Awful

After reading THAT WILL NEVER WORK which is by the first CEO of Netflix and who it all started I had really high hopes for this book and it was a massive let down.
Lets start with holidays or vacation to our American friends. Oh how we laughed when it is said that Netflix dont have a policy and employees can take what they want. Then we are told that 54% of Americans dont take their full vacation entitlement. But then we can only deduce that Netflix staff take even less as they are subtly pressured to take very little at all as Netflix only have the very best staff and the rest are asked to leave with ' generous severance packages'.
But are they? There is a whole section on a Netflix representative in India that does really poorly and has feedback to him that whilst in India he is really not sociable by continually looking at his watch watch when out for dinner with major clients. He takes the feedback well but if Netflix only have the very best staff how is this person allowed to keep his job in what is a major client interface role.
The whole we only have the best people thing reminded me of Jack Walsh and the General Electric debacle of each year firing the bottom 10% of people. Its not liberating and its not fair as the CEO is not in the firing block each year.
Besides as an investor Ive long felt that Netlix is the worlds largest Ponzi scheme. More and more revenue has been achieved especailly with the lockdown, but the actual profit is really really low ( and dont start about the lack of corp tax in the UK). Netflix will say that this because they need to build up a really large own studio work to protect them from the studios, but even Amazon was able to show profit from AWS and later from retail sales. Netflix is not showing this direction and 90% of the content is tosh even if they are getting some awards.
I feel that Erin Meyer sold her soul to the devil in this book as only a cursory glance to employee feedback from Netflix shows it is below average for a large tech company and its industry as a whole and Im not just speaking about only looking at Glass Door.
So in summary. Im not impressed and I didnt learn anything from this book. That will never work was brilliant in the initial story telling and I understand more now why the first CEO left. If you like the work practices of Sports Direct, Amazon you will like this. And I do mean work practices, which this book preaches. If you want a great book on the start and success of Amazon read the everything store.

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10 people found this helpful

Too many self-pleasing comments

Too often ‘the audience all read my book’ and ‘person x complemented me on my book’, this info doesn’t add to the content of this book.

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5 people found this helpful

Very mixed

While the core idea of creating a culture of freedom and responsibility really does work, this book is delivered rather arrogantly. Chapters on working with different nationalities are basically how to make them more American, rather than actually understanding and partnering with them.

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2 people found this helpful

Bloated

This book is a bloated and drawn out version of Powerful. Avoid this and check out Powerful by Patty McCord instead.

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2 people found this helpful

One for Blinkist

Like so many of these types of books there are some good insights but the anecdotes are on the pithy side and the key-aways could be summarised in a lot less than +7h.

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1 person found this helpful

Egotistical BS

To say I hated this book is an understatement. It reads like CEO polishing his ego. The ideas put forward are all found in other books and most have been tried in other companies. As someone who has worked in Tech Internationals, I can see and agree with some of the criticisms levelled at them, but the options put forward against these bad practices are similar in that the put the company first, employees are just tools to get used and replaced. To suggest that people are only useful when they are considered Top Talent and that they understand that they will be pushed to leave as soon as they are no longer so is barbaric. Everyone has a yearly 'Keeper' review with their manager and they all understand that when performance dips you go, no PIPS , just paid off to go with a healthy severance (4 months pay). A company that claims that they are booming because they have a policy of only high talent density compared to others are just waiting for their competitors to take those people to somewhere that puts employees before shareholders.

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1 person found this helpful

Excellent Read/Listen

though provoking concepts. Love it. It gave many insights and different ways at looking at organizing and organizations.

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1 person found this helpful

Refreshing view on how to organize a company.

So many interesting ideas in here. Netflix sounds just like the kind of place I would want to work. I liked also the fact they shared both the positive and negative experiences of their approach.

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Okay story but too long to deliver a one message

The book could be way shorter to deliver the same message. I am not impressed by the story nor the depth of the story.

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Freedom & Responsibility needs few rules

The approach taken by Netflix is amazing - it proves that a little freedom to innovate and responsibility as an individual can go a long way. Highly recommend reading this story of leadership evolution.

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