Amid Uber's culture crisis, Netflix quietly updates its aggressive company values
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Amid Uber's culture crisis, Netflix quietly updates its aggressive company values

The DVD-by-mail company turned hyper-successful online streaming service got rid of “honesty” as a core value and added “inclusion.”

Netflix, the online streaming service known in Silicon Valley as the top employer for high achievers, just updated its enviable culture guidelines for the first time since 2009.  

With more than 16 million views and still growing, Netflix’s 124-slide culture presentation has for several years been the gold standard of codes of conduct for technology companies and startups. One of the fastest-growing companies in the Fortune 500, Netflix pulled in nearly $9 billion in revenue last year as it reinvents how its more than 100 million subscribers consume entertainment online. Netflix is also one of the most highly-sought after places to work and No. 12 on LinkedIn’s Top Companies List. The company's culture deck — known for such values as “seeking excellence” and “freedom and responsibility” — has served as a roadmap for many trying to replicate its growth and success to date.

Rather than create a new deck entirely, Netflix decided to summarize its updated values with 10 pages of straight text. A vast majority of its guidelines for employees remain the same, but there are some notable changes. Namely, Netflix has gotten rid of its most blunt company value of “honesty” and replaced it with “integrity.”

Netflix declined a request for comment. A spokesperson pointed to a blog post published today which states that the update was made to “clarify the many points on which people have had questions.”

The company’s previous culture deck communicated that top employees were “known for their candor and directness,” are “non-political when disagreeing with others” and “only say things to fellow employees they are willing to say to their face.” Netflix’s updated version of its values celebrates largely the same traits, but also outlines that employees must “treat people with respect independent of their status or disagreement with you.”

Netflix also added the value of “inclusion” into its culture guideline, something that was missing entirely from its 2009 version. Successful employees must “collaborate effectively with people of diverse backgrounds and cultures,” and “recognize we all have biases, and work to grow past them,” the new document states. 

The entertainment giant’s decision to soften some of its more cutthroat guidelines and policies comes in the wake of a very public culture crisis at Uber. A viral blog post written by a former Uber software engineer outlining sexual harassment and discrimination kicked off a several-month long investigation into Uber’s workplace practices. Among the chief recommendations coming out of the investigation was for Uber to get rid of several of its own aggressive company values, including “Always Be Hustlin’” and “Meritocracy and Toe Stepping.” Today, Uber’s troubles came to a disastrous climax with the announcement that founder Travis Kalanick is resigning as CEO.

Netflix’s preemptive move to update its own employee benchmarks prior to any HR disaster is a sign that tech companies are growing fearful of the “growth at any costs” culture that Uber is known for. This time last year, Chief Product Officer Neil Hunt said Netflix had a “very homogenous culture,” celebrating that it opened up the company to “practice alignment” and move quicker to its goals.

“The culture that we have celebrates candidness, honesty and being blunt. That is something that may work particularly well in the western U.S., but not elsewhere,” he told me last year. “We have gone through many transitions and there is always a new challenge, which has been exciting and interesting.”

In 2014, Netflix’s current Chief of Talent Tawni Cranz told LinkedIn that “publishing the deck mostly helps us tell the world who we are." With 3,850 employees and counting spread across several international countries, Netflix is adding people rapidly and perhaps learning from Uber that "who they are" must be more inclusive moving forward.

Marisa Wong Kwok contributed reporting to this piece.


Michael Spencer

A.I. Writer, researcher and curator - full-time Newsletter publication manager.

6y

Way to embed a relevant Slideshare Caroline. I don't personally think Netflix will keep growing well. The space will get too competitive as more big players turn to video. Users won't accept hikes to subscription fees which means Netflix will continue to burn cash. Amazon Prime Video originals catch up, it just becomes a better deal.

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Tomasz CEDRO

Independent ICT R&D (Remote Only)

6y

more and more leftist bullshit shows up on netflix.. honesty was replaced with integrity, sure.

Vinish Garg 🎗

Guardian of an Intent | Products. UX. Content Design. System Thinking. | BereavementX

6y
Seamus PHAN PhD (Яков Рафаэль)

Global C-suite Publicist & Strategist (Biochemist, Cybersecurity & Webdev pioneer, Author, Journalist) ☦✈

6y

There is an equal and opposite force to everything. There is no such thing as uninhibited growth, except in fiction.

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Bob Korzeniowski

Wild Card - draw me for a winning hand | Creative Problem Solver in Many Roles | Manual Software QA | Project Management | Business Analysis | Auditing | Accounting |

6y

Silicon valley is insular and out of touch. They believe there is not talent in the USA outside of Silicon Valley. Despite getting thousands of qualified applications to their jobs, they still are hiring H1Bs. Netflix, Inc. has filed 445 labor condition applications for H1B visa and 155 labor certifications for green card from fiscal year 2014 to 2016. Netflix was ranked 326 among all visa sponsors. Please note that 7 LCA for H1B Visa and 5 LC for green card have been denied or withdrawn during the same period. Netflix had filed 49 LCA and 17 LC from fiscal year 2001 to 2010. Click here to view filing history and proffered salaries. Inclusion? Not if one is over 35. There is huge age discrimination in Silicon Valley. Who cares that they "updated their slide deck" - they don't practice what they preach.

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