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Netflix CEO explains why he pays technologists huge salaries

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Re: Netflix CEO explains why he pays technologists huge salaries

#81
post #60

I have no opinion on Disney, as it's not available in my country, but generally for me Netflix's latency from the play button is much better than youtube's or HBO Go's. HBO's app / web page is full of bugs that would be probably easy to fix (it gets stuck even after I turn my new Samsung TV off and on again, I need to force quit the app). At the same time while youtube offline video watching always works for me on my…

Wait, politics ruins stories, but you like House of Cards?

Not OP but I agree with them and your question is great.

Had I written what OP said, I would be clarifying that I mean "pushing personal politics via messaging in the show." HoC is remarkably a-political in that respect. They portray the power struggles and corruption fairly equally across the board regardless of party affiliation. More so than party though is simply they show how hollow the beliefs really are. It's about power and manipulation, not so much about policy. Of course such wide statements are nearly guaranteed to be wrong applied to some politicians, but as someone who has been all over the map politically throughout my life, they absolutely nail the main themes that I've noticed nearly everywhere.

Re: Netflix CEO explains why he pays technologists huge salaries

#82

I have no opinion on Disney, as it's not available in my country, but generally for me Netflix's latency from the play button is much better than youtube's or HBO Go's. HBO's app / web page is full of bugs that would be probably easy to fix (it gets stuck even after I turn my new Samsung TV off and on again, I need to force quit the app). At the same time while youtube offline video watching always works for me on my…

HBO Go in Latin America (which is the streaming service, akin to HBO Now in the US) is bad beyond belief. You’d think Netflix’s interface is super basic and obvious, until you need to use HBO’s pile of hot garbage.

Re: Netflix CEO explains why he pays technologists huge salaries

#83
post #77

I think 100x is hyperbol however you slice it, run away from anyone who tells you they are a 100x developer. 10x may be achievable... but I argue that it is at least partly due to the prevailing code-base. Every competent developer is a 10x developer on a green field project just like every competent developer is a 0.1x developer on a messy legacy spaghetti-code disaster of a project (Making the differential 100x I g…

If 100x is from 100x the throughput of a 0.1x developer, in reality some developers are <0 net contribution. If I'm a 10x and the baseline/worst is -5x, then I need to start saying I'm a -50x developer.

Re: Netflix CEO explains why he pays technologists huge salaries

#84

It's interesting that Netflix's strategy with content is almost the complete opposite. Pump out junk reality TV and test lots of shows for a season only to drop them once they don't put up acceptable numbers (i.e. get past the Initial Probationary Period)

I'm not really a watcher of Netflix, but could you give some examples of what you're talking about? I didn't even know that Netflix did reality TV for example. And everything I've ever read or heard about top-tier actors and directors who work with Netflix is that they really respect the art and let the artists work. I've only read a lot of stories of a lot of creative freedom and a long leash. So would be curious to hear the other side.

Re: Netflix CEO explains why he pays technologists huge salaries

#85

Exactly what is Netflix doing that requires such skilled programmers? As a consumer of its product I haven't noticed any significant groundbreaking changes to the platform in years. I find more people complaining about the software experience as years go by. What have these rockstar programmers done exactly? I can tell you it's for sure not the UX, or its recommendation engine, which are frankly both abysmal. I'm gue…

They lead in several areas such as video quality measurement (VMAF https://github.com/Netflix/vmaf), robustness (Chaos Monkey https://netflix.github.io/chaosmonkey/), video compression optimization (https://netflixtechblog.com/optimized-shot-based-encodes-for...) and probably more.

Re: Netflix CEO explains why he pays technologists huge salaries

#86

It's interesting that Netflix's strategy with content is almost the complete opposite. Pump out junk reality TV and test lots of shows for a season only to drop them once they don't put up acceptable numbers (i.e. get past the Initial Probationary Period)

Pretty much like old tv cable, but netflix is able to iterate faster lol

Re: Netflix CEO explains why he pays technologists huge salaries

#87

Exactly what is Netflix doing that requires such skilled programmers? As a consumer of its product I haven't noticed any significant groundbreaking changes to the platform in years. I find more people complaining about the software experience as years go by. What have these rockstar programmers done exactly? I can tell you it's for sure not the UX, or its recommendation engine, which are frankly both abysmal. I'm gue…

Right that's the theory and you can read about it in his various books. So instead of paying $260k per year for 10 engineers (2.6M), they might pay 451k for 3 "10x" engineers (1.3M). Costs are 50% lower overall, and if the engineers are even 2x more productive than the average you "break even". Smaller staff means you need fewer managers. I'm not saying this is actually how it works in real life (can a developer real…

Smaller teams mean less time spent communicating as well so higher productivity?

Re: Netflix CEO explains why he pays technologists huge salaries

#88
In my (little) experience, Rick like developers can cause lot of trouble if they simply decide to leave.

I do think, though, that you can spot them fairly easy. Even in college. I had a very skilled classmate that wrote code only he could understand, without any comments. Of course, we could eventually understand it, but it would cost us hours.

Some teachers actually refused to grade his exercises if he didn't start commenting his code. I still believe they did this to instill in him this habit, but I'm sure it was hugely helpful to them as well.

Re: Netflix CEO explains why he pays technologists huge salaries

#89
post #77

I think 100x is hyperbol however you slice it, run away from anyone who tells you they are a 100x developer. 10x may be achievable... but I argue that it is at least partly due to the prevailing code-base. Every competent developer is a 10x developer on a green field project just like every competent developer is a 0.1x developer on a messy legacy spaghetti-code disaster of a project (Making the differential 100x I g…

If 100x is from 100x the throughput of a 0.1x developer, in reality some developers are <0 net contribution. If I'm a 10x and the baseline/worst is -5x, then I need to start saying I'm a -50x developer.

Better than expected

Re: Netflix CEO explains why he pays technologists huge salaries

#90
post #32

In my opinion a huge role in the raise of IT people salary is their tendency to brag about their salary, one way or another. For better or for worse, this lead to discussions about salary, negotiating practices, and to people looking elsewhere. I sometimes speak with people that work in other fields and many of them have zero clue about these topics, whereas in most IT-related discussion boards (whether it's HN, redd…

I think there is a lot of truth to this. Big Law is a great example of this, where the nearly every firm operates in lockstep on the Craveth Scale[1]. If one firm increases salary, every other firm will for for same cycle.

https://www.biglawinvestor.com/biglaw-salary-scale/

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