ago
      It's not a good analogy because it doesn't require individuals at the top of their field. The only reason Netflix is winning is because they have massive amounts of content and integration into many devices. Both of those are business arrangements and have no requirements for the best engineers in the world. Just competent ones.
      - tinus_hn 8y ago
        That is not completely true, it would be very easy to start a company and acquire such a library and still fail. It’s also about the quality of the service, the apps and the rest of the experience.
  - devmunchies 8y ago
    And athletes are just playing games. So what? They are trying to make a parallel for the expectations and rigor involved in maintaining peak performance.
  - 8y ago
taurath 8y ago
I'd be shocked if there weren't at least a few assault arrests a year at Netflix HQ reading this. While on one hand having it be known that your time at a company is tenuous and can change quickly is helpful, because thats true at all companies, going the opposite direction to directly play into both imposter syndrome and general workplace anxiety sounds like they're selecting for only the most self-assured people. In my experience, extremely self-assured people are wrong at probably the same rate as those who are unsure if they can cut it (but are still there). Having seen Netflix employees give tech talks at conferences, the thing I tended to take away is that every single thing they do must be marketed to be the end all be all and because they made it everybody else is wrong. In general, I've even agreed with much of the talks, but the rate at which they close off any/all ambiguity or side-considerations is bordering on an air of desperation.
- strangerlands 8y ago
  Well, we are talking about back-stabbing nerds, they typically do not get physical, they prefer "politics". And it is the opposite, it is not self-assured people who stay there, but insecure people who team up to make the self-assured fired. A very strange environment.
teh_klev 8y ago
I know this is verging on the "non-substantive" type of comment we're discouraged from making here, but the word "Cult" springs to mind. As someone who's now in mid-life (51), and self employed, I'm so glad I don't feel the need and aspiration to become employed by these goons (or any of these blue chip tech companies....Amazon, Facebook, Google). Life just sounds awful despite the generous salaries (which you'll piss away in crazy rents and mortgages).
- jiveturkey 8y ago
  and hookers and blow
quadcore 8y ago
If anything, that gives me the desire to apply there. This sounds exciting to me, not scary.
MattyRad 8y ago
It's a mercenary approach, interesting even just as a sociological experiment. Obviously a lot of people don't agree with the methodology, but Netflix isn't hiding anything; if you accept a job at Netflix then be prepared for a mercenary culture. Ultimately, I'm most interested in seeing the results. Does having this mercenary culture increase or decrease the quality of the product? Hard to measure, of course, but if the ultimate answer is decrease or no significant change, we can probably all agree it's needless and potentially cruel.
- sjg007 8y ago
  You could answer this question. We have mlb.tv, amazon prime, hbo, Hulu... all different companies that produce a similar product.
jaytaylor 8y ago
Archive.is paywall bypass: https://archive.is/ea78E https://archive.is/ea78E
Balgair 8y ago
Careful now. Taken at face value, this paints a pretty 'fun' portrait of Netflix. I'm NOT doubting the WSJ, especially after the Theranos articles, they do really good reporting and have the back-ups. The firewall between Mr. Murdoch and Ms. Ramachandran and Mr. Flint's reporting should be considered as good as it gets. At least, it was for Mr. Carryrou despite it costing Mr. Murdoch literally millions of dollars. However, follow the money on this article. Disney just bought 21st Century Fox in late August. Disney is purported to be setting up it's own streaming services as soon as the contracts with Netflix run out [0]. News Corp. owns the WSJ. Though 21st Century Fox and News Corp. are different companies after the split in 2013, this article sure isn't something Disney is going to object to. Look, again, I'm NOT doubting that any of this is true. In fact, as it's coming out of the WSJ, I'm pretty certain it is true. All I'm saying is that this article really helps out Disney. Especially as it's trying to ramp up streaming services. [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EWkDZ51yrUg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EWkDZ51yrUg
- dunpeal 8y ago
  > Look, again, I'm NOT doubting that any of this is true. In fact, as it's coming out of the WSJ, I'm pretty certain it is true. So you are "certain the article is true", then why does it matter that the companies used to have some tenuous corporate relation over 5 years ago? With how consolidated media is nowadays, especially news media, this really is nothing to see here.
- mulmen 8y ago
  I don't get it, what are you suggesting?
ChuckMcM 8y ago
Netflix has tried to recruit me a couple of times, I interviewed on site both times (after having the recruiter send me the slide deck that they use to explain their culture so it wouldn't be a surprise). For one of the sessions I had the extraordinary opportunity to talk to the manager for the role, their manager, and two people who had previously been in the role (Netflix wasn't aware that I knew those people). What I discovered, for this one group only, the manager and their supervisor had essentially created a system for hiring people that could be fired when the manager's effectiveness was under scrutiny. It was very Machiavellian but it was also pretty effective for them. I carefully backed out of the discussions to avoid any hurt feelings, and watched as two more people were hired into the role and then left later on. The manager and their supervisor will still there the last time I checked (about a year ago). I suggested to their recruiter that it would be useful them to understand all of the behaviors that would allow someone to be successful in their culture rather than just the one they were shooting for. This observation was not unlike Jeff Goldbloom's observation in Jurassic park to have the system count 'all' the dinosaurs, not just stop at the expected number. You can build a system to encourage excellence and that is good, but also check to see if it can be exploited by folks who can fool the sensors into thinking they are excellent. And then put in safeguards to detect those too. I'm sure if they did some data science on roles that turned over a lot it would identify bad managers that were avoiding scrutiny.
- staticautomatic 8y ago
  Most people running companies don't understand that at scale, HR's most important role is eliminating and mitigating perverse incentives.
- maxxxxx 8y ago
  That's what you get when you have fixed quotas for firing people, e.g. bottom 10%. After a few rounds you have some very good people left and either you fire good people that are hard to replace or you hire people to fire them. I don't understand how the top guys don't see that dynamic.
  - tspike 8y ago
Apocryphon 8y ago
