I'm finding that Netflix slide incredibly toxic, I'd never want to work for Netflix after reading that, no matter how skilled I was (they wouldn't want me anyway so nobody lost anything).
A recruiting process which discriminates against people who do not share their values will create a more secure sense of belonging among people who do -- even among underprivileged groups who would otherwise worry they do not really fit in.
Being a "pro sportsteam" on the other hand could be considered toxic. I know of no more cut throat legal business than sports. They are aggressivly signaling that they push KPI missers out.
Especially as there are no way of rating programmers as fairly as sportsmen.
Oh boy, I guess you don’t follow sports too closely. There is endless debate about rankings and player value and statistics.
But I am digressing.
I would love to work in an extremely competitive environment where slackers are punished.
Probably works well in NHL when you draft each year anyway and players do the same thing, like dentists.
My belief is that continuation is way more important than stars. Especially since recruiting (and not fireing) stars is a more or less random process anyway.
I imply unreasonable KPIs. Also, "right to work" has more in common with North Korean job safety (i.e. none) than say Spannish dito.
Reading the whole slide back to back, I am a bit disgusted. It is so smug. It is trying to be brutally honest, but it feels more like a cult pep-talk. The place like doubled it workforce in four years -- there is not way to be elite after that, even if they were before ...
Source: I come from a family with many addicts: two uncles, sister, brother, father, mother, grandfather, grandmother, cousin, great uncle, great aunt, three aunts, myself.
You find out your brother is pocketing part of the tips that are supposed to go to the back of the house.
Your son has been accused of sexual harassment by one of the waitresses.
What do you do? You're not going to "take it to HR". Any action you take here is going to be painful and is going to be challenged by other members of the family with an equal stake.
So I immediately recoil when I hear that I'm "family". Oh, you're going to look the other way when I get caught embezzling? We'll work something out when I get caught the second time? Didn't think so.
I don't find anything in that deck even remotely toxic. I find it almost jaw-droppingly honest!
Q: What's our working definition for "toxicity", specifically in the workplace?
I'm not sure they're nearly as orthogonal as one might think. My experiences of toxic workplaces involved a great deal of dishonest behaviour and I'm struggling to recall much if any honesty.
The reason I believe they're showing a work environment that would be toxic to me, is that the line "> adequate performance gets a generous severance package" does not stand alone, it's only part of it, they're giving me the general vibe that I should be constantly scared of being the next one to go, that my best will only be good enough until they find someone better..
I don't mind competition, there's always competition, but for me personally, I don't want fierce competition and high pressure to be part of my daily life, not outside recreational activities where the stakes are "get fired for doing an adequate job". I like to do more than is expected, but if what is expected is by definition more than what is needed, well, then I would have to do more than more than what is needed, I don't even know what that is, and I'd not want to constantly think about it and wear myself down from trying to achieve it.
Do (m)any companies attempt to drive sales by describing a product as "adequate"?
If your child sits a school test and the teacher describes the result as "adequate" would you be content?
In the workplace why wouldn't one want to always aim to do "good" work (which is very definitely one step above "adequate"). That doesn't mean amazing, outstanding or exceptional. It also doesn't imply pressure.
Why would anyone approach a keyboard if they weren't attempt to do something good?
Put another way, who gets out of bed aiming to be adequate? It's not like it even sounds like an aim, it sounds like it happens when you're not paying attention.
Lots of software I write just has to be "adequate" because the consequence of failure is minimal.
..asked a comment on Hacker News. Maybe 'good' would be better replaced with 'of high quality'. Maybe.
I thought them to be refreshing honest and clear (but have not yet read all slides).
I mean, it is also not attractive for me, because I would not put what is good for Netflix, over what is good for me - but otherwise I do not think a professional, internal competing sports team as a goal, is necessarily toxic.
That said, I personally feel like the mentality of "We will fire you if you aren't doing an _exceptional_ job" reads as a serious red flag. The implication here is that you should expect to work overtime and prioritize your job over all else. Even then, we might still fire you.
Of course I'd rather have a company being open and upfront about their unsustainable expectations, but I'd still prefer a company that values work/live balance of their employees. Would I say that Netflix's approach is toxic? Honestly, yes. But I do understand that this is just my own opinion.
