Netflix: Culture of Fear
glassdoor.com
Netflix: Culture of Fear
1–10 of 107 posts
Re: Netflix: Culture of Fear
#2The fear prevents innovation? They just started a streaming only plan and have clients on many mobile devices, dvd/blu-ray players, and gaming systems. They went from owning the movie rental space to the movie streaming space. I think they're doing alright.
Re: Netflix: Culture of Fear
#3Cynic in me wonders if this post is tied to the recent frenzy around traders shorting Netflix? Even a few of the supporting comments feel scripted.
Say this because Netflix seems to have great luck attracting people that I respect personally and their culture building and HR practices are fairly lauded elsewhere . . .
Re: Netflix: Culture of Fear
#4Just in case you're living under a startup-free rock, here's Netflix's culture deck from last year which could potentially jive with the Glassdoor-er's view.
Re: Netflix: Culture of Fear
#5The part about "fear", or the high pay and low benefits, shouldn't be surprising if you are familiar with Netflix's values. They place employee performance above all else and strive to create a place where high performers want to work - which means getting rid of anyone who isn't one. Their values are to give employees huge amounts of freedom and responsibility and to let the individual's decide what to do with that, for the good of the company.
See the slideshows at http://www.netflix.com/Jobs.
As for the validity of this review, I find it hard to believe that even all the way back in May 2010 someone could think that Netflix's streaming business wasn't already a success:
So you guys did one thing well, a long time ago, and you've been marginally improving that business (DVD rental) ever since. Your astoundingly high turnover rate worked in that world, because all the processes were in place. But now you are trying to get into the streaming business, and that business only runs with knowledge workers at the helm.
edit: I think it's certainly possible to mistake "a culture of high demand for high performance" for "a culture of fear" if your only experience at the company is one in which you were deemed to not be a performer. But as an outsider, I can see why Netflix values and wants to create this culture and I admire them for striving and sticking to it.
I'd also like to point out that of the majority of reviews posted with the word "software" in the title, the majority seem to rate working at Netflix a 4 or a 5, although with a few 1's and 2's in there.
Re: Netflix: Culture of Fear
#6Not willing to take risks? Find me another major company making (and apparently succeeding) these types of moves into the Cloud.
See: http://www.slideshare.net/adrianco
I challenge anyone to walk through Adrian's DevOps slides of what they are up to at Netflix and suggest that they aren't getting shit done this year: http://www.slideshare.net/adrianco/netflix-on-cloud-combined...
With that said - yes, Netflix does chew up people and spit them out pretty quickly. I know a number of people who are moderately successful other places that didn't do so well in Netflix's rather meritocratic environment.
It's almost cliche now, but it bears repeating, at "Netflix they reward adequate performance with a generous severance."
The pay is actually pretty good over there. Network Engineers (the ones that can manage to hang onto their jobs) make about $30K more than Radford 50th percentile for the Bay Area.
Re: Netflix: Culture of Fear
#7Sounds awful until you click on the Reviews link at the top and find many mixed opinions on the same subject. (I stopped clicking through the reviews when it made me log in to keep looking at them though.)
A bunch seem to agree on the high turnover thing, but some don't seem terribly bothered by that, citing it as a great experience nonetheless (and I haven't seen any others claiming the same stressful don't-screw-up-a-single-time-or-you're-fired attitude).
Interestingly, the main thing I'd known before about Netflix's employees was their famous vacation policy, and I haven't seen any reviews there mentioning it: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/mediatechnol...
Re: Netflix: Culture of Fear
#8Cynic in me wonders if this post is tied to the recent frenzy around traders shorting Netflix? Even a few of the supporting comments feel scripted. Say this because Netflix seems to have great luck attracting people that I respect personally and their culture building and HR practices are fairly lauded elsewhere . . .
I did post this (the link of the review) because I have heard from multiple people (in person) about their culture. Netflix seems to have the sports team philosophy "Put the best guy in place for the job", and if that job changes and that person is not the best fit they will fire that person and find somebody else instead of some retraining.
The original "Netflix culture slide" were just an attempt to rationalize (and romanticize) their behavior, instead of "we will use you and throw you out if you are not to the exact fit", to "we want only the best people to work with us".
A lot of people in the start up community thought that those slides (and Netflix's culture) was really cool, but the reality seems very un-rosy. I think it is good too look beyond the PR.
As somebody mentioned on one of the comments, looks like their culture came from "Logan's Run".
As an engineer I have been contacted many times by Netflix recruiters, and that's why I started digging down a bit more into it. If you are an employer of Netflix, just consider yourself as a glorified contractor.
I found this link from this question on Quora: http://www.quora.com/Does-the-Netflix-work-culture-create-a-...
Re: Netflix: Culture of Fear
#9Cynic in me wonders if this post is tied to the recent frenzy around traders shorting Netflix? Even a few of the supporting comments feel scripted. Say this because Netflix seems to have great luck attracting people that I respect personally and their culture building and HR practices are fairly lauded elsewhere . . .
I did post this (the link of the review) because I have heard from multiple people (in person) about their culture. Netflix seems to have the sports team philosophy "Put the best guy in place for the job", and if that job changes and that person is not the best fit they will fire that person and find somebody else instead of some retraining. The original "Netflix culture slide" were just an attempt to rationalize (an…
The Quora question, the linked-to blog post, etc, are all based around the same two glassdoor articles.
Are you sure you aren't basing your judgment on just a small handful of opinions?
Re: Netflix: Culture of Fear
#10Earlier quoted context omitted.
I did post this (the link of the review) because I have heard from multiple people (in person) about their culture. Netflix seems to have the sports team philosophy "Put the best guy in place for the job", and if that job changes and that person is not the best fit they will fire that person and find somebody else instead of some retraining. The original "Netflix culture slide" were just an attempt to rationalize (an…
The Quora question, the linked-to blog post, etc, are all based around the same two glassdoor articles. Are you sure you aren't basing your judgment on just a small handful of opinions?
[deleted]