At this point, is there a single FAANG company, or tech company of equivalent size or prestige, that doesn't have a toxic environment? I don't even mean contains pockets of toxicity because of the inherent size of the enterprise, but something rotten at the top or in the core, at the managerial level or in the culture.
- rajacombinator 8y ago
  Tech tends to attract both poorly socially adapted people who think they are smarter than they are, and those who excel at exploiting them. Combined with infinite money from being in the right place at the right time, it’s a recipe for disaster.
- Stranger43 8y ago
  It seems to be isolated to the post dotCOM’s the old tech giants don’t stand out from the norms the same way as the new internet giants.
mwcremer 8y ago
So, what is a good way to evaluate performance?
faizshah 8y ago
I feel like tech needs to experiment with worker owned cooperatives and flat management more. I know, I know, the politics in flat structures can be worse. But I think tech should be innovative in management structure and eventually a standard for decision making, perhaps based on quaker principles, and management structure, maybe based on mondragon, can emerge.
- asien 8y ago
  >tech needs to experiment with worker owned cooperatives and flat management more Reminds me of Buffer cofounders who just split because they ended up with différents visions for the company. We just need company where C-Exexs are tech guys , not salesman.
  - faizshah 8y ago
    I don't know about the Buffer example, but I would say that it also needs to be accompanied by a difference in perspective. Instead of chasing a unicorn valuation or big profit/revenue/marketshare numbers you're trying to build a sustainable business model that provides good quality jobs to people, is a good member of the local community and provides good products to consumers. Also cooperatives and flat structures don't mean there isn't an executive management or facilitator role, it just means that they are equal to other workers. An executive or facilitator's role would be to help keep the company on track and keep a consistent vision and resolve disputes quickly but there would be a democratic process for hiring and firing rather than a hierarchical one. Take a look at the quaker way of "finding the sense of a meeting" for consensus decision making.
LaserToy 8y ago
What is weird that company allows managers to fire people without trying to move them first. Hiring is hard and firing left and right sounds like a dumb idea. Managers should understand that they are not the center of the universe.
BigChiefSmokem 8y ago
Stop allowing articles behind pay and tracking walls.
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
illiac_1962 8y ago
Nice cult-ure.
sjg007 8y ago
"“Good, because fear drives you..." What a nightmare... Is the money worth it?
rajacombinator 8y ago
I like the philosophy espoused by the Netflix culture deck, but it is obviously misapplied at Netflix. Totally stagnant company and product that hasn’t innovated for years. “Producing the c grade Hollywood trash that even Hollywood rejected” is not innovation. So many tech companies drink their own koolaid on this stuff when really they just got lucky.
turtlecloud 8y ago
This is a psyop by the WSJ to lure engineers to Disney/Hulu/etc. paid advert by DIS? The first step is to seed doubt that your current situation is not as rosy as it seems. Step 2 will be a outreach recruiter / manager offering u promises of greener pastures at one of the competing streaming services
piokoch 8y ago
The ways of Netflix are strangely resemble 1940-1950 communism times when people could have been jailed or executed for seemingly innocent joke that some party member managed to interpret as an insult to the Beloved Leader (be that Stalin, Ceausescu or Bierut) or for violating a flavor-of-the-day interpretation of Stalinism-Leninism-Marxism absurdity. Luckily they just fire people, not execute them.
ktosobcy 8y ago
"Mr. Hastings had recently fired his chief communications officer for saying the “N-word” in full form." I sooo don't get US…
EliRivers 8y ago
If anyone from Netflix is reading this and needs to hire someone for the purposes of firing them a year later, I'm your man. I am no ordinary sacrificial hire. I will work with you to create the narrative you need to showcase your true, natural leadership and management abilities. You know you've got what it takes; you just haven't had the opportunity to demonstrate it. My job will be to make sure that you come out of it shining, with the enhanced respect of your superiors, subordinates and peers. People will nod sagely when they look at you, clearly seeing your senior management potential. If you need any of your peer competitors to come out of it looking bad, that's part of the service; hey, the very fact that you're using my services makes it clear that you are smarter than them. You deserve this. I won't name names (confidentiality of course is part of the service), but let me assure you that some of them are already doing this to you. There's no crime in levelling the playing field; making things even again is the right thing to do and the only way to ensure that your natural innate talents can be properly recognised to win you the promotions you deserve. Obviously this is a premium service; we can work together to make sure that I appear to be worth every penny of the top flight salary you offer; part of the narrative will be how I appeared to be such a great applicant and a perfect hire but it was your leadership skills, your intuition, your deep insights that uncovered this employee's true inadequacies where everyone else had seen an illusion.
- 2sk21 8y ago
  Love it - reminds me of the famous letter by Da Vinci outlining his capabilities :-) https://gizmodo.com/5460442/leonardo-da-vincis-resume-explains-why-hes-the-renaissance-man-for-the-job https://gizmodo.com/5460442/leonardo-da-vincis-resume-explai...
sverige 8y ago
It's fascinating to me how the comments here mostly ignore the results Netflix has gotten with this approach. They are literally disrupting Hollywood, a 100-year-old monopoly, and have accomplished that after very few years and starting from scratch. It may be ugly, but it has been very effective so far. Maybe that's what it takes to take over an industry as ugly as the industrial entertainment complex.
OnlyRepliesToBS 8y ago
evil dark patterns
Wh1skey 8y ago
Voluntary departure rate at Netflix was 3% in 2017 compared to the US average of 18%. Sounds like this firing model people fear should actually be mass reproduced. Kudos to Netflix for effective practices.
hirseypie 8y ago
A man (Executive) lost his job for saying "nigger" to make a point about speech in a comedy show? Are you kidding me? What a waste of talent.
Shorel 8y ago
I wonder if this model would work better with a little bit of gamification. Let me explain it: You get fired for not performing. And the gamification part is you can get hired again in that same company, even same position, let's say, three or six months after you were fired. You get your old salary, benefits everything. And the mental relief that being laid of is not permanent. Then you work different this time, with the experience of having done this job before and the experience of being without a job too. It would benefit Netflix a lot more than firing people in a permanent basis, IMO. And with these ultra high salaries, people would go back there.

