Netflix’s Cutthroat Work Culture a "Nightmare"

Megalith

Megalith

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A Wall Street Journal article on Netflix’s radical transparency among employees and firing traditions has sparked discussion on what it is like to work at the streaming giant, and most outlets suggest it must be a terrible place to be employed. Many of the anecdotes provided do raise eyebrows (e.g., firings happen with absolutely no warning, with the purported reason intricately detailed and emailed company-wide), but some argue there are just a lot of deadweights and softies out there.

“At a Netflix Inc. corporate retreat in July, Chief Executive Reed Hastings teared up as he addressed some 500 executives. Mr. Hastings had recently fired his chief communications officer for saying the ‘N-word’ in full form. The executive in question, Jonathan Friedland, ‘sunshined’ his misdeed—Netflix lingo for an apology or act of transparency in front of colleagues—in the hopes it would blow over. It didn’t.” [Friedland was fired.]
 
I'm sure it's very competitive....
But the traditional media would love nothing more than to assist in the demise of Netflix.
 
That’s the fun part of employment in most places. At-will employment, no just cause needs to be given to remove an employee.

Sounds like a normal job atmosphere just with added transparency wherein they let everyone know the “just cause”.
 
This reminds me of the radical candor guy from Silicon Valley. I'm guessing it's where they got the idea, since they use executives/employees as source material from various companies.
 
dandirk said:
People have not changed that much, there were always "deadweights" and yes they were everywhere "back when" too.

Just like every generation's music is horrible and a sign of the apocalypse. From my estimation 82.3% of all music is from the devil.
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I used to say that also.... but i do believe its actually getting worse now. of course most of the deadweight are the special snowflake group that cant be bothered to even do the job they're hired to do let alone not have a completely miserable attitude about it.
 
harbingerofdoom said:
I used to say that also.... but i do believe its actually getting worse now. of course most of the deadweight are the special snowflake group that cant be bothered to even do the job they're hired to do let alone not have a completely miserable attitude about it.
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The older generation always sees the younger that way. The entire "you must be a slave to your job" culture the US has is complete bullshit anyway. We should be finding ways for people to do their jobs in smarter, more efficient, ways instead of bemoaning when they don't want to be slaves to their bosses. As technology advances people shouldn't have to work harder or longer, it should get "easier" for them.
 
Derangel said:
The older generation always sees the younger that way. The entire "you must be a slave to your job" culture the US has is complete bullshit anyway. We should be finding ways for people to do their jobs in smarter, more efficient, ways instead of bemoaning when they don't want to be slaves to their bosses. As technology advances people shouldn't have to work harder or longer, it should get "easier" for them.
Click to expand...

They won’t be slaves to their bosses soon enough because they’ve been with the company 14 weeks and should be GM of <corporate buzzword> already but it’s this s**t company and their out of touch CEO that is too old and just doesn’t get how much smarter young people are...

They might even get so angry they’ll post to something other than Twitter about it because Twitter is for old alt-rights
 
Derangel said:
The older generation always sees the younger that way. The entire "you must be a slave to your job" culture the US has is complete bullshit anyway. We should be finding ways for people to do their jobs in smarter, more efficient, ways instead of bemoaning when they don't want to be slaves to their bosses. As technology advances people shouldn't have to work harder or longer, it should get "easier" for them.
Click to expand...

there is a difference between not wanting to be a slave to bosses and dropping Fbombs left and right in reference to the customers that PAY FOR YOUR DAMN JOB YOU JACKASSES. (not you personally, the people that im referring to).

and yes, i am a HUGE proponent for work smarter not harder, also a huge fan of reminding my employer that they are in fact renting my judgement, not buying my soul. and if thats all we were talking about, i wouldnt have said what i did... but sadly, its well beyond that and its more than just the one or two crap employees... its something that has been growing and getting worse and worse.

yes we should be finding ways to do things better, but there is a growing group of employees that feel we should all be blessed by their mere presence... my words to them are "pull your head out of your ass and get to work.... or get the hell out of my way.... i dont care which"
 
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masquap said:
They won’t be slaves to their bosses soon enough because they’ve been with the company 14 weeks and should be GM of <corporate buzzword> already but it’s this s**t company and their out of touch CEO that is too old and just doesn’t get how much smarter young people are...

