I've interviewed at Netflix twice now and have been turned down both times. Both times, not for technical reasons, for cultural reasons.<p>The first time they told me a vague I didn't fit their "culture deck" and the second time they said I was a "brilliant jerk", despite being recruited to join by an old co-worker that liked working with me. The kinds of cultures are just excuses at the end of the day when someone on the team doesn't like you.<p>Both times, I wasn't impressed with their products and the teams building them or what they had been able to accomplish. I don't buy the fact they hire top of market, they just pay well. The reality is you get the people who are available, at the time you want to hire. Just because you pay a bunch of mediocre people well doesn't mean you're going to get a great product.<p>And it shows. Netflix hasn't been innovating recently. They are HBO, delivered over the Internet.
What a silly reason to be bearish on Netflix. If anything you should be bearish on Netflix because they're highly leveraged and if their growth slows down they're SOL.<p>As far as the specific "HR policy" outlined in the NYT article... I find it extremist. It seems to me that you would turn off certain kinds of people from ever applying to Netflix, people that might be highly skilled and would contribute but don't ascribe to such a dispassionate view of hiring and firing.
But didn't this experiment already happen during Netflix's self inflicted "death spiral", ala Qwikster? Did all of the top employees leave at that point?<p><a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/27/business/netflix-looks-back-on-its-near-death-spiral.html?_r=0" rel="nofollow">http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/27/business/netflix-looks-bac...</a>