255 points by tysone 8y ago

Got an offer with Netflix, after the second round of negotiation they take back the offer because offer negotiation was not an option and they see a problem in culture fit. :)

Multicomp 8y ago

Outline link: https://outline.com/PTGkER https://outline.com/PTGkER

ricopags 8y ago
First time seeing Outline. How in the heck is that legal/welcome in Chrome Web Store? Hm, are you just violating their TOS and they're putting the onus on WSJ to ask them to take down your link: https://outline.com/dmca.html https://outline.com/dmca.html
- number_six 8y ago
  Yes, it is on the copyright owner to take it down. I use it often on news websites as it allows you to by-pass most soft paywalls.
- Multicomp 8y ago
  I didn't use the Chrome Web Store (or Chrome), I used outline.com I learned of its existence through other users pasting similar links with articles that involve paywalls. Previous instances of posting outline links to get around client-side only paywalls have not been fussed at, so I interpreted that to mean acceptance of the practice. Someone educate me?
  - greenyoda 8y ago
    The HN FAQ says that workarounds for paywalls are OK: Are paywalls ok? It's ok to post stories from sites with paywalls that have workarounds. In comments, it's ok to ask how to read an article and to help other users do so. But please don't post complaints about paywalls. Those are off topic. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html Obviously, outline.com wouldn't work unless WSJ explicitly allows them to bypass its paywall. (I have no idea why WSJ does this.) If it's OK with WSJ, I don't see why people should have ethical problems with it.
neonate 8y ago
Also http://archive.is/xK79K http://archive.is/xK79K.

draw_down 8y ago

> An effort more recently by Mr. Hastings to allow Netflixers to see the salaries of any other employee, regardless of rank, was soundly defeated in a company poll of executives. I love transparency!!

refurb 8y ago

“When life gives you lemons,” he said, taking a swig on stage, “you make lemonade.” Are you serious? What is it with the trite theatrics?

bradknowles 8y ago
Okay, so I will pee in the cup -- on stage, right in front of them. Now let's see if they drink that lemonade.
stephengillie 8y ago
A problem with that old saying is it ignores the vast amount of sugar needed to make lemonade.
- abugheratwork 8y ago
  I was wondering if he just stood there and drank straight lemon juice while he talked about lemonade.
booleandilemma 8y ago
People fall for it.
notJim 8y ago
This story is honestly one of the most unhinged things I've ever heard.
- refurb 8y ago
  If he had just recited the saying in an offhand way my response would likely be limited to rolling my eyes, but the fact someone at the company said “it’ll really hit home if you bring an actual lemon on stage...” makes me think the leadership is bonkers.

stevenjohns 8y ago

> Richard Siklos, a Netflix spokesman, said the company only fires employees for performance reasons, not because managers don’t like them Oh how I wish I could have had that. I've had an experience in the past where I was dismissed because my manager decided he just didn't like me anymore. Although I was the best performing, most senior developer on the team and was doing all the hiring and mentoring of others, it didn't save me. Within two months I went from having a glowing performance review that recommended me for a management role to being summarily dismissed for "attitude."

throwaway4195 8y ago
I had the exact same experience with a well known startup in SF. I got a glowing "Outstanding" review in the previous quarter. My manager left and the new manager who came in took just 15 days (with a single one on one meeting) to decide she din't like me and fired me without offering much of a reason.
- bradknowles 8y ago
  UT Austin was much like that for me. Highest possible ratings from the previous manager, and then the new manager was hired. Technically, I was caught in the campus-wide 10% across-the-board layoffs, but it's very clear why I was made eligible for that list. Funny that it happened to be the same month that I was recovering from surgery to remove my cancerous thyroid gland.
  - artwr 8y ago
    For what it's worth, I am sorry that happened to you. That's terrible.
  - technofiend 8y ago
    Ouch!! That's heartless. Got recruited into a role by a friend who a few months later decided to pack up and go back to his previous company. My gall bladder died and went necrotic nearly killing me. I came back from the hospital to find an email telling me my job had been eliminated.

jedberg 8y ago

> Richard Siklos, a Netflix spokesman, said the company only fires employees for performance reasons, not because managers don’t like them That's not true at all. The company fires people all the time because their skills just aren't necessary. I mean I guess technically it's a layoff, but a layoff and getting fired are functionally the same at Netflix as they both come with the same severance. When we moved to AWS, there were plenty of folks who were let go because their expertise was in physical infrastructure and they had no desire to learn about the cloud. They were stellar performers, their expertise just wasn't needed anymore. I very much enjoyed working in a culture where both hiring and firing were easy to do, to make sure that the team was always the right people at the right time.

hn_throwaway_99 8y ago
> but a layoff and getting fired are functionally the same at Netflix as they both come with the same severance. I actually think that's a really great policy. I've seen layoffs done under the guise of "underperformance" (i.e. with no severance) and it's really shitty. Giving everyone severance is a just fairer way to say "the business has fundamentally changed".
ghaff 8y ago
That's really a third category and happens all the time when companies shift strategies or just evolve product lines over time. Sometimes there's a transition path to a new role but, even (or especially) if you're the world expert in X and there's no need for an expert in X any longer, there just isn't a place for you (especially at a salary commensurate with world expert status) any longer. It doesn't need to be about not being willing to learn new things. It can be about having expertise and there still being a market for continuing to develop that expertise elsewhere.
autokad 8y ago
> "I mean I guess technically it's a layoff, but a layoff and getting fired are functionally the same at Netflix as they both come with the same severance." hmm, but unemployment is a concern too, and you wouldn't get that if fired?
8y ago

