This article was translated from Japanese by Claude Code.
A book recommended by a colleague who said it seemed interesting. It took time for me to read it through (because I read slowly), but I gradually worked through it and finally finished.
What’s Roughly Covered#
The book covers how Netflix creates and maintains a culture of “freedom and responsibility” to drive innovation—what that culture is like, how it was built, and how it’s maintained—based on interviews with the CEO and current and former employees. It also includes suggestions like “your company might try doing these things first” if you want to foster such a culture. It’s not a simple story of “we give freedom and responsibility.” The entire book is written with frank and detailed episodes, providing lots of useful insights.
3 Highlights#
“They clearly state that ’not expressing disagreement when you have it is a betrayal of Netflix.’ Not voicing your opinion is equivalent to choosing not to contribute to the company.”
“One reason ‘freedom and responsibility’ works so well is that employees feel the weight of responsibility that comes with freedom and exert tremendous effort.”
“Most companies try hard to minimize employee turnover. It’s common sense that keeping existing employees is cheaper than finding and training new ones. But Reed isn’t worried about turnover. He believes that having the right person in every position is more important than the cost of finding a replacement.”
There are tons of highlights (probably too many), so I really feel like I couldn’t pick out which ones were “especially good.” But I thought adding too many wasn’t ideal either, so I went with three. There are lots of topics I wanted to touch on—the 4A discussion, changing jobs, 360-degree evaluations, etc.—but these are what resonated most with me right now.
Summary#
It doesn’t seem like it’s a culture you can create immediately, and there are honestly aspects that seem possible because of America (its employment system structure and culture, etc.), but there were also lots of approaches and content that seemed immediately applicable.
Beyond work-related content, what I found particularly interesting was near the end of the book—episodes about how Netflix became a global company, and how people from different cultural backgrounds more easily or less easily accepted Netflix’s culture. Rather than “interesting,” I felt the trial-and-error content was the most far removed from my daily life. It was also fun to read objectively, as there were passages about Japanese culture and episodes of employees hired in Japan.
If you’re interested, check it out. (※This is an affiliate link)