Netflix has such a unique high-performance company culture. Example: The Keeper Test.

Full conversation

That’s one way to make a toxic culture sound cool. In 1:1s always ask if you are about to be let go. Constantly feel like you might get let go. Tbh for this reason I can’t bring myself to think of having full time employees and always only hire freelancers now. Because my management style is similarly high performance. However, for larger companies the point is that you don’t need to apply so much pressure on people, price your product correctly. Excellence is achieved from these kinds of organizations though. Apple, Tesla, etc. high performance dictatorships are what it takes to do great things. But I think there is a question about whether the human suffering cost is worth it all. Is my experience with the vision pro worth what I know some of my friends at apple had to go through. I’ve heard enough about the culture there. The answer is likely no when one is no longer detached from the people who are suffering. Everything can be criticized. High paid cushiony jobs at Google are golden handcuffs for brilliant minds that work on “nothing”. I disliked my time at meta. Arbitrary kpis and politics like nothing I have seen. Everyone is just being fake. And what is the product? A responsive app? Idk if it’s worth all that. Some people thrive in that environment though. Why live in NY among assholes unless you are one too. If this work culture was applied to the reforestation of africa, solving climate change, solving educatuon. Maybe. But it’s being applied to squeeze out more margin and take more market share in companies that just suck our time from us. There is something wrong with that.

With all due respect this sounds like a more hard core spin to performance reviews. But if this keepers test is taking place every week or so, then I’d imagine her workforce is likely shitting their pants. This idea that you can treat your employees like professional athletes sounds great on paper, but once the business stops printing money it’s tough to hide behind it. Ps: this is just my pedestrian take on this clip. I don’t know what their turnover rate and short/long term disability claims are actually like. But based on what I’ve seen at other high performance cultures, an approach such as this is not necessary to drive results.

🥴

If it's such high performance culture why is most of their content so low quality?

Feels ripe for abuse.

Very cool. I wonder if the keeper test is embraced both ways. Are direct reports held accountable to the teams they lead.

Soulless efficiency, nothing else. The best manager I had was thrilled for me when I announced that I'm leaving. They told me what they strive for is for anyone who leaves to take a bit of the company culture with them to their next gig. That is true company culture.

cringy and toxic. def not a keeper.