strict9 8y ago

>Many employees say they see the keeper test as a guise for ordinary workplace politics while some managers say they feel pressure to fire people or risk looking soft. I worked for a place like this. Regular firings, sometimes every month. The CEO (who also self-funded the company) believed that regularly letting people go was a way of eliminating bad apples and forcing people to work harder and smarter. Similar to Netflix philosopy, but on a smaller scale. Firings happened for all the reasons you'd think--politics, cliques, not being a "cultural fit." "Not being a team player" was often code for not trying hard enough to make your lead look good. It was toxic and led to massive tech debt accumulation, as a succession of engineering managers all made new and different decisions on frameworks and technologies as soon as they were hired. Very little institutional knowledge. Implicit quotas for regularly letting people go is just an insane way to run a business. (edit: clarity)

stephengillie 8y ago
> The CEO ... believed that regularly letting people go was a way of eliminating bad apples and forcing people to work harder and smarter. Microsoft called it Stack Ranking.
- Phlarp 8y ago
  Rank and Yank
- StudentStuff 8y ago
  Its obviously done Microsoft so much good /s
- strict9 8y ago
  Presumably it wasn't structured like MS's stack ranking, it was arbitrary. It's a weird feeling to come in regularly and be uncertain if you'd still be employed by the end of week, but not for anything you specifically did. Now that I think about it, it was a bizarrely nepotistic environment. An engineering manager would hire their friends, many speculated as at least partial insurance against being fired. But once that manager was gone, job security for those people was also gone. Weird how people put up with madness like that when your field is in high demand.

hn_throwaway_99 8y ago

I recently quit a job that had me burned out, and in the meantime I've decided to take a couple months off before my next job. My biggest fear in going back is that I feel like now that I have 0 tolerance for the corporate culture bullshit that permeates all large organizations. I don't really even fault Netflix for what they're doing (I've certainly seen much worse) but I've determined that to function that pretty much all large organizations have to do this weird theatrical dance that separates them from their humanity, and no one (or sometimes too many people I guess??) are willing to call them out on their bullshit. Oh well, guess I could always be an Uber driver.

fapi1974 8y ago
The good/bad thing about going back to corporate is that the initial euphoria of stability and lack of stress offsets the frustration at meetings and politics. As the first declines, your ability to deal with and ignore the second increases. Equilibrium ensues until you next get the startup itch.
draw_down 8y ago
I guess so, but it’s not like you have to believe in the dance with your heart and soul in order to perform it. I think this is a “pick your poison” situation. If you freelance you need to kiss clients’ asses, in a smaller org there are politics as well, just expressed differently.
StreamBright 8y ago
Becoming a contractor is always an option.

Arubis 8y ago

Wow. I can literally feel my neck and shoulders bunching up just _reading_ this. If I wanted to live in a fear-based culture every day, I'd join the armed forces--at least that way I could shoot back.

dunpeal 8y ago
Also, I don't think after you get KIA in the armed forces, they hold a special funeral where your commanding officer tells your entire battalion that you were a coward and a poor soldier so justifiably you got shot.
- jhall1468 8y ago
  Pretty sure you don't die when you get fired from Netflix. You go work for a different FANG for a lower base salary. Little bit much with that analogy.
  - dunpeal 8y ago
    I didn't choose this analogy, GP did. That said, I do think it conveys - somewhat hyperbolically - the premise that your own managers and teammates are encouraged - as a matter of policy - to disparage you and your performance once you are forced out of the outfit.
omegaham 8y ago
Also, the military has pretty great job security, with the only genuine cutoff happening between E5 and E6. I worried about a lot of things during my time in, but getting fired was not one of them.
- Jagat 8y ago
  He's not talking about being fired. He's talking about getting killed/injured in action.
abritinthebay 8y ago
If it was a fear based culture I would agree with you - I’ve worked in those & left as fast as I could. Netflix is not even close to that in my experience, nor have I seen any evidence of that in the engineering teams around me. Of course some teams may be different-and it certainly is different to how many companies operate-but the article seems to be unfairly characterizing the culture based on grumbling from a few disgruntled ex employees.

Zelphyr 8y ago

Some of these companies are sounding more and more like the embodiment of The Circle with Tom Hanks and Emma Watson. I've experienced it on a smaller scale years ago when it wasn't nearly this bad. Little things like feeling like an outsider for not using the cultural lingo. And I'm all for constructive candor but to do so you have to remember to a) know your audience and, b) ease people into it. Otherwise you're just being a dick.

crazygringo 8y ago

> Richard Siklos, a Netflix spokesman, said the company only fires employees for performance reasons, not because managers don’t like them From what I've seen, managers give poor performance reviews or "metrics" when they don't like people. This feels like a distinction without a difference.

dunpeal 8y ago
I've never seen an employee getting fired "because their manager didn't like them". I've seen plenty of employees getting fired because their manager, who didn't like them, gave them a bad review. In fact, across companies and even industries, being disliked by your manager is the single most reliable way to get fired. Anyone claiming you can be disliked by your superior yet reliably keep your job - is BSing you. Since this is, essentially, what the spokesman is stating, then I call typical PR BS.
- darkerside 8y ago
  OTOH your feelings for your reports correlates highly with the quality of work they're putting out
  - quasse 8y ago
    That assumes most managers are skilled / engaged enough to correctly judge the quality of work put out by the individuals working under them. My personal experience puts that at about 2/4 as far as previous managers go.
    - darkerside 8y ago
      Sometimes the disconnect is that your idea of quality work is different from your manager's. Although at the end of the day, that's your manager's fault anyway (because keeping that alignment is literally the manager's job).
  - dunpeal 8y ago
    Sure, correlates highly, but not perfectly. Some people just don't get along. It's a fact of life. Managers are humans, and they detest working every day with people who rub them the wrong way. Couple that with upper management at Netflix pressuring managers to hit firing quotas, and you can be sure who is chosen to be sacrificed on the altar of that particular metric...

