Interesting Look At Business Practices Less Common Than Many Claim. Let me be clear here: I am a 14+ year professional software developer in my "day job". I've worked for very small companies with barely 100 people and owned by a single person all the way to one of the largest companies on the planet (Fortune 50). And because I've had a 14 year career in this field as of 2021, that means this has all been done since NetFlix has been doing its thing.

And yet while I've heard that the Valley works a bit differently than the East Coast / Southern companies I've worked for, I'd never heard of several of the policies Hastings and Meyer discuss in this text. For this developer, most of them sound *phenomenal*, and I would *love* to work in environments that had them. Though there are others - "Adequate performance is given a generous severance" in particular - that would exacerbate issues I've already had at times in my career. Here, Hastings explains the reasons he adopted these policies at NetFlix and how they have grown over the company's existence. Meyer provides a degree of "outsider feedback" going around interviewing people at all levels from Hastings to the janitors and examining the claims Hastings makes.

Overall, this is a solid business book explaining these policies, why NetFlix chose them, why other businesses should - or should not, in certain situations - and how they can begin to be implemented in any company. More for Executives than heads down coders or low level team leads, though there are some interesting points even at those levels. It is absolutely something business leaders should read and ponder, and it is a good primer for those who may want to push for similar changes in their own companies. Very much recommended.

AT&T spent close to a $100 billion acquiring WarnerMedia for it's crown jewel, HBO. The acquisition was part desperation and part empire-building. Just 10 years ago, the head of Time Warner had written off Netflix when he said of Netflix "“It’s a little bit like, is the Albanian army going to take over the world? I don't think so".

If you really want to understand how this small "Albanian army" took down every media giant, this is the book for you. It comes from Netflix's founder. While portions of it obviously smack as PR, nevertheless it gives a clear view about the culture that is fostered within Netflix. There are excerpts from people who used to work for HBO and now work at Netflix who compare and contrast the cultures at these firms.

A must read for anyone interested in disruptive companies, importance of culture in an organization and also to understand how far behind and clueless the old media titans are.