They might even get so angry they’ll post to something other than Twitter about it because Twitter is for old alt-rights
Click to expand...

That attitude is not exclusive to the current younger generation. Prior to social media we just just had to bitch and moan to friends, family, co-workers, random people we ran into on the street, etc.
 
Good thing we have Jordan Peterson teaching that life is suffering and that your purpose is to find the heaviest cross you can bear and carry it to gain meaning in order to offset the tragic element of life. That should improve peoples work ethic!
 
harbingerofdoom said:
yes we should be finding ways to do things better, but there is a growing group of employees that feel we should all be blessed by their mere presence... my words to them are "pull your head out of your ass and get to work.... or get the hell out of my way.... i dont care which"
Click to expand...

I'm 34. I've met plenty of people older than me with the very same "the world should revolve around me and everyone should be honored by me even talking to them" attitude. Drives me nuts no matter who its from. I've also worked with several younger folks that are some of the hardest workers I've ever seen. I imagine it has less to do with their age or generation of birth and more to do with how they were raised.
 
When you have to ramp up fast, you will get a lot of phonies. The sad thing is most resumes are full of lies and the only way to find out if someone can cut it is to hire them and observe. At some point, if you want your company to survive, you have to prune the dead wood and hire some more seedlings and repeat the process. What is different today is a growing intolerance for mistakes. It used to be that if you screwed up, you were put in the virtual doghouse for some number of months or years until you were deemed to have served you penance, after which, you could resume your career, hopefully having learned from your mistakes. The last place I worked before retirement, the IT 'doghouse' was being put in charge of the phone system.
 
dandirk said:
People have not changed that much, there were always "deadweights" and yes they were everywhere "back when" too.

Just like every generation's music is horrible and a sign of the apocalypse. From my estimation 82.3% of all music is from the devil.
Click to expand...
Wrecked Em said:
They also pay like 2-3x higher than the competition though. Why wouldn't someone expect to work their ass of for it?

Apparently they pay so high, the other studios were considering trying to sue them for it.

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/whats-behind-netflixs-sky-high-employee-salaries-1150552
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I suspect that firing dead weight can sometimes have bad consequences. Consider ordering a list of employees by productivity. The slope is not linear as a very small number yields the majority of results -- it's likely logarithmic. Thin out personnel and improve efficiency by continually axing the bottom of said list, but also incur added risk. At some point losing a single employee could throw your company into a death spiral. e.g.

* Even the bottom of the list is holding up a significant portion of the work which high-yield employees may not be able to handle (burnout, straw) -- or worse, they are _above_ that work.
* It could be extremely difficult to cope with the sudden influx of work due to an unexpected loss of a high-yield employee.
* The next person fired may be good friends with the most productive echelon of employees and now they are miserable at work...

Managing personnel incurs a bit of calculus, sure, but don't let an obsession with efficiency burn it to the ground.
 
I guess working in poorer parts of Asia with 16hrs per day and low wages (like US$0.50 per hour) is still better?
 
If only minorities by title at IBM and Netapp that made fun of my heritage openly could of have recieved the same treatment.
 
Derangel said:
The entire "you must be a slave to your job" culture the US has is complete bullshit anyway. We should be finding ways for people to do their jobs in smarter, more efficient, ways instead of bemoaning when they don't want to be slaves to their bosses. As technology advances people shouldn't have to work harder or longer, it should get "easier" for them.
Click to expand...

The competition gets all the same advances. You have to run as fast as you can just to stay in the same place.
 
A friend of mine works for Netflix and recently got in the Producers Guild of America.

