24 ms·

Netflix's Culture Document (2009)

79 points by bcardarella 14y ago

bcardarella 14y ago
This document is a fantastic read, highly recommend everybody to check it out
jtbigwoo 14y ago
We talked about this back in 2009: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=740524 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=740524
- bcardarella 14y ago
  Yeah the document is a few years old, but it is relevant considering this recent TC article: http://techcrunch.com/2013/01/31/read-what-facebooks-sandberg-calls-maybe-the-most-important-document-ever-to-come-out-of-the-valley/ http://techcrunch.com/2013/01/31/read-what-facebooks-sandber...
tvladeck 14y ago
I read this, and I had a ridiculous number of "Aha!" moments. A few for me: -Context vs. control: In any place where your expecting creative contribution, it makes literally zero sense to define the contribution by the input. You hire people for their output, not their input. -Vacation tracking: If you're not tracking how many hours the employees do work, you're already not tracking how many they don't work -- by definition. -Generous severance: This way your managers don't feel bad firing people that aren't a good fit.
socalnate1 14y ago
I'm very curious how (or if at all) this thinking has been applied to Netflix's hourly employees. Basic customer service, distribution center folks, etc who have more structured jobs to do. The distinction is briefly touched on at the beginning, but I'd love to hear more.
- tibbon 14y ago
  I too am very interested in this. Netflix and Amazon both seem to be amazing companies to work for - if you're in the right class/caste/level of employment. If you're a developer or similar working for corporate, it sounds great. If you're working in the factory-like fulfillment warehouses, it sounds less great. There are few stories I've heard of the companies applying equal policies to both. I've heard of even fewer stories of people moving between the two classes of employees- or of the companies creating opportunities for them to do so. But moreso, instead of demonizing the companies for any practices on their hourly employees- I'm curious to know if its possible to apply these forward-thinking policies to 'unskilled labor' or hourly workers from an organizational perspective. Or are these types of policies only workable for certain types of jobs? Have there been any large (and recent) experiments done with applying this type of management to hourly employees?
  - Evbn 14y ago
    Hourly fulfillment employees do work at marginal cost (linear relationship between revenue and labor) that doesn't have the multiplier effect that corporate office work has. Thus there is a hard ceiling on sustainable wage level. For a lawyer it is high. For packaging $5 books it is not.
- Klinky 14y ago
  I worked at the call center in Oregon. The vibe at the beginning was positive for the most part, but deteriorated into typical call center anarchy. Chronic turnover at all levels(usually a new call center head everyone 3 - 6 months), poor communication(surprise!, new product or marketing launch today!), fear used as primary tactic to motivate(we'll fire you if you don't hit your numbers), benefit and perks stripped away(here's some cake, btw no more discounted bus passes), no upward mobility(become a manager and get fired in a few months), and other stuff. The document is a joke when compared with the experience of hourly employees.
pbreit 14y ago
It's interesting that while Netflix is quite successful overall it has made some hugely bad decisions (silverlight, qwikster, house of cards release). You wonder if Netflix culture is a contributor.
- pendext 14y ago
  What about the House of Cards release was a hugely bad decision?
- thehigherlife 14y ago
  I'll give you qwikster and possibly silverlight (would probably say that one is only correct in hindsight), but I'm curious why you'd place "house of cards" on there as it seems to be getting lots of attention and is looking like one of Netflix's best decisions recently.
  - pbreit 14y ago
    The show itself is terrific. Releasing all the episodes at once, 2 days before the superbowl no less, so far appears to have been a very poor way to spend $100 million.
    - rajivm 14y ago
      I think that's yet to be determined. They're taking a non-standard strategy with releasing media, and there's potential that it could just work for them. Sure, normally TV spreads by people talking about it across a season, but normally there's also the problem of "oh I have to now 'catch up' and the resistance that comes with that. This is a no-pressure situation where you can tell your friends about how awesome a show is, and they can go watch the whole show with no constraints or time pressure or schedule. It embodies the goal of the Netflix service. Sure they're not getting the standard 'talk about a show for 6 months as episodes come out', but instead they might get a viral chain effect where the season isn't constrained to that time period either. Ultimately their goal is to grow subscribers by hooking them with valuable content they can't get anywhere else.
