Can Netflix Survive in the New World It Created?
One of the best professional pieces of advice I&#x27;ve ever read said something like &quot;Think you&#x27;re indispensable?   Do they know that?&quot;.  It made me aware that often the people making the hiring&#x2F;firing decisions aren&#x27;t actually aware of my day-to-day.  Rather, they know only the summary info.  Those kudos to fellow employees and in-house &quot;awards&quot; that I&#x27;d been ignoring?  Those are documentation that someone is worthwhile, and I had none.  If I were fired that day, I&#x27;d have had precious little &quot;proof&quot; that it was a mistake.  (and of course, the point isn&#x27;t to &quot;prove&quot; it&#x27;s a mistake, it&#x27;s to make sure they know not to in the first place).<p>Now, when I learned that advice I was working for virginia state govt, where I didn&#x27;t have technically competent and aware management like I do now in Seattle tech companies, but there is still an important kernel in the message:  We tend to judge our performance relative to the difficulty of the tasks in front of us.  Often, our performance will be judged my management using different criteria.  It&#x27;s a good idea to be aware of how you look from the outside.<p>...which is why I&#x27;d not want to work in the Netflix system.  It&#x27;s not whether I&#x27;m a good performer, it&#x27;s whether THEY THINK I&#x27;m a good performer.  Ideally these are related, and outside of a Netflix-like environment I might have confidence that my manager would let me know in advance of action if there was a discrepancy.  While I&#x27;m sure Netflix would claim the same, I doubt McCord was expecting the axe to fall...