Netflix: Culture of Fear • Hacker News Board

Re: Netflix: Culture of Fear

#21

Post by philwelch » Tue, Dec 21, 2010, 10:52 PM UTC

lukev wrote: post #16

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 m…

It feels like you didn't critically read the review, and are just trying to impose your own interpretation on top of it.

Processes and lack of agility come into place in a mature company as risk-aversion. If the company is scared to fuck up, they introduce processes to prevent fuckups, even though those processes also dampen remarkable innovations.

Judging from the Glassdoor review, Netflix's firing strategy has the same effect--individual employees don't want to fuck up, so individual employees adopt a risk-averse cover-your-ass strategy, which also happens to dampen remarkable innovations. A culture like that has the same lack of agility and infestation from parasitic lifers, they just happen to add heaps of politics, stress, and unhappiness on top of it.

Re: Netflix: Culture of Fear

#22

Post by anthonyb » Tue, Dec 21, 2010, 10:53 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]

If that were the case, then working in any sort of technical field disqualifies you from commenting on any company working on anything technically related.

Re: Netflix: Culture of Fear

#23

Post by bloggergirl » Tue, Dec 21, 2010, 10:57 PM UTC

I've read exactly the same thing about Netflix hundreds of times on Glassdoor ------ almost every review says the same thing: fear for your job. My partner was offered a job there and decided against it after reading some of those reviews.

Not cool for any company --- especially a supposedly cool tech co --- to fire people as their employees say they do. When you read the details of these Glassdoor posts, you'll see just how rough some Netflix employees have it.

Re: Netflix: Culture of Fear

#24

Post by radioactive21 » Tue, Dec 21, 2010, 10:58 PM UTC

I've actually heard both good and bad about Netflix, but the the negative experience told was not as bad as stated in this post.

Maybe it's more or less the unit that you're with at Netflix?

Re: Netflix: Culture of Fear

#25

Post by [deleted] » Tue, Dec 21, 2010, 10:59 PM UTC

weaksauce wrote: post #15

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.

[deleted]

Re: Netflix: Culture of Fear

#26

Post by AndrewWarner » Tue, Dec 21, 2010, 11:00 PM UTC

If anyone at Netflix wants to do a Mixergy interview about how this works, even anonymously, contact me.

If this is really how things are there, I want to understand why it works.

Re: Netflix: Culture of Fear

#27

Post by BlazingFrog » Tue, Dec 21, 2010, 11:01 PM UTC

I don't know if the culture at Netflix is to blame but I've been noticing more and more how poorly designed their consumer-facing interfaces were. The UI "feel" on the web site strikes me as aged where there's so much that could be done to make me want spend the extra $15/month to upgrade my membership. I won't even mention the iPhone/iPad apps that are nothing more than a very weak implementation of an HTML iFrame.

Re: Netflix: Culture of Fear

#28

Post by d2viant » Tue, Dec 21, 2010, 11:07 PM UTC

ardit33 wrote: post #18

[deleted] wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[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.

Then perhaps I'm missing something. Clarify for me, were you ever an employee there? The reason I ask is because it's on a website for employees to review their own company -- which is how most people interpret those reviews. Moreover, the review says it's from a Netflix employee -- specifically a Netflix Manager. I guess it's fine if you have an opinion and want to post it, but if none of the above is true, why not be honest in your review that it isn't based on experience?

Re: Netflix: Culture of Fear

#29

Post by ben1040 » Tue, Dec 21, 2010, 11:09 PM UTC

From this post, it sounds like they only took the stick from the Jack Welch approach (firing the bottom 10%) and not the carrot (rewarding the top 20% for doing well and coaching the middle 70% to improve).

Re: Netflix: Culture of Fear

#30

Post by c2 » Tue, Dec 21, 2010, 11:12 PM UTC

Any company culture is going to have it's controversies. Personally I think too many companies hang on to ineffectual employees for too long.

I read the Netflix slide deck and didn't see anything I didn't immediately agree with. I would not hold their culture against them when looking for a job there.

The one thing I thought was a bit off was "you should ask your manager if they would fight for you to stay". IMO - if the employee is having a performance issue, the manager should bring it up not the employee.