The Producers Mark – denoted by the letters p.g.a. following a producer’s screen credit – indicates that
the producer has met the Guild’s standard of being responsible for a major portion of the producing duties on that motion picture.
The Guild negotiated agreements with all major studios as well as most mid-size production and distribution
companies to utilize the Producers Mark on the credits of their films. Determinations as to which
producers are eligible to receive the Producers Mark are made by panels of experienced motion
picture producers who weigh accounts and testimony from a film’s producers, director(s), writer(s)
and department heads. The Producers Mark determination establishes which producers are eligible
for the PGA’s producing honors for motion pictures and is relied upon by, among others, the Academy
of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, and the British
Academy of Film and Television Arts in determining which producers will be deemed eligible for their
producing honors and awards.
Click to expand...
 
Dead Parrot said:
When you have to ramp up fast, you will get a lot of phonies. The sad thing is most resumes are full of lies and the only way to find out if someone can cut it is to hire them and observe.
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It's the American way.

Whenever you are asked if you can do a job, tell 'em, 'Certainly I can!' Then get busy and find out how to do it.

― Theodore Roosevelt
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bugleyman said:
Anyone wanna know the definition of "dead-weight" in corporate america? The other guy.
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For my company this usually translates as old people deemed to be making too much and aren't management. Oh your project is done, guess we'll have to let you go but we'll hire some fresh graduates that won't be useful in the near term.
 
Derangel said:
As technology advances people shouldn't have to work harder or longer, it should get "easier" for them.
Click to expand...

Jobs get easier when talent magnified by experience makes the job second nature and not a struggle. If a job is not getting easier it probably means that one does not have the talent for it or is lacking experience.
 
maxz01 said:
Good thing we have Jordan Peterson teaching that life is suffering and that your purpose is to find the heaviest cross you can bear and carry it to gain meaning in order to offset the tragic element of life. That should improve peoples work ethic!
Click to expand...

Well, it's a hell of a lot better than the whole "everyone is special and a winner, even if you didn't do anything and got throttled, and here is a participation award to prove it"
 
Corporate culture consists of
  1. Find ways to reduce worker load through efficiency gains
  2. Either trim the new glut of workers, or get them to do more work in the same time, now that they have more time to do shit
  3. GOTO 1

They have their cake and eat it too.

Welcome to capitalism.

Derangel said:
The older generation always sees the younger that way. The entire "you must be a slave to your job" culture the US has is complete bullshit anyway. We should be finding ways for people to do their jobs in smarter, more efficient, ways instead of bemoaning when they don't want to be slaves to their bosses. As technology advances people shouldn't have to work harder or longer, it should get "easier" for them.
Click to expand...
 
Derangel said:
The older generation always sees the younger that way. The entire "you must be a slave to your job" culture the US has is complete bullshit anyway. We should be finding ways for people to do their jobs in smarter, more efficient, ways instead of bemoaning when they don't want to be slaves to their bosses. As technology advances people shouldn't have to work harder or longer, it should get "easier" for them.
Click to expand...

You know this how exactly? My guess is that you are one of those that call anyone who expects you to own an alarm clock a fascist. I give the millennial generation grief, but blame their parents more which is my generation who I saw raising them with this horrible new "best friends" mindset. I have hired some outstanding millennials, however, who do not fit this mold and will do amazingly well in their career and in life in general. Sorry, but sometimes hard work is required and that is never going to go away no matter how many apps you have on your smartphone. Those that realize this will excel, those that don't will lay on couch and whine how they should be provided an income based on others actual hard work.
 
Hatriot said:
You know this how exactly? My guess is that you are one of those that call anyone who expects you to own an alarm clock a fascist. I give the millennial generation grief, but blame their parents more which is my generation who I saw raising them with this horrible new "best friends" mindset. I have hired some outstanding millennials, however, who do not fit this mold and will do amazingly well in their career and in life in general. Sorry, but sometimes hard work is required and that is never going to go away no matter how many apps you have on your smartphone. Those that realize this will excel, those that don't will lay on couch and whine how they should be provided an income based on others actual hard work.
Click to expand...

You know what they say about making assumptions don't you? I've worked my ass off most of my working life, working factory jobs and now being one of two people running a motel. I'm also looking at getting a second job because the first doesn't bring in enough money. I believe that you should work at your job, but you shouldn't have to be a wage slave in order to survive.
 
Since the sunshining didn't work, perhaps a little moonshine on the way out.
 
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