I don't think that's right. The slide says:
"""
Hard Work — Not Relevant
We don't measure people by how many hours they work or how much they are in the office
[...]
Sustained B-level performance despite effort generates severance
Sustained A-level performance despite minimal effort is rewarded
"""
The message seems to be that you don't have to work hard. They seem to say they want lazy employees that have a good work life balance, because they finish work early.
Whether that's toxic or not, that's another question. But I don't think they value overtime at all.
But they do value putting the company over yourself (and your real family).
This can probably have very toxic effects, if you are having problems at home for example (sick kids or whatever) and all they allways care about, is your performance right now. So definitely not the place for me - as I would never put a company over my children (and it sounds like this is expected, even though they would likely never phrase it this way), but there are people without family, who have their work as top priority, so this might work out for them.
Granted, it's easier to hide this now when everyone's working from home.
> I’ve worked with people who could accomplish as much in two hours as I did in two days. Would it be “toxic” to work in such an environment?
No, why would that be toxic?
If I'm a manager and I notice someone is consistently underperforming (compared to his peers) - it does not matter if the rest of the team is working overtime, or is smarter, or more experienced - I don't care. I will ask the underperformer to step it up (again, don't care if this means working harder, or smarter), and if no improvement after a set period, I will be looking for a replacement. I'm paying top dollar for top performance.
This situation is normal and expected in professional sports. I don't remember hearing about "bad work/life balance", or "being pressured into doing overtime" in conversations about elite athletes' performance. Should we treat elite SWEs differently?
If they're open about expectations, assuming I'm at a point in my life where the trade-off makes sense, then if the compensation is good, that's fantastic. Nothing toxic about that. Not that different from some US manufacturing workers getting paid hourly wages, who make the same kind of trade-off all the time, making damn good money for 60 hours of peak performance a week. Sure, they might end up paying for it by ruining their bodies and drop dead from a heart attack or stroke within a year of retirement if they make it that long, but the risks are no secret.
> This situation is normal and expected in professional sports.
Let's google. The NFL seems topical around this time of year.
https://www.cnbc.com/2019/02/01/heres-what-the-average-nfl-p...
> The minimum annual salary for a rookie active roster player with a one-year contract is $480,000 . . . A player with three years’ experience would command a salary equal to at least $705,000, while players with seven to nine years on the field must be paid at least $915,000 . . . the average NFL salary was only about $2.7 million in 2017 . . . That’s less than three-quarters of the average $4 million earnings of a major league baseball player and less than half the typical wage of NBA players, who earn about $7.1 million on average.
I take everything back! Let's not treat SWEs any differently. For that kind of money, I will gladly put in 80 hours a week.
So yeah, it seems like we are in agreement :)
This isn't just about Netflix. The over-arching topic is company anti-values. The context has narrowed since then, first to Netflix, then to a specific slide about not measuring people by hours worked, and so on. But for the heck of it, some other quotes from said slide deck:
> We don't measure people by how many hours they work or how much they are in the office
> Actual company values are the behaviors and skills that are valued in fellow employees.
> Honesty Always
> Pro Sports Team Metaphor is Good, but Imperfect
> Internal "cutthroat" or "sink or swim" behavior is rare and not tolerated.
Again, if the expectation for a workplace like that were 60-80 hours a week, and that fact is clearly and openly communicated, fine.
But if you're making those claims while your top performers are the ones putting in undocumented additional hours and pressuring others to do the same, then I insist that is toxic behavior. Yes, even if they don't brag about work/life balance, though I'll consider it even worse if they do.
> So yeah, it seems like we are in agreement :)
All sarcasm aside, no, we're definitely not!
What if your peers actually worked 2 hours a day, and accomplished a lot more than you when you worked 8 hours a day? Would you feel pressured to put in more hours? Would this be toxic?
I believe the question is relevant because you seem to equate delivering results with working long hours, and while the two are usually correlated, it might not be the case when talking about star performers. For example, if my peers are all like Jeff Dean in terms of productivity, I would probably feel inadequate. You could even say I would feel pressured into doing more - not by my peers or even my manager - I'd be pressuring myself. This, to me, does not mean the environment is toxic. And that's why I believe the environment at Netflix is not toxic (assuming no other issues).