AWildC182 8y ago

I think the headline misconstrues the issue. There's nothing wrong with transparency, but there are plenty of issues with airing dirty laundry and having, quite apparently, sociopathic upper management.

tareqak 8y ago
Isn't it actually selective transparency that's just passed off as transparency? Just because someone states reasons A, B, and C as the supporting evidence behind a decision doesn't necessarily mean that those three were the only reasons.
- AWildC182 8y ago
  Yea, you're definitely right. The direction I was going was more along the lines of "you're fired because x/y/z" instead of "hey everybody, this person was fired because x/y/z, they are now available as a blame dumping ground for all your problems."
strangerlands 8y ago
Transparent lies are still lies.
- AWildC182 8y ago
  See my response to tareqak. I mostly disagree with the way the headline is written as it implies that transparency is bad. Obviously the article dives much further into the issue but since when have people bothered reading such things? :)

ergothus 8y ago

Is this "here's an article talking about the corporate culture of company X" a recent thing (I can recall Netflix and Amazon recently at least), or is it a long-running trend? (has this happened to IBM, Oracle, GM, American Airlines, etc?) I suspect the latter, but honestly once I get the gist I stop reading, so I've likely forgotten many such articles. If it's long-running, is there any common thread between them? Do they target companies that have extreme cultures...or do they just target big companies and describe the cultures in extreme ways?

southphillyman 8y ago

Not to rationalize the environment there but I feel like Netflix is pretty transparent about being a difficult place to work and compensates for the potential stress with above average pay. I feel like most people who can get hired there are well aware of the work environment they will be entering.

fossuser 8y ago
The pay is extreme - top of market, but I think more than people realize (even people in silicon valley). I've heard 400k cash is not that uncommon.
- strangerlands 8y ago
  It is very common. Senior Software Engineers are commonly at 400+ up to 7-800. Director level for Software, Data Eng, Data Science are very rarely under 600+. VP in the same areas rarely (never?) under 800+.
  - lz400 8y ago
    That looks very high for senior devs and very low for directors/VPs.
    - ahmedalsudani 8y ago
      Low for directors, yes. But the senior engineer figures are in line with what I have heard. The initial offer is never that high though.
      - strangerlands 8y ago
        The initial offers are often higher than 400 for Senior Software Eng, Senior Data Scientists, Senior Machine Learning Research Scientists and Engineers. 600 is actually pretty common for experienced people. On paper, there are no Juniors (there are associates in Marketing and Business and I think other teams). They pay top of the market according to their Excel sheets. Netflix does not have "tech lead" or "Principal" roles for the Software or Science teams. It is Senior, then you have Managers (who can be paid less than Seniors), Directors (no senior Directors), VP (no Senior VPs), and C-suite (with comp that is publicly available).

tareqak 8y ago

After reading this article, I can say with a clear conscious that if I had Netflix, then it just failed my keeper test.

perseusprime11 8y ago

Reed thought he was creating a high performance culture without accounting for the very nature of humans. The Netflix culture deck became a blunt instrument for managers to fire people in the name of performance and radical candor. I can’t wait for the lone Netflix engineer to write a great article tomorrow about the great Netflix culture he/she is personally experiencing. Kind of become a standard PR response these days.

strangerlands 8y ago
Don't worry, the propaganda machine is already at work. Maybe they will send a CEO-hand-written letter with lemonade mixed with tears.

rednerrus 8y ago

After working in organizations where terrible performance is tolerated, this seems like a breath of fresh air. We've all worked with some asshole/fuck-off who we wish someone would fire. It starts to eat away at morale. I'd rather take my chances an not have to work with the problem children.

DarthMader 8y ago
Unless that person is your boss, then good luck. How hard could management be at Netflix? You don't need to coach up people when you can just fire them. The more you delegate, the better you look. Sounds like tenured professors who tell you to just figure it out.
amyjess 8y ago
...until you find out that you are the terrible performer. The Dunning-Kruger Effect is real. You may very well be that low performer everyone else wishes someone would fire, and you wouldn't even know. I'd take having to tolerate a useless chucklefuck on my team over living with a Sword of Damocles constantly hanging over my head. Actually, what I really want is Japanese-style lifetime employment...

booleandilemma 8y ago

Mr. Hastings had recently fired his chief communications officer for saying the “N-word” in full form. The executive, who is white... The race of the speaker shouldn’t matter. Either make the word forbidden (a silly concept to begin with) or don’t.

k_sh 8y ago
It's a reclaimed slur - it's meant to be used exclusively by the targeted group. Not respecting that requires you to ignore the painful cultural background of the term. > In sociology and cultural studies, reappropriation (or reclamation) is the cultural process by which a group reclaims terms [...] previously used in a way disparaging of that group https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reappropriation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reappropriation
- Hasknewbie 8y ago
  I assume the GP, like me, is not American: in most cultures the very notion of made-up taboo words (i.e. words that are forbidden regardless of what context/sentence they're used in) is considered a decadent aberration. Whether you call it "taboo word" or "reclaimed slur" makes no difference.
  - jaster 8y ago
    Sorry I am not American, but in my (European) culture there are some taboo words that are definitely not okay. The equivalent of the American "N-word" being one of those. This is considered to be normal, and people that publicly use this kind of words are generally viewed with contempt. And it could be a reason to get fired from your job. I believe this to be common across Western European countries (even with the current surge of far-right parties).
    - jaster 8y ago
      Damn, my knee-jerk reaction got the best of me and I missed the full context of that what discussed and replied without nuance. Since I cannot edit anymore, let me correct it here: In the country where I work, using such words in a professional context, even for illustrative purpose such as described in the article, would be rather uncommon, would definitely feels weird and at least raise a few eyebrows. But I have to say I don't think it would usually result in immediate outrage and for the speaker to be fired (I can still see this happening, but it would definitely be the odd occurrence). It would probably be considered more of a well-intended-but-slightly-misguided attempt. So we definitely have such taboo words outside the US, but maybe they are not as strong a taboo here...