up_and_up 14y ago
Its always interesting to read these broad visionary executive statements in contrast to the 'boots on the ground' nitty gritty such as the reviews of Netflix on Glassdoor: http://www.glassdoor.com/Reviews/Netflix-Reviews-E11891.htm http://www.glassdoor.com/Reviews/Netflix-Reviews-E11891.htm Incongruences are notable.
- psadri 14y ago
  I tend to agree. This document sounds really great but does not match up with the reality, at least based on the few samples that I am aware of. Big companies constantly try to portray themselves as the enlightened place to work in order to attract great people.
  - TazeTSchnitzel 14y ago
    This is ironic, considering at the start of the presentation they pointed out this exact point.
- specialist 14y ago
  Worst job I ever had was at Starbucks [1] in the early 1990s. I had my liver cut out and fed to me every single day. I could not reconcile the positivity put forth by CEO Howard Schultz (and conferred thru HR's training regime) with the miserable treatment we received. A fish is rotten from the head down and all that. Years later I was in middle management. I couldn't believe how hard it was to change things, get people to behave better, etc. I was all about learning organization, empowerment, democratic decision making. Stuff that really pulled people out of their comfort zones. Any successes I had, mostly thru will power, came at a very high cost. I then became a lot more forgiving of the Howard Schultzes of the world. He was doing pretty much the most any CEO/President can do: Stay on message, nudge the needle, hope for the best. I will note that friends in other departments had very different experiences. Some are still there and loving every minute of it. So I also learned you can have a good job at a bad company, a bad job at a good company, and if you're very lucky, a good job at a good company. [1] I was the CAD guru for the Store Planning dept, which did all the retail architecture. Performance was measured in "sales weeks", meaning how many weeks all the stores are open per year. As a publicly traded company, the pressure to hit the projected sales weeks was intense.
deleted 14y ago
[deleted]
dude_abides 14y ago
Most points in this document are great, except for the argument about high salary in lieu of high bonuses and great benefits. High bonuses have worked well for Wall St traders, as well as for exec-level employees in all industries. And great benefits clearly work well, as proven by Google.
- Pkeod 14y ago
  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u6XAPnuFjJc http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u6XAPnuFjJc High enough salary + great benefits to the point where needs are met are ideal. "Rockstars" may be able to negotiate with companies who want to hire those kinds of people, but if you are hiring only the best people and not the best people for your company then your culture will suffer. I like the way Valve does things. No rockstar culture like WallSt or Hollywood has. Everyone gets even footing and credit. You can earn more if your peers agree that you deserve it - people there are not chasing rewards - they are doing what they love well and being rewarded for it. It seems to work very well for them and other co-op like companies.
timdellinger 14y ago
They updated this in 2011, by the way: http://www.slideshare.net/reed2001/culture-1798664 http://www.slideshare.net/reed2001/culture-1798664
yalogin 14y ago
One thing that stands out here is the work-life balance for employees will not be there and Netflix does not think they should care about it. Given that they measure the effectiveness of the employee, one can always be more effective if he/she works longer hours every single day. Same goes with the no vacation tracking policy. That only means there are no vacation. You are getting paid so deal with it :) Of course startups in the valley are in general not big on work-life balance anyway.
cpdean 14y ago
I really like slide #7, in how it discusses that most "corporate values" are just these ambiguous ethereal ideals that don't necessarily mean anything. > "[Enron's values] were chiseled in marble in the main lobby, but had little to do with the real values of the organization." I wish other major employers would see this and realize how self-parodying they can be.
- Klinky 14y ago
  >I wish other major employers would see this and realize how self-parodying they can be. It would be nice if Netflix itself actually realized this.
dockd 14y ago
I've always wondered how these slides applied to their CEO as their stock went from 300 to 66 and, in particular, the comparison to sports teams--although per their slides it's not a perfect comparison. So when would it ever be time to trade the CEO? Is every employee given a year or two to turn things around?
rajesht 14y ago
If you need 129 slides to explain your culture, there is definitely something wrong with it.

