16 ms·

The Netflix model is the one that I would take if I ever ran a company. Pay every employee top of the market but fire quickly and decisively if they don’t meet

The Netflix model is the one that I would take if I ever ran a company. Pay every employee top of the market but fire quickly and decisively if they don’t meet very high expectations. Every employee that survives at Netflix is very, very happy and motivated. Their engineering team universally is happy and extremely productive and I think it makes a lot of sense.

cletus 8y ago
"High performer" in these situations basically means "most popular" or "best at politics". What's more the end result is you end up with positions that are sacrificial anodes. Hire someone for it and your group ever underperforms, blame it your anode, fire them, rinse and repeat. Hard pass.
jeena 8y ago
Wouldn't you constantly be in a state of fear of losing your income if you for some (not even your fault) reason can't preform top right now? Sounds like a terrible place to work at where the only thing matters is performance and the human is basically a machine which gets switched out if it doesn't perform.
- remote_phone 8y ago
  They are looking for a specific type of worker. If you are a good fit, you’re never worried about losing your job. The ones I know at Netflix love it and say it’s the greatest company they’ve worked at. I know someone who was let go after 10 months and he said he hated it.
tyingq 8y ago
I'm curious if that's as simple as it sounds. For example, many employees that could survive the cuts might not like an environment where they are rarely the smartest person in the room, or having to constantly prove you're worth keeping. Or maybe it's hard to find a business model with margins that could support this. Or, does it create a monoculture with other notable issues..."not invented here", and "not doing that scut work" come to mind.
save_ferris 8y ago
So pay top rate, completely de-prioritize work-life balance, fire everyone who complains about lack of said work-life balance, and voila, right? I know a few developers that would thrive in this environment, but most wouldn't last. But perhaps that's the brilliance: hiring people who can spend their lives working and doing nothing else. It's clearly something that comes up on Glassdoor a lot[0] [0]: https://www.glassdoor.com/Reviews/Netflix-Reviews-E11891_P2.htm https://www.glassdoor.com/Reviews/Netflix-Reviews-E11891_P2....
- remote_phone 8y ago
  You don’t know much about Netflix. Netflix was the first company to give unlimited vacation and 1 year family leave. Netflix openly says that if you work long hours then it’s not the right place for you. They would prefer people who get the job done in an hour than someone who tools for 10 hours a day.
  - enraged_camel 8y ago
    No such thing as unlimited vacation. What happens in every “unlimited vacation” environment is people start to feel guilty about taking vacations, and therefore stop taking them. Studies have shown this - you can look them up.
    - remote_phone 8y ago
      I have unlimited vacation at my company and I took 8 weeks off last year. I also got a 30% performance bonus on top of my regular bonus for 2018. This year I’ve already arranged for 7 weeks vacation
      - izacus 8y ago
        What does your anecdote prove though?
      - wtetzner 8y ago
        Out of curiosity, where do you work (assuming you're comfortable saying)?
inertiatic 8y ago
>Their engineering team universally is happy and extremely productive and I think it makes a lot of sense. Who's word would you take for it? Anonymous reviews on Glassdoor don't seem to agree with that.
- remote_phone 8y ago
  I prefer listening to the opinions of the half dozens Netflix engineers and finance employees that I know personally rather than anonymous reviews.
  - drchickensalad 8y ago
    The opinions of 6 people, with known relationships instead of being randomly sampled, out of the population of Netflix developers, is incredibly statistically insignificant.
    - remote_phone 8y ago
      So is listening to the websites that is known to be biased towards disgruntled employees and those that fail the interviews.
    - chillacy 8y ago
      I would say statistically biased instead of insignificant. Presumably OP associates with very driven people who happen to do well in competitive environments. Glassdoor suffers from the opposite where 100% of people with a grudge go to complain while a smaller percentage of happy people go to write a review.
    - hermitdev 8y ago
      Opinions of people I know and consider to be friends are of far more importance to me than that of anonymous randos on the internet. I recently turned down a job offer at a company based upon friend's feedback and went to a lower paying job that had a lot of negative reviews on glass door. So far, at a month in, I havent seen anything backing the negative reviews. I'm happy at this point, and my commute is the best I've ever had. 15-20 minutes door to door.
aetherson 8y ago
Paying top of market (in cash, like Netflix) is tough for companies that don't have a very large revenue stream. When you start, if you try to pay Netflix-like salaries, you'll run out of money very fast. The traditional workaround for startups had been to award equity instead, but for a variety of legitimate reasons, workers these days are cynical about the value of startup equity.
- hopler 8y ago
  Not necessarily. Hypothetically Netflix might be paying high performers for their roles 1.8.x to do the work of 2 mediocre performers earning who would earn 1x each under a different management style.
kenjackson 8y ago
That sounds like a horrible place to work. I wouldn’t even think of applying to Netflix with this sort of practice.
- Grustaf 8y ago
  Which part do you hate the most, high salary or high expectations?
  - Cyph0n 8y ago
    Probably the race to the bottom when it comes to work-life balance.
    - Grustaf 8y ago
      Of course it’s not for everyone, but it seems pretty ideal for people that want to focus on work. I personally enjoy having a lot of free time but people are different you know, all jobs are not for everyone.
  - tracer4201 8y ago
    This is a bad faith response. High risk high reward is fine to me but I wouldn’t want to be in fear of my job.
    - Grustaf 8y ago
      Why not? If you're good enough to get the job you’ll have no trouble at all getting a new one. You’re probably already fending off recruiters with a stick. And again, it’s clearly not for everyone, but that’s ok, as long as it appeals to some people. Investment banking is also a terrible job for most sane people, but for a small percentage of the population it’s perfect.
PedroBatista 8y ago
Until you stop playing fantasy company CEO and start a real business, at that point you finally would have to learn about the human race and quickly delete your comment on HN out of shame.
chasing 8y ago
A fired employee is a bad hiring decision come to fruition. If you find yourself firing a lot of your employees, then maybe you should be looking inward to find the problem. It’s also expensive to hire people and pay them top dollar while waiting to see if they will fail or not. Again, this is what job interviews are for. Regardless, employees should be comfortable about their jobs and not feel like they’re hanging under an axe that’s waiting to drop. If there’s a problem with performance, it’s on both the employee and the company to form a solution. Sometimes great employees, for example, can be hamstrung by situations outside of their control. Either within the company or outside it.