strangerlands 8y ago

Sure, they fire for performance reasons by setting up one of those kangaroos courts where your voice is nowhere to be heard. The build-up to the inevitable firing is something akin to an Ionesco play, one absurdity after the other. The higher-up gets some sidekicks onboard, people who would sell their grandmother for a half-chewed piece of chocolate, and the smearing campaign begins. The apologist has the words ready: they pay you a lot, they are clear about firing liberally, and you get your severance package. What's to complain about? Unfortunately (for the apologist), there are people who still have some dignity and do not like to be on trial with the kangaroo court. It is better to be punched in a leg than in the face, we all agree on that, but some people – a dying breed, apparently – do not like to be punched at all. The article is a good description of what happens at Netflix, including the creepiness trickling down from the top with the lemonade, although there was never an email from the CEO asking the leaker to expose herself.

maxxxxx 8y ago
I remember reading about this a while ago and I thought that it could work for a while but eventually you will attract and accumulate a bunch of cutthroat sociopaths. How do you even assess performance objectively without smart people gaming the system?
- strangerlands 8y ago
  They don't, of course, people game the system. The trick is recognizing that a good fraction of people in tech at a company like Netflix could disappear tomorrow along with their work and the company would not even notice. So it is not that the fire someone and other people protest because they recognize they have lost "talent". Life goes on, paycheck comes and they are all ready to code again.
dboreham 8y ago
Nice to see a mention of Ionesco. Haven't run into him since high school French class..
dunpeal 8y ago
> When news of the firing leaked to the trade press, Mr. Hastings, irritated at a very un-Netflix breach of trust, fired off an email to his executive staff saying whoever leaked it should report themselves to HR. Are you a member of Netflix CEO's "executive staff"? If not, how would you know that such an email was never sent?

dunpeal 8y ago

> Many employees say they see the keeper test as a guise for ordinary workplace politics while some managers say they feel pressure to fire people or risk looking soft. Postmortem emails and meetings explaining why people got fired are viewed by some employees as awkward and theatrical when the audiences can be dozens or even hundreds of people. So every employee gets to be badmouthed in front of as many as hundreds of former co-workers, as Netflix's special parting gift? What a treat! > Richard Siklos, a Netflix spokesman, said the company only fires employees for performance reasons So Netflix is actively propagating the obvious myth that all terminations are due to poor performance. Not because the nature of the project / technology changed, not because the chemistry between the fired person and key players like his supervisor has unfortunately gone south... No, it is always poor performance. Good luck getting your next job! And to help you on your way out, we'll make sure every single one of your former co-worker hears your former supervisor talking trash about you in very blunt terms. You know, just to make it easier for these same co-workers to provide references to your prospective next employers. Have we said good luck already...? (Netflix employees, why do you accept this?)

strangerlands 8y ago
> Netflix employees, why do you accept this? Money, of course. Plus, people working in tech and making very good money are not known for "spine-straightness".
- dunpeal 8y ago
  > Money, of course. If they are such solid performers, they can get jobs in other FAANGs who pay just as well. Netflix pays well, but does it pay so much better that I should put up with this BS? I doubt. In fact, by keeping up this abusive charade, Netflix is guaranteeing that many of the best candidates will never apply. So my guess would be that their employees aren't the best, but perhaps the best candidates willing to accept this BS.
  - taurath 8y ago
    > Netflix pays well, but does it pay so much better that I should put up with this BS? To the FAANG employee with a PHD who's been "hanging out" making widgets a 1st year programmer could build, the appeal I think is to invite people who want to show off the fire in their belly to do something. And then they make 1st year programmer widgets, but with LOTS of passion and arguments and being told they can be fired at any moment.

deleted 8y ago

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asdfasgasdgasdg 8y ago

I would really not like to work there, but out of the FAANG companies, Netflix is definitely the most all-in on its quirks. My sense is that the culture at Google, Apple, MS, and FB are all in a cluster compared with the culture at Netflix, which is a real outlier. It's also an outlier in my unwillingness to go there. But I think they and I are both happier that way.

marssaxman 8y ago
"FAANG" seems like a bizarrely arbitrary grouping overall, with Netflix as a clear outlier; I understand that it might make superficial sense to an investment banker, but in terms of the businesses they are engaged in and the type of work their employees are doing, Netflix should be dropped from the list and replaced with Microsoft.
- asdfasgasdgasdg 8y ago
  I think this was "the group of big tech companies with increasing fortunes," which at the time the acronym was coined did not include Microsoft. Anyway this is a popular thing to gripe about on HN recently, but the acronym seems fine to me.
  - marssaxman 8y ago
    Is Netflix really a tech company?
Stranger43 8y ago
I newer understood why Apple who is as old if not older then MS and share more culture which the likes of HPE and intel is classified with millennial companies like google or Facebook from the post dotCOM age.

chimtim 8y ago

I am glad I cancelled my subscription early this year and never bought its stocks.

OJFord 8y ago
Well, you'd have made a packet on the stock, and could've watched a lot too. Does the value of the subscription really vary according to the company's HR practices? I'm not even sure that of the stock will.

sxp62000 8y ago

When your manager is a sh*tbag, two things can happen: You will either get sick of him/her and switch teams, or you'll keep taking it till the manager decides they really don't want you any more, and they give you a bad review, and a warning. Which basically means you're fired.

bshenanigan 8y ago

It's still a better culture than anywhere else I've worked.

commandlinefan 8y ago
It’s the same culture as everywhere I’ve ever worked, with a lot higher pay.

booleandilemma 8y ago

“Being part of Netflix is like being part of an Olympic team,” the company said in a written statement Oh please. Get over yourselves.

