Wow. I can literally feel my neck and shoulders bunching up just _reading_ this. If I wanted to live in a fear-based culture every day, I'd join the armed forces--at least that way I could shoot back.
The article really sensationalizes the culture deck for dramatic effect, IMHO. It's intimidating at first, but if you're good at your role and treat your colleagues with respect then (at least IME) you have nothing to worry about. The mood is collaborative, not confrontational – and I've never witnessed anyone being treated with anything but dignity and respect. Again, maybe different teams have their own "microclimates" – but that's been my experience.
So yeah, my two cents is that the article sensationalizes things and deliberately leaves context out of other things. I really wanted to keep my distance from this thread, but it makes me really sad to see how successful the WSJ was in getting people to buy in to the picture they set out to paint. I'll say one more thing (at the risk of sounding like a mouthpiece, which I'm not): Netflix has been hands-down the best workplace I've experienced in my career so far.
On the other hand, I've learned that I should view other "culture take-down" articles about tech companies with a degree of skepticism.
More recently, this person I know brought it up when interviewing at Netflix (not wanting to work in such a culture), and was reassured by the hiring manager that no, such things do not happen, that all feedback/criticism is 1:1 and never in a public setting.
Now, the article says
> At some team dinners and lunches there are rounds of “real-time 360,” executives say, where everyone goes around and gives feedback and criticism about others at the table.
What has your experience been?
It seems likely to me this is actually true (as independently corroborated by both my friend's friend, and this article), and the manager denied it to a potential future employee, which seems not a very nice thing to do.
And surely there's a selection bias at play: anyone who has a problem with such a culture (e.g. someone who doesn't want to be criticized in public as a matter of course, or someone who doesn't want to be fired one day unexpectedly) would leave, so by definition those who remain are those who are fine with such a culture and don't see it as a problem.
But either way, the goal is the same – not to target you or make you feel inadequate, but for you to discover things that you might not have realized were negatively impacting the team.
Group feedback meetings do exist, but I can't imagine that anyone would be penalized (even in thought) for choosing not to participate.
The way I see it, people will talk about their coworkers at any workplace. At most places it's behind their back; here we have respect enough for one another to give each other constructive feedback directly instead of gossiping. It makes a lot of sense to me, but I guess not everybody feels that way. If your manager doesn't make it clear that group feedback is optional, that would be a great piece of feedback for your manager!
So I think "criticized in public as a matter of course" is a mischaracterization. IME managers go to great lengths to ensure that people are treated respectfully and not made to feel pressured to participate in things they aren't comfortable with. And "fired one day unexpectedly" is certainly not the norm – I'm not aware of anyone who was let go without having been told weeks or months in advance about issues they needed to address. That's not to say it couldn't happen, because it could happen at any workplace. But it's not the norm.
Edit: Should also mention that the feedback cycle also includes positive feedback. It's not just a gripe fest. You identify things that your colleague is doing well/things you appreciate, and also things that they could improve.
However, it was highly encouraged for ICs to give each other feedback in person one-on-one, and for ICs to give managers feedback (both their own and others they had to work with).
I have read that the Army Rangers have something like this, they call it the "beef circle". Everyone says a person who has annoyed them, then the two of you wrestle in the centre of the circle, then you shake hands and the matter is considered closed. But that's obv inappropriate for a corporate environment.
I worried about a lot of things during my time in, but getting fired was not one of them.
Some get untold wealth even for failing and land perfectly after. The system does not seem to be coherent.
[1] https://www.counterpunch.org/2018/10/26/containing-ceo-pay/
Netflix is not even close to that in my experience, nor have I seen any evidence of that in the engineering teams around me.
Of course some teams may be different-and it certainly is different to how many companies operate-but the article seems to be unfairly characterizing the culture based on grumbling from a few disgruntled ex employees.