I liked Erin Meyer take on negative constructive feedback. In general, the parts written by her ( professor at INSEAD Business School) are logical and reasonable.
Parts written by Reed Hastings (Netflix CEO) are just non-stop blabbering about how amazing and unique and wonderful Netflix is. His parts make me dislike him, Netflix and the book.
We have no vacation policies BUT accountants cannot take a vacation in January. Preferably only one person in the team can vacation at any time. You should act responsibly and not to take a vacation if its’ hurt the team project. Excuse me, when exactly can I take a vacation, if ever?
We don’t have an expense policy, BUT your manager may check your expenses, financial department check 10% of all expenses. The biggest issue is that business class flights are OK only on long-haul overnight flights, if an employee is expected to work the next day.
Constant claim, that we can remove all the official controls and use “do what is best for the company” rule only because we collected the brightest people, they can be trusted with such freedom. It’s just frankly insulting. Is there proof that high intelligence or high success people are better at life skills than just doing-good people?
Claims that engineers at Netflix have amazing life-balance because they are so talented, can do work so much better than an average engineer and have plenty of time off and slack because of it.
Imagine 5 talented engineers in the team, their average performance is constant. So their workload and expectation match their level of performance. With the keeper test (fire the weakest – people the manager would not miss) and a natural desire to get ahead, or at least not to fall behind, I am sure the environment can be pretty stressful if the described in the book is followed.
I would go as far as to say – if the described in the book is followed, it sounds like hell on earth, which people endure only for the money.
If it is not followed (and I believe it is the case) – just a corporation with a vast amount of bullshit about how lean, talented and agile the ageing behemoth is. And the salaries are still top of the top.