79 points by bcardarella 14y ago

This document is a fantastic read, highly recommend everybody to check it out

We talked about this back in 2009: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=740524 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=740524

bcardarella 14y ago
Yeah the document is a few years old, but it is relevant considering this recent TC article: http://techcrunch.com/2013/01/31/read-what-facebooks-sandberg-calls-maybe-the-most-important-document-ever-to-come-out-of-the-valley/ http://techcrunch.com/2013/01/31/read-what-facebooks-sandber...

tvladeck 14y ago

I read this, and I had a ridiculous number of "Aha!" moments. A few for me: -Context vs. control: In any place where your expecting creative contribution, it makes literally zero sense to define the contribution by the input. You hire people for their output, not their input. -Vacation tracking: If you're not tracking how many hours the employees do work, you're already not tracking how many they don't work -- by definition. -Generous severance: This way your managers don't feel bad firing people that aren't a good fit.

socalnate1 14y ago

I'm very curious how (or if at all) this thinking has been applied to Netflix's hourly employees. Basic customer service, distribution center folks, etc who have more structured jobs to do. The distinction is briefly touched on at the beginning, but I'd love to hear more.

tibbon 14y ago
I too am very interested in this. Netflix and Amazon both seem to be amazing companies to work for - if you're in the right class/caste/level of employment. If you're a developer or similar working for corporate, it sounds great. If you're working in the factory-like fulfillment warehouses, it sounds less great. There are few stories I've heard of the companies applying equal policies to both. I've heard of even fewer stories of people moving between the two classes of employees- or of the companies creating opportunities for them to do so. But moreso, instead of demonizing the companies for any practices on their hourly employees- I'm curious to know if its possible to apply these forward-thinking policies to 'unskilled labor' or hourly workers from an organizational perspective. Or are these types of policies only workable for certain types of jobs? Have there been any large (and recent) experiments done with applying this type of management to hourly employees?
- Evbn 14y ago
  Hourly fulfillment employees do work at marginal cost (linear relationship between revenue and labor) that doesn't have the multiplier effect that corporate office work has. Thus there is a hard ceiling on sustainable wage level. For a lawyer it is high. For packaging $5 books it is not.
Klinky 14y ago
I worked at the call center in Oregon. The vibe at the beginning was positive for the most part, but deteriorated into typical call center anarchy. Chronic turnover at all levels(usually a new call center head everyone 3 - 6 months), poor communication(surprise!, new product or marketing launch today!), fear used as primary tactic to motivate(we'll fire you if you don't hit your numbers), benefit and perks stripped away(here's some cake, btw no more discounted bus passes), no upward mobility(become a manager and get fired in a few months), and other stuff. The document is a joke when compared with the experience of hourly employees.

pbreit 14y ago

It's interesting that while Netflix is quite successful overall it has made some hugely bad decisions (silverlight, qwikster, house of cards release). You wonder if Netflix culture is a contributor.

pendext 14y ago
What about the House of Cards release was a hugely bad decision?
thehigherlife 14y ago
I'll give you qwikster and possibly silverlight (would probably say that one is only correct in hindsight), but I'm curious why you'd place "house of cards" on there as it seems to be getting lots of attention and is looking like one of Netflix's best decisions recently.
- pbreit 14y ago
  The show itself is terrific. Releasing all the episodes at once, 2 days before the superbowl no less, so far appears to have been a very poor way to spend $100 million.
  - rajivm 14y ago
    I think that's yet to be determined. They're taking a non-standard strategy with releasing media, and there's potential that it could just work for them. Sure, normally TV spreads by people talking about it across a season, but normally there's also the problem of "oh I have to now 'catch up' and the resistance that comes with that. This is a no-pressure situation where you can tell your friends about how awesome a show is, and they can go watch the whole show with no constraints or time pressure or schedule. It embodies the goal of the Netflix service. Sure they're not getting the standard 'talk about a show for 6 months as episodes come out', but instead they might get a viral chain effect where the season isn't constrained to that time period either. Ultimately their goal is to grow subscribers by hooking them with valuable content they can't get anywhere else.