cletus 8y ago

"High performer" in these situations basically means "most popular" or "best at politics". What's more the end result is you end up with positions that are sacrificial anodes. Hire someone for it and your group ever underperforms, blame it your anode, fire them, rinse and repeat. Hard pass.

jeena 8y ago

Wouldn't you constantly be in a state of fear of losing your income if you for some (not even your fault) reason can't preform top right now? Sounds like a terrible place to work at where the only thing matters is performance and the human is basically a machine which gets switched out if it doesn't perform.

remote_phone 8y ago
They are looking for a specific type of worker. If you are a good fit, you’re never worried about losing your job. The ones I know at Netflix love it and say it’s the greatest company they’ve worked at. I know someone who was let go after 10 months and he said he hated it.

tyingq 8y ago

I'm curious if that's as simple as it sounds. For example, many employees that could survive the cuts might not like an environment where they are rarely the smartest person in the room, or having to constantly prove you're worth keeping. Or maybe it's hard to find a business model with margins that could support this. Or, does it create a monoculture with other notable issues..."not invented here", and "not doing that scut work" come to mind.

save_ferris 8y ago

So pay top rate, completely de-prioritize work-life balance, fire everyone who complains about lack of said work-life balance, and voila, right? I know a few developers that would thrive in this environment, but most wouldn't last. But perhaps that's the brilliance: hiring people who can spend their lives working and doing nothing else. It's clearly something that comes up on Glassdoor a lot[0] [0]: https://www.glassdoor.com/Reviews/Netflix-Reviews-E11891_P2.htm https://www.glassdoor.com/Reviews/Netflix-Reviews-E11891_P2....