walshemj 8y ago
Netflix is a fracking online video store for F^%k's sake - not Bell labs
- pavon 8y ago
  Well, it's not like Olympic athletes are doing anything new and innovative. They are just the best at doing what millions of other people also do. That seems like a decent analogy for Netflix whose basic task isn't groundbreaking, but who has to manage doing it at a scale that rivals anyone else in the industry.
  - hueving 8y ago
    It's not a good analogy because it doesn't require individuals at the top of their field. The only reason Netflix is winning is because they have massive amounts of content and integration into many devices. Both of those are business arrangements and have no requirements for the best engineers in the world. Just competent ones.
    - tinus_hn 8y ago
      That is not completely true, it would be very easy to start a company and acquire such a library and still fail. It’s also about the quality of the service, the apps and the rest of the experience.
- devmunchies 8y ago
  And athletes are just playing games. So what? They are trying to make a parallel for the expectations and rigor involved in maintaining peak performance.
- 8y ago

taurath 8y ago

I'd be shocked if there weren't at least a few assault arrests a year at Netflix HQ reading this. While on one hand having it be known that your time at a company is tenuous and can change quickly is helpful, because thats true at all companies, going the opposite direction to directly play into both imposter syndrome and general workplace anxiety sounds like they're selecting for only the most self-assured people. In my experience, extremely self-assured people are wrong at probably the same rate as those who are unsure if they can cut it (but are still there). Having seen Netflix employees give tech talks at conferences, the thing I tended to take away is that every single thing they do must be marketed to be the end all be all and because they made it everybody else is wrong. In general, I've even agreed with much of the talks, but the rate at which they close off any/all ambiguity or side-considerations is bordering on an air of desperation.

strangerlands 8y ago
Well, we are talking about back-stabbing nerds, they typically do not get physical, they prefer "politics". And it is the opposite, it is not self-assured people who stay there, but insecure people who team up to make the self-assured fired. A very strange environment.

teh_klev 8y ago

I know this is verging on the "non-substantive" type of comment we're discouraged from making here, but the word "Cult" springs to mind. As someone who's now in mid-life (51), and self employed, I'm so glad I don't feel the need and aspiration to become employed by these goons (or any of these blue chip tech companies....Amazon, Facebook, Google). Life just sounds awful despite the generous salaries (which you'll piss away in crazy rents and mortgages).

jiveturkey 8y ago
and hookers and blow

quadcore 8y ago

If anything, that gives me the desire to apply there. This sounds exciting to me, not scary.

MattyRad 8y ago

It's a mercenary approach, interesting even just as a sociological experiment. Obviously a lot of people don't agree with the methodology, but Netflix isn't hiding anything; if you accept a job at Netflix then be prepared for a mercenary culture. Ultimately, I'm most interested in seeing the results. Does having this mercenary culture increase or decrease the quality of the product? Hard to measure, of course, but if the ultimate answer is decrease or no significant change, we can probably all agree it's needless and potentially cruel.

sjg007 8y ago
You could answer this question. We have mlb.tv, amazon prime, hbo, Hulu... all different companies that produce a similar product.

jaytaylor 8y ago

Archive.is paywall bypass: https://archive.is/ea78E https://archive.is/ea78E

Balgair 8y ago

Careful now. Taken at face value, this paints a pretty 'fun' portrait of Netflix. I'm NOT doubting the WSJ, especially after the Theranos articles, they do really good reporting and have the back-ups. The firewall between Mr. Murdoch and Ms. Ramachandran and Mr. Flint's reporting should be considered as good as it gets. At least, it was for Mr. Carryrou despite it costing Mr. Murdoch literally millions of dollars. However, follow the money on this article. Disney just bought 21st Century Fox in late August. Disney is purported to be setting up it's own streaming services as soon as the contracts with Netflix run out [0]. News Corp. owns the WSJ. Though 21st Century Fox and News Corp. are different companies after the split in 2013, this article sure isn't something Disney is going to object to. Look, again, I'm NOT doubting that any of this is true. In fact, as it's coming out of the WSJ, I'm pretty certain it is true. All I'm saying is that this article really helps out Disney. Especially as it's trying to ramp up streaming services. [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EWkDZ51yrUg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EWkDZ51yrUg

dunpeal 8y ago
> Look, again, I'm NOT doubting that any of this is true. In fact, as it's coming out of the WSJ, I'm pretty certain it is true. So you are "certain the article is true", then why does it matter that the companies used to have some tenuous corporate relation over 5 years ago? With how consolidated media is nowadays, especially news media, this really is nothing to see here.
mulmen 8y ago
I don't get it, what are you suggesting?

ChuckMcM 8y ago

Netflix has tried to recruit me a couple of times, I interviewed on site both times (after having the recruiter send me the slide deck that they use to explain their culture so it wouldn't be a surprise). For one of the sessions I had the extraordinary opportunity to talk to the manager for the role, their manager, and two people who had previously been in the role (Netflix wasn't aware that I knew those people). What I discovered, for this one group only, the manager and their supervisor had essentially created a system for hiring people that could be fired when the manager's effectiveness was under scrutiny. It was very Machiavellian but it was also pretty effective for them. I carefully backed out of the discussions to avoid any hurt feelings, and watched as two more people were hired into the role and then left later on. The manager and their supervisor will still there the last time I checked (about a year ago). I suggested to their recruiter that it would be useful them to understand all of the behaviors that would allow someone to be successful in their culture rather than just the one they were shooting for. This observation was not unlike Jeff Goldbloom's observation in Jurassic park to have the system count 'all' the dinosaurs, not just stop at the expected number. You can build a system to encourage excellence and that is good, but also check to see if it can be exploited by folks who can fool the sensors into thinking they are excellent. And then put in safeguards to detect those too. I'm sure if they did some data science on roles that turned over a lot it would identify bad managers that were avoiding scrutiny.

staticautomatic 8y ago
Most people running companies don't understand that at scale, HR's most important role is eliminating and mitigating perverse incentives.
maxxxxx 8y ago
That's what you get when you have fixed quotas for firing people, e.g. bottom 10%. After a few rounds you have some very good people left and either you fire good people that are hard to replace or you hire people to fire them. I don't understand how the top guys don't see that dynamic.
- tspike 8y ago

Apocryphon 8y ago

At this point, is there a single FAANG company, or tech company of equivalent size or prestige, that doesn't have a toxic environment? I don't even mean contains pockets of toxicity because of the inherent size of the enterprise, but something rotten at the top or in the core, at the managerial level or in the culture.

