This philosophy strikes me as cruel. Not everything is your fault, sometimes life is just hard and work, especially for anonymous giga-corp, is not all there is.
A professional sports person (like a soccer or basketball star) would not be able to give this same excuse, so why would it not be the same in an engineering setting? Netflix wants their workplace to be like pro-sports, where elites complete for the best outcome and be rewarded like so.
If you choose to apply for employment at netflix, this is what you're signing up for. There are other positions in other companies, if such an environment is not conducive to your own lifestyle - noone is forcing this onto you.
The natural condition of humanity is cruel, and society and civilization hasn't proceeded to the stage where such cruelty don't exist. But right now, there's still at least choice and options for those who don't want to compete this way (with the associated decrease in salary).
It has in Europe.
In tech orgs, a system (potentially composed of dozens of service) can often outgrow their team, especially when there's high attrition and turnover (perhaps because you view each individual software engineer as a highly expendable/fungible "pro sports player").
Seems like a breeding ground for entropy, and compositions of systems built on lost history, chaos, and confusion.
This situation is pretty common professional sports, actually. For example, Russell Westbrook's salary is higher than either Lebron James or Antonio Davis, and the highest-paid player on the Dallas Mavericks has been out for two months (including all of the playoffs). They have a strong union with guaranteed contracts, though.
A professional sport star, certainly at "dream team" level, would be compensated far better than any alternative employment they may have. After just a few years at that level, they would have earned such vast amounts that financially they can retire, and any further employment in their role is optional. It's not a big deal if they lose it.
Netflix doesn't pay engineers much above their alternatives. They compete for the best talent with the other top employers, and pay about on par or slightly better, which doesn't compensate the engineer for the very transitory nature of their employment.
Netflix model is inferior for full-time employees, and they're not paying anywhere near enough to make it worthwhile. They're relying on hype rhetoric to convince naive engineers that they are "star athletes", just like all the startups that used to scam engineers into believing they are "rock stars" and will definitely earn millions upon exit, while in reality underpaying and overworking them.
I'm not saying these contracts are "for life", but there are plenty of athletes who either a) get injured and are unable to play or b) take a significant period of time to deliver on their initial promise. Nature might be cruel, but sports teams are often quite fair & accommodating...
But of course it is not comparable. While Netflix pays very well (have many friends there), it's still nothing compared to a pro-sport star who is making double digit millions per year.
Obviously not the case this year.
It's the concept, and culture that are analogous. And netflix do pay above average of the FAANG amounts.
So we're supposed to just accept the "dream team athlete" analogy even though it falls massively short when it comes to a crucial factor: compensation?
In other words, Netflix gets to expect "star athlete" performance, and quickly fire those who fail to meet it, but doesn't have to pay anywhere near "star athlete" compensation.
Not to mention that in reality, "star athletes" are given plenty of time to grow to their potential, and recover when their performance drops, while Netflix made it into an ideology to immediately fire the employee in that exact situation.
It's a rotten deal for the engineers, sugarcoated with inappropriate and wildly inaccurate "dream team" glamor rhetoric.
> And netflix do pay above average of the FAANG amounts.
They pay about as well or a bit better for the same level of talent. "FAANG average" is meaningless, because you're averaging FAANGs who pay poorly (Amazon) to FAANGs who pay very well (Meta).
But the "dream team" doesn't last forever. The metaphor is meant to reinforce that. If you could play for a season with Michael Jordan, Barkley, Ewing, and the other amazing players from the actual 1992 Dream Team -- wouldn't you do it? And if you got cut the next season because there was someone even better than you -- would you regret being on that team? It would probably be a great experience, even if it only lasted a while. This is what the "dream team" idea is about.
It's clearly not for everybody, not for every company, and not for every situation. Netflix's culture is all about excellence, and the "dream team" and "keeper test" ideas work well there. I saw it play out first hand.
Jordan is famous but bloody lonely. His essentially a degen gambler. The biggest tool you could imagine.
But hey, he plays BBall well!
To all us on the outside, all i see is wasted talent, locked up, for the money and the prestiege. Who are so smart, they cant even build a profitable product!
I know for a fact from a first-person connection that this is not true. Get sick and you're out.
It is extremely cruel. I have a friend who, while working at Netflix, had a major health problem and was coldly fired for not performing. As if anyone could perform at 110% (required at Netflix) from a hospital bed.