I'm trying to understand what you mean by "toxic", that's why I keep asking the question.
There are a handful of people that are capable of producing "Sustained A-level performance" and for them this workplace probably seems ideal.
Even for the engineers that could reach this bar, it's a very high standard to apply constantly. There's another slide that gives a slight allowance for temporary performance issues, but that lack of security is hard for most people.
Slide 34 to be exact says this about Loyalty. "People who have been stars for us, and hit a bad patch, get a near term pass because we think they are likely to become stars for us again."
"A bad patch" is pretty loosely defined, if you burn out achieving something, or are assigned a problem that is particularly difficult, how much leeway do you have?
I don't think it would be an environment I would particularly enjoy, but I think to the original post's point this is a pretty great set of values because it really clearly articulates the trade-offs. If you are a 10x engineer and hate working at $current_company because they care about hard work and that's frustrating because you work smart not hard and you are comfortable with your career being contingent on consistent high performance, then Netflix is the place for you. If you work hard but think this would burn you out, look somewhere else. And that's what values should do, declare the trade-offs and take a firm stance on which things you value.
I'm not excusing it, but I can see people putting off firing under-performers just to avoid feeling like shit.
Does Netflix actually have such a cutthroat culture? I have no idea.
The slides are a bit contradictory. They talk about only keeping top talent but then also mention a major/minor league analogy. So what's the culture, really?
I mean, as long as this is a individual decision, that would be allright with me - but pay does not negate toxic. It only makes it bearable.
But like stated above, I do not say that Netflix culture is toxic, as they are clear about what they expect: top performance above everything else. That this can lead to toxic situations, as we all are not only having good times - should be clear to anyone applying. But I suppose even at netflix they are aware of this and hopefully have plans to deal with temporary burn outs, other than instantly firing those underperformers.
No. Why would you think so?
My point is a company that offers top compensation can and should demand top performance.
And here I was thinking this whole thread was about that question ...
"My point is a company that offers top compensation can and should demand top performance. "
Anyway, sure they can. But no company can expect from me, to put the company over my self. A good company has those goals aligned. I get money - and they get performance. Win win. But I will not work to death for them, as then all my money would be worthless.
That is - no for-profit company can expect this from me. A non-profit on the other hand, that has truly utilitarian goals, that really benefit humanity - I might consider putting myself aside. But why should anyone sacrifice himself, so a company makes more money? That doesn't make sense to me. But of course it makes sense, that companies want their employes give everything to them.
Yes, I agree, they should not have said that. That should have been left implicit. When a certain pay threshold is crossed (e.g. triple the industry average), I would expect them to expect extra from me. This might mean working nights/weekends if that's necessary for me to be "top performer" compared to my peers. Netflix expects you to keep up with their performance standards. They don't care how you do it - by working overtime, or being brilliant and working 2 hours a day, it simply does not matter, just like in professional sports. If, as you said, you get money, they get performance, it's a win win. But if you get money, but they don't get the expected performance, you can't blame it on toxic culture. If your peers are delivering and you're not, then you're toxic, and you should probably look for an easier job with less pay.
Now, it is toxic if a mediocre organization tries to fire a particular good performer because they aren't exceptional, when clearly the rest of the organization also isn't exceptional. That is dishonest, delusional, etc.
Of course I am assuming those that use said mantra are refering to the touchy feely version of family and we are not going down the 'what does family mean anyway' rabbit hole, where rivalry even Fratricide and Parricide, they even have a word for killing a family member.
People distrust "we're a family" because it's an illusion, not because of the potential for an actual sort of "family" or friendship. But they may also come to distrust "we're not a family" once it becomes as cliche and they realize that every company they work for that makes such a claim will inevitably devolve into making the employee-employer relationship out to be more than it actually is or should be.
I disbelieve most corporate values because companies are run by humans, and humans are pretty bad at self evaluation. Well, that and I've had enough experience to tell me that explicitly stated corporate values usually mean very little in practice. Only you can unveil a company's values, though that's no easy task beyond some basic red/green flags.