rajacombinator 8y ago
Tech tends to attract both poorly socially adapted people who think they are smarter than they are, and those who excel at exploiting them. Combined with infinite money from being in the right place at the right time, it’s a recipe for disaster.
Stranger43 8y ago
It seems to be isolated to the post dotCOM’s the old tech giants don’t stand out from the norms the same way as the new internet giants.

mwcremer 8y ago

So, what is a good way to evaluate performance?

faizshah 8y ago

I feel like tech needs to experiment with worker owned cooperatives and flat management more. I know, I know, the politics in flat structures can be worse. But I think tech should be innovative in management structure and eventually a standard for decision making, perhaps based on quaker principles, and management structure, maybe based on mondragon, can emerge.

asien 8y ago
>tech needs to experiment with worker owned cooperatives and flat management more Reminds me of Buffer cofounders who just split because they ended up with différents visions for the company. We just need company where C-Exexs are tech guys , not salesman.
- faizshah 8y ago
  I don't know about the Buffer example, but I would say that it also needs to be accompanied by a difference in perspective. Instead of chasing a unicorn valuation or big profit/revenue/marketshare numbers you're trying to build a sustainable business model that provides good quality jobs to people, is a good member of the local community and provides good products to consumers. Also cooperatives and flat structures don't mean there isn't an executive management or facilitator role, it just means that they are equal to other workers. An executive or facilitator's role would be to help keep the company on track and keep a consistent vision and resolve disputes quickly but there would be a democratic process for hiring and firing rather than a hierarchical one. Take a look at the quaker way of "finding the sense of a meeting" for consensus decision making.

LaserToy 8y ago

What is weird that company allows managers to fire people without trying to move them first. Hiring is hard and firing left and right sounds like a dumb idea. Managers should understand that they are not the center of the universe.

BigChiefSmokem 8y ago

Stop allowing articles behind pay and tracking walls.

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

illiac_1962 8y ago

Nice cult-ure.

sjg007 8y ago

"“Good, because fear drives you..." What a nightmare... Is the money worth it?

rajacombinator 8y ago

I like the philosophy espoused by the Netflix culture deck, but it is obviously misapplied at Netflix. Totally stagnant company and product that hasn’t innovated for years. “Producing the c grade Hollywood trash that even Hollywood rejected” is not innovation. So many tech companies drink their own koolaid on this stuff when really they just got lucky.

turtlecloud 8y ago

This is a psyop by the WSJ to lure engineers to Disney/Hulu/etc. paid advert by DIS? The first step is to seed doubt that your current situation is not as rosy as it seems. Step 2 will be a outreach recruiter / manager offering u promises of greener pastures at one of the competing streaming services

piokoch 8y ago

The ways of Netflix are strangely resemble 1940-1950 communism times when people could have been jailed or executed for seemingly innocent joke that some party member managed to interpret as an insult to the Beloved Leader (be that Stalin, Ceausescu or Bierut) or for violating a flavor-of-the-day interpretation of Stalinism-Leninism-Marxism absurdity. Luckily they just fire people, not execute them.

ktosobcy 8y ago

"Mr. Hastings had recently fired his chief communications officer for saying the “N-word” in full form." I sooo don't get US…

EliRivers 8y ago

If anyone from Netflix is reading this and needs to hire someone for the purposes of firing them a year later, I'm your man. I am no ordinary sacrificial hire. I will work with you to create the narrative you need to showcase your true, natural leadership and management abilities. You know you've got what it takes; you just haven't had the opportunity to demonstrate it. My job will be to make sure that you come out of it shining, with the enhanced respect of your superiors, subordinates and peers. People will nod sagely when they look at you, clearly seeing your senior management potential. If you need any of your peer competitors to come out of it looking bad, that's part of the service; hey, the very fact that you're using my services makes it clear that you are smarter than them. You deserve this. I won't name names (confidentiality of course is part of the service), but let me assure you that some of them are already doing this to you. There's no crime in levelling the playing field; making things even again is the right thing to do and the only way to ensure that your natural innate talents can be properly recognised to win you the promotions you deserve. Obviously this is a premium service; we can work together to make sure that I appear to be worth every penny of the top flight salary you offer; part of the narrative will be how I appeared to be such a great applicant and a perfect hire but it was your leadership skills, your intuition, your deep insights that uncovered this employee's true inadequacies where everyone else had seen an illusion.

2sk21 8y ago
Love it - reminds me of the famous letter by Da Vinci outlining his capabilities :-) https://gizmodo.com/5460442/leonardo-da-vincis-resume-explains-why-hes-the-renaissance-man-for-the-job https://gizmodo.com/5460442/leonardo-da-vincis-resume-explai...

sverige 8y ago

It's fascinating to me how the comments here mostly ignore the results Netflix has gotten with this approach. They are literally disrupting Hollywood, a 100-year-old monopoly, and have accomplished that after very few years and starting from scratch. It may be ugly, but it has been very effective so far. Maybe that's what it takes to take over an industry as ugly as the industrial entertainment complex.

OnlyRepliesToBS 8y ago

evil dark patterns

Wh1skey 8y ago

Voluntary departure rate at Netflix was 3% in 2017 compared to the US average of 18%. Sounds like this firing model people fear should actually be mass reproduced. Kudos to Netflix for effective practices.

hirseypie 8y ago

A man (Executive) lost his job for saying "nigger" to make a point about speech in a comedy show? Are you kidding me? What a waste of talent.

Shorel 8y ago

I wonder if this model would work better with a little bit of gamification. Let me explain it: You get fired for not performing. And the gamification part is you can get hired again in that same company, even same position, let's say, three or six months after you were fired. You get your old salary, benefits everything. And the mental relief that being laid of is not permanent. Then you work different this time, with the experience of having done this job before and the experience of being without a job too. It would benefit Netflix a lot more than firing people in a permanent basis, IMO. And with these ultra high salaries, people would go back there.