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Can Netflix Survive in the New World It Created?

nytimes.com

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Re: Can Netflix Survive in the New World It Created?

#101

Post by tajen »

distances wrote: post #4
yarapavan wrote: post #2

Spoiler: It's a long read! > Does this still holds? Is there any other organization in dissimilar industry where this works? McCord also convinced Hastings that he should ask himself a few times a year whether he would hire the same person in the same job if it opened up that day. If the answer was no, Netflix would write a larger check and let the employee go. “If you are going to insist on high performance,” McCord…

> You’ll have to fire some really nice, hard-working people. But you have to do it with dignity. I wonder if this is part of the reason why there are not too many Netflix-like high achieving companies in Europe -- firing people is not possible. Even totally sucking at your job isn't acceptable reason for employment contract termination, that'd be just a reason for further training. You'll have to go through different…

I reckon this is correct in France: As an employer, if you attempt to fire someone, you will almost automtically end up in a trial and be condemned, whatever indemnities you gave upfront. My father fired someone at age 55 (before it was forbidden to fire people >50yo) and paid cash for the difference between his unemployment benefits and his former salary until retirement. He landed at Prod'hommes (ombudsman) and lost.

Even when your company is underweather (Bouygues telecom fired 900 people if I remember, Renault Trucks a few hundreds too), it's a long agony for employees who stay: If you quit, you lose all allowances for unemployment benefits and all severance package; If you stay it's 1-3 years until they sign your severance package, under a shitty ambiance where they'll search for proof that you're abandoning your job.

France is the contry which consumes the most anti-depressant per inhabitant, by the way.

Re: Can Netflix Survive in the New World It Created?

#102

Post by sevensor »

ergothus wrote: post #96
sevensor wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Think you're indispensable? Do they know that? Indispensable employees are a sign of organizational failure. They indicate a weak point in the organization -- if that person gets hit by a bus, or walks off the job, or is on vacation during a crisis, we're all in trouble. And if an employee becomes indispensable on purpose, that person is a problem and should be let go before the situation gets worse. Where I used t…

1) I think you're underestimating the number of shops that ARE "in trouble". There's a lot more tech-need in the world than tech-capable people right now, and with the places that have resources and organization gobbling up people, a lot of smaller shops (small startups, govt shops, small non-startup businesses) DO have indispensable people. And often those people will want to stay there. As for becoming indispensabl…

Good points, both of them. My experience with indispensable people comes from a big manufacturing organization. When I talk about people trying to become indispensable, I mean the engineer who had her hand in everything her department did and supported the line 24/7, and the technician who told me, "they'll never get rid of me, this place would fall apart without me." Among others. They really do exist, but perhaps it's less of a thing in software? I haven't worked with enough programmers to judge.

Re: Can Netflix Survive in the New World It Created?

#103

Post by vvanders »

gaius wrote: post #74
ergothus wrote: post #40

One of the best professional pieces of advice I've ever read said something like "Think you're indispensable? Do they know that?". It made me aware that often the people making the hiring/firing decisions aren't actually aware of my day-to-day. Rather, they know only the summary info. Those kudos to fellow employees and in-house "awards" that I'd been ignoring? Those are documentation that someone is worthwhile, and…

The perils of operational work: the mark of success is that no-one knows what you do, or that you are even there.

The corollary to that is to always go out of your way to treat ops/it with a bit of respect. They'll usually pay in back in spades when you need it since they get so little recognition in the first place(and they deserve it most of the time).

Re: Can Netflix Survive in the New World It Created?

#104

Post by rogerbinns »

Does anyone experience the Netflix recommendation system being useful? If you use their web browser experience then you can tell it to never show items again. But if you use mobile apps, Chromecast, Roku etc you do not get that option. My experience is that they keep recommending the same content over and over again, despite me already having watched some of it, and not wanting to watch the rest. It is also an incredibly user hostile experience: "here are the same items we showed you last time that you didn't want to watch, so you must look at them again".

Heck they even go so far as recommending items where they accurately predict I'll give it low ratings, while ignoring the items where they accurately predict I'll give it higher ratings.

I really don't understand why they do this. Is my experience unique?

Re: Can Netflix Survive in the New World It Created?

#105

Post by aianus »

talmand wrote: post #60
aianus wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> All that leads to is "really nice, hard-working people" you would not fire jumping ship at the first sign of a slightly better deal, because why not? If you combine this behavior with really high compensation for those you keep, you'll likely be the best deal. Most companies' compensation does not match their rhetoric about 'hiring the best' and will balk at the cost to poach from you. That and the fact that high-p…

A positive work environment and satisfaction is not just about compensation. Working with other high-performers is good, I agree, except the company policy is that high-performers can be shown the door at any moment due to various changes outside the control of that high-performer. That's not a good work environment.

