Netflix: Culture of Fear • Hacker News Board

Re: Netflix: Culture of Fear

#11

Post by ericd » Tue, Dec 21, 2010, 10:34 PM UTC

This review doesn't jive with the apparent performance of the company in the market. They're the front-runner in an extremely tough space with hostile partners, and even more amazingly, they did this while starting as a company that ships physical goods around the country. There aren't too many things that are harder than moving away from a successful business model, but they've done it really well.

They don't appear to be afraid to innovate at all. Hell, they even started making their own hardware (Roku).

Re: Netflix: Culture of Fear

#12

Post by smysore » Tue, Dec 21, 2010, 10:35 PM UTC

brown9-2 wrote: post #5

The 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,…

The culture slides on Netflix's job site do make it seem like a scary place to work but at least they are transparent about what it's like to be employed there..

Re: Netflix: Culture of Fear

#13

Post by brown9-2 » Tue, Dec 21, 2010, 10:36 PM UTC

smysore wrote: post #12

brown9-2 wrote: post #5

The 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,…

The culture slides on Netflix's job site do make it seem like a scary place to work but at least they are transparent about what it's like to be employed there..

Right, that was the point I was trying to make - how can anyone be surprised at what you find there when they advertise it so well?

Personally I wouldn't expect "a culture of fear" going in but I'd at least have a pretty good idea that I need to perform, and produce high quality stuff, to survive there.

Re: Netflix: Culture of Fear

#14

Post by stoney » Tue, Dec 21, 2010, 10:40 PM UTC

> Sure, if I fired all the employees every few years I'd stay away from process too.

I think I'd do the opposite - if employee churn was high I'd want to be damn sure that well documented processes were in place so replacements could get up to speed quickly.

Re: Netflix: Culture of Fear

#15

Post by weaksauce » Tue, Dec 21, 2010, 10:43 PM UTC

Is it really 20% turnover for knowledge workers or across the whole company? I am sure that turnover rate for the envelope stuffing must be very high. Those types of jobs always have high turnover.

Re: Netflix: Culture of Fear

#16

Post by lukev » Tue, Dec 21, 2010, 10:43 PM UTC

It feels like the author of this is an corporate lifer who isn't comfortable with being actually responsible for product performance, or without being able to shelter behind hide-bound processes.

Some process is needed, sure, but large companies are far more likely to be held back by overly rigid processes and lack of agility than lack of process. If anything, this makes me more impressed with Netflix, that they've managed to maintain a more startup-like culture despite being a huge company.

It's not for all employees, sure, and it's absolutely within this guy's rights to find a position more comfortable for him. But after reading this I'm even more inclined to invest in Netflix. Once a company solidifies its processes and acquires parasitic employees, it's well past middle age and is unlikely to do anything remarkable.

Re: Netflix: Culture of Fear

#17

Post by jey » Tue, Dec 21, 2010, 10:44 PM UTC

Does this glassdoor post apply to engineering/creative roles too? I don't think that destroying morale is productive, but I could at least understand what they were trying to do if this only applies to their warehouse/fulfillment/etc operations: if you don't stuff enough envelopes fast enough, or encode and annotate movies fast enough, or deal with customer service calls efficiently enough, it can make sense to replace you with someone who does.

Re: Netflix: Culture of Fear

#18

Post by ardit33 » Tue, Dec 21, 2010, 10:45 PM UTC

[deleted] wrote: post #10

brown9-2 wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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]

Sorry, but this comment is a bit of an ad hominem. I am an old member of the HN community, and pretty in tune with the startup community (been to one before my current job)

Lets just say that my day to day job has nothing to do with me posting this. At the end of the day I am just an engineer as most people in here.

Re: Netflix: Culture of Fear

#19

Post by hugh3 » Tue, Dec 21, 2010, 10:49 PM UTC

aresant wrote: post #3

Cynic 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 . . .

The cynic in me is cynical of your attempts to find grand conspiracies where "standard-ass disgruntled ex-employee" would suffice.

If I could short a company and then collapse its stock price by posting "wah this company sucks to work for" rants on glassdoor.com, I'd be very rich by now.

Re: Netflix: Culture of Fear

#20

Post by Umalu » Tue, Dec 21, 2010, 10:50 PM UTC

It is rare to see a truly performance-based employment system at a company because, as this post (and the comments) show, in order to execute well you have to continuously cull the low performers from the herd. This creates a culture of fear, especially in those likeliest to be culled. This is not unique to Netflix -- each year General Electric culls the bottom percentile of its management. The trick is to have performance criteria that are clearly understood so that the process is not arbitrary and capricious. Companies that do not cull low performers tend to attract low-performers who ultimately ensure that the company itself gets culled. It's a tough world out there.