remote_phone 8y ago
You don’t know much about Netflix. Netflix was the first company to give unlimited vacation and 1 year family leave. Netflix openly says that if you work long hours then it’s not the right place for you. They would prefer people who get the job done in an hour than someone who tools for 10 hours a day.
- enraged_camel 8y ago
  No such thing as unlimited vacation. What happens in every “unlimited vacation” environment is people start to feel guilty about taking vacations, and therefore stop taking them. Studies have shown this - you can look them up.
  - remote_phone 8y ago
    I have unlimited vacation at my company and I took 8 weeks off last year. I also got a 30% performance bonus on top of my regular bonus for 2018. This year I’ve already arranged for 7 weeks vacation
    - izacus 8y ago
      What does your anecdote prove though?
    - wtetzner 8y ago
      Out of curiosity, where do you work (assuming you're comfortable saying)?

inertiatic 8y ago

>Their engineering team universally is happy and extremely productive and I think it makes a lot of sense. Who's word would you take for it? Anonymous reviews on Glassdoor don't seem to agree with that.

remote_phone 8y ago
I prefer listening to the opinions of the half dozens Netflix engineers and finance employees that I know personally rather than anonymous reviews.
- drchickensalad 8y ago
  The opinions of 6 people, with known relationships instead of being randomly sampled, out of the population of Netflix developers, is incredibly statistically insignificant.
  - remote_phone 8y ago
    So is listening to the websites that is known to be biased towards disgruntled employees and those that fail the interviews.
  - chillacy 8y ago
    I would say statistically biased instead of insignificant. Presumably OP associates with very driven people who happen to do well in competitive environments. Glassdoor suffers from the opposite where 100% of people with a grudge go to complain while a smaller percentage of happy people go to write a review.
  - hermitdev 8y ago
    Opinions of people I know and consider to be friends are of far more importance to me than that of anonymous randos on the internet. I recently turned down a job offer at a company based upon friend's feedback and went to a lower paying job that had a lot of negative reviews on glass door. So far, at a month in, I havent seen anything backing the negative reviews. I'm happy at this point, and my commute is the best I've ever had. 15-20 minutes door to door.

aetherson 8y ago

Paying top of market (in cash, like Netflix) is tough for companies that don't have a very large revenue stream. When you start, if you try to pay Netflix-like salaries, you'll run out of money very fast. The traditional workaround for startups had been to award equity instead, but for a variety of legitimate reasons, workers these days are cynical about the value of startup equity.

hopler 8y ago
Not necessarily. Hypothetically Netflix might be paying high performers for their roles 1.8.x to do the work of 2 mediocre performers earning who would earn 1x each under a different management style.

kenjackson 8y ago

That sounds like a horrible place to work. I wouldn’t even think of applying to Netflix with this sort of practice.

Grustaf 8y ago
Which part do you hate the most, high salary or high expectations?
- Cyph0n 8y ago
  Probably the race to the bottom when it comes to work-life balance.
  - Grustaf 8y ago
    Of course it’s not for everyone, but it seems pretty ideal for people that want to focus on work. I personally enjoy having a lot of free time but people are different you know, all jobs are not for everyone.
- tracer4201 8y ago
  This is a bad faith response. High risk high reward is fine to me but I wouldn’t want to be in fear of my job.
  - Grustaf 8y ago
    Why not? If you're good enough to get the job you’ll have no trouble at all getting a new one. You’re probably already fending off recruiters with a stick. And again, it’s clearly not for everyone, but that’s ok, as long as it appeals to some people. Investment banking is also a terrible job for most sane people, but for a small percentage of the population it’s perfect.

PedroBatista 8y ago

Until you stop playing fantasy company CEO and start a real business, at that point you finally would have to learn about the human race and quickly delete your comment on HN out of shame.

chasing 8y ago

A fired employee is a bad hiring decision come to fruition. If you find yourself firing a lot of your employees, then maybe you should be looking inward to find the problem. It’s also expensive to hire people and pay them top dollar while waiting to see if they will fail or not. Again, this is what job interviews are for. Regardless, employees should be comfortable about their jobs and not feel like they’re hanging under an axe that’s waiting to drop. If there’s a problem with performance, it’s on both the employee and the company to form a solution. Sometimes great employees, for example, can be hamstrung by situations outside of their control. Either within the company or outside it.