Netflix

We all have an incredible opportunity to change the way people discover entertainment. As our business has grown more complex, we've chosen to retain and hire only the best of the best.

This has allowed us to deal with complexity through intelligence instead of through process and layers of management. We stay nimble and trust talented individuals to understand the context of the business. We make good decisions based on that context. We minimize chaos and maximize productivity.

It's remarkably energizing to work with 'scary smart' people. It allows us to all reach a little farther because we know that if we stumble, there will be people right there with us to keep us from falling. Screwing up doesn't get you fired, as long as you clean it up, learn from it, and do it better the next time.

Everybody has the freedom to do their jobs how they think it is best done. With that freedom comes responsibility for delivering on those ideas.

It's a lot of work. A lot of difficult, painstaking work. There's enormous pressure to always be getting more done, and doing it faster and better. Fortunately, there's also a lot of really reasonable people that will understand if something doesn't get done because of shifting priorities or unforeseen circumstances. The pressure is there, but it's self-imposed and everyone shares it.

Push more information down, and push it down harder, because there's only so much that can be pulled from the bottom. It's impractical to still have Metrics out by the fountain, but seek and find an equivalent channel that captures that same immediacy and intimacy. Trading windows be damned; get the data into the hands of the people that need it to make decisions and plan their work.