up_and_up 14y ago

Its always interesting to read these broad visionary executive statements in contrast to the 'boots on the ground' nitty gritty such as the reviews of Netflix on Glassdoor: http://www.glassdoor.com/Reviews/Netflix-Reviews-E11891.htm http://www.glassdoor.com/Reviews/Netflix-Reviews-E11891.htm Incongruences are notable.

psadri 14y ago
I tend to agree. This document sounds really great but does not match up with the reality, at least based on the few samples that I am aware of. Big companies constantly try to portray themselves as the enlightened place to work in order to attract great people.
- TazeTSchnitzel 14y ago
  This is ironic, considering at the start of the presentation they pointed out this exact point.
specialist 14y ago
Worst job I ever had was at Starbucks [1] in the early 1990s. I had my liver cut out and fed to me every single day. I could not reconcile the positivity put forth by CEO Howard Schultz (and conferred thru HR's training regime) with the miserable treatment we received. A fish is rotten from the head down and all that. Years later I was in middle management. I couldn't believe how hard it was to change things, get people to behave better, etc. I was all about learning organization, empowerment, democratic decision making. Stuff that really pulled people out of their comfort zones. Any successes I had, mostly thru will power, came at a very high cost. I then became a lot more forgiving of the Howard Schultzes of the world. He was doing pretty much the most any CEO/President can do: Stay on message, nudge the needle, hope for the best. I will note that friends in other departments had very different experiences. Some are still there and loving every minute of it. So I also learned you can have a good job at a bad company, a bad job at a good company, and if you're very lucky, a good job at a good company. [1] I was the CAD guru for the Store Planning dept, which did all the retail architecture. Performance was measured in "sales weeks", meaning how many weeks all the stores are open per year. As a publicly traded company, the pressure to hit the projected sales weeks was intense.

deleted 14y ago

[deleted]

dude_abides 14y ago

Most points in this document are great, except for the argument about high salary in lieu of high bonuses and great benefits. High bonuses have worked well for Wall St traders, as well as for exec-level employees in all industries. And great benefits clearly work well, as proven by Google.

Pkeod 14y ago
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u6XAPnuFjJc http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u6XAPnuFjJc High enough salary + great benefits to the point where needs are met are ideal. "Rockstars" may be able to negotiate with companies who want to hire those kinds of people, but if you are hiring only the best people and not the best people for your company then your culture will suffer. I like the way Valve does things. No rockstar culture like WallSt or Hollywood has. Everyone gets even footing and credit. You can earn more if your peers agree that you deserve it - people there are not chasing rewards - they are doing what they love well and being rewarded for it. It seems to work very well for them and other co-op like companies.

timdellinger 14y ago

They updated this in 2011, by the way: http://www.slideshare.net/reed2001/culture-1798664 http://www.slideshare.net/reed2001/culture-1798664

yalogin 14y ago

One thing that stands out here is the work-life balance for employees will not be there and Netflix does not think they should care about it. Given that they measure the effectiveness of the employee, one can always be more effective if he/she works longer hours every single day. Same goes with the no vacation tracking policy. That only means there are no vacation. You are getting paid so deal with it :) Of course startups in the valley are in general not big on work-life balance anyway.

cpdean 14y ago

I really like slide #7, in how it discusses that most "corporate values" are just these ambiguous ethereal ideals that don't necessarily mean anything. > "[Enron's values] were chiseled in marble in the main lobby, but had little to do with the real values of the organization." I wish other major employers would see this and realize how self-parodying they can be.

Klinky 14y ago
>I wish other major employers would see this and realize how self-parodying they can be. It would be nice if Netflix itself actually realized this.

dockd 14y ago

I've always wondered how these slides applied to their CEO as their stock went from 300 to 66 and, in particular, the comparison to sports teams--although per their slides it's not a perfect comparison. So when would it ever be time to trade the CEO? Is every employee given a year or two to turn things around?

rajesht 14y ago

If you need 129 slides to explain your culture, there is definitely something wrong with it.