That's a critique that may or may not apply to a given implementation of this idea.

However, if the people being fired are treated with respect, severance, good references and if there's a general consensus amongst those remaining that the individuals were, in fact, low performers, I imagine there would be high morale.

Re: Can Netflix Survive in the New World It Created?

#106

Post by ergothus »

sevensor wrote: post #102
ergothus wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1) I think you're underestimating the number of shops that ARE "in trouble". There's a lot more tech-need in the world than tech-capable people right now, and with the places that have resources and organization gobbling up people, a lot of smaller shops (small startups, govt shops, small non-startup businesses) DO have indispensable people. And often those people will want to stay there. As for becoming indispensabl…

Good points, both of them. My experience with indispensable people comes from a big manufacturing organization. When I talk about people trying to become indispensable, I mean the engineer who had her hand in everything her department did and supported the line 24/7, and the technician who told me, "they'll never get rid of me, this place would fall apart without me." Among others. They really do exist, but perhaps i…

Software is by no means immune to what you list. Indeed, as Hubris is one of the Three Virtues of a Programmer, you definitely find it. That said, I think (my opinion) that you'll find more devs/admins that are PROUD to be indispensable than you will devs/admins that SEEK to become indispensable.

Both cases are ignoring what you point out: having a indispensable person is a bad thing for the long term health of your business. But one case (pride) is just mistaking doing a lot of essential work as not also creating a problem, while the other (seeking it) is less forgivable. And of course, there's a third, much worse option ("spaghetti code is job security") that doesn't rely on good work at all.

I've known a lot of devs that were close to indispensible and trying to fix it, fewer devs that were indispensable and proud of it, and only one or two that did crappy work so that they became more vital. A fair number of all of these devs were "responsible" for becoming indispensable simply by improving things to the point that their improvements became essential...and no one else had the skills/knowledge to easily replace them.

But of course, my experiences are subjective.

Re: Can Netflix Survive in the New World It Created?

#107

Post by ExpendableGuy »

Aren't DVDs still a major profit-winner for Netflix? Last I checked 5 million people were still subscribed to receive DVDs, and their subscriptions were more profitable than streaming-only ones. DVD subscriptions, however, are declining.

Something people forget about the Qwikster debacle: video game rentals were teased. The fact that Netflix never explored this again really bugged me. Imagine if Netflix bundled video games into their DVD rental plans -- I think they'd be able to start boosting DVD rental numbers again, and thus boost profits.

Re: Can Netflix Survive in the New World It Created?

#108

Post by gaius »

zjaffee wrote: post #85
gaius wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The perils of operational work: the mark of success is that no-one knows what you do, or that you are even there.

Ehh, at least in todays world where teams that focus on operations in a DevOps environment, there are a lot more metrics that operations teams can be measured by other than just uptime. For example, lets say a decision is made that you want to spin up a new environment, deploy a new service, scale up or scale down a piece of infrastructure. A good operations team in this more modern space will have automated the vast…

"It's easy - I just click a button! What the hell are we paying all these guys/gals for?"

Re: Can Netflix Survive in the New World It Created?

#109

Post by ergothus »

Stepping away from hiring/firing practices, I had a very visceral reaction to this:

>“Five years ago,” says Richard Greenfield, a media and technology analyst at BTIG who happens to be Netflix’s most vocal proponent on Wall Street, “we wrote a piece saying that the networks shouldn’t license to Netflix because they were going to unleash a monster that would undermine their business.”

This exposes to me how capitalism, for all it's very real benefits, also has big flaws. "Don't do this thing because people will want it but you won't be the one to profit" is a bad attitude for society in general. Sure, it means there's a profit motive for someone else to fill that niche, but the point of creative works is that they are unique. If Shakespeare is too expensive you go to Marlowe...but then you never get Shakespeare. That's a survivable choice, but not the most beneficial result.

I don't have a solution, and I'm not saying to tear down the system. I'm just saying quotes like this make me cringe.

Re: Can Netflix Survive in the New World It Created?

#110

Post by jdblair »

chrismealy wrote: post #76
jdblair wrote: post #70

Hi, Netflix employee here, been here 7 months. In my 18 year career I've never liked working at a large organization as much as I like it here. The people I work with are uniformly excellent at their jobs, I'm learning from all of them, and I enjoy the time I spend with them.

Enjoy it while it lasts! As soon as they find someone new and better, you're fired!

I don't understand why that's a problem. My work experience has been one where its much more likely that under-performers drag down the top performers, not that top performers are let go prematurely. If they let me go before I'm ready to leave I will be disappointed, but there are other jobs.
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