I heard in NPR today that Netflix fires people that are average and only keeps those that are exceptional. Does any one have any experience working in such a company? When I heard about netflix, it seemed like life would be very stressful if you always have to worry about getting fired. But on the plus side, you get to learn a lot and work with exceptional people, which is a great way to learn. ANy experiences or opinions?
https://www.reddit.com/r/cscareerquestions/comments/3fvss3/r...
A number of my boss's reports had landed in the achieves category for all of 2014, but nonetheless received a communication from HR this past April that they were in the bottom 5% of the company for 2014 and at risk for termination if their performance did not improve. This surprised my boss and the reports.
Obviously if you're in the bottom 5% you're well below average. The question is how you can consistently be ranked in the middle category yet nonetheless be in the bottom 5%. That would seem to make the quarterly ratings a rather pointless exercise for communicating to employees what their ongoing performance is.
A young law-hopeful will face insane competition to get the relevant work experience and eventually get on a vacation scheme (2% success rate) [1]. Here they will do 2-4 weeks work with the firm they want to apply for.
Next, they need to apply again to receive a full training contract at that firm. Competition for these is even tougher (~0.5-1%).
Now, as part of the graduate intake (training contract) this person will be one ~100. Here are where well educated, nervous, fresh-faced young staff become the firm’s best workers - it's basically a two-year job interview. At the end of the two years, around 70 will be hired by the firm as new lawyers. From there another 20 will parachute[2] out per year. Of my brother's 35-person intake at a magic circle firm only two remain seven years on; many are in completely different fields. Around one person per intake will make it to the top - by this point they are the 1% of the 1% of the 1%. The entire business is structured to concentrate wealth in the hands of as few people as possible, with ludicrous hourly rates that junior staff never see, rigid seniority levels and the illusion of prestige.
Source: Brother at mid-sized magic circle firm + my own 3 months' subjective experience at two top-tier law firms before I decided to jump ship (I'm biased!).
[1] http://allaboutlaw.co.uk/law-careers/vacation-scheme/vacatio....
[2] A popular term in the field referring to the ease in which a lawyer working at a prestigious firm can move in to something less prestigious and a whole-lot more rewarding somewhere else. I met people applying for top firms with the sole intention of doing this.
http://www.lawfirmstats.com/firms/Willkie-Farr-Gallagher/all...
Newly hired attorneys make US 160k, while those 8 years in typically make US 280k.
There's a little bit of movement if you've changed firms, but there's a good chance if you work for a big law firm you're in this ballpark.
A partner's comp is structured differently.
https://youtu.be/DkGMY63FF3Q?t=10s
Deciding that you only want the best people is easy. Is there really a business out there who decides they want terrible staff? Determining who those people are is extremely difficult. Even if you are successful in identifying the best people, can you keep them? Whenever I find exceptional people, it takes more than 'not firing' them to keep them.
More realistically. Policies like these aren't designed with any idea of identifying or retaining talent. Instead they are usually a means to affect work culture. Like grading on a curve. It makes everyone work harder.
http://brucefwebster.com/2008/04/11/the-wetware-crisis-the-d...
I think the NetFlix strategy is partly a response to this.
People pretend there is a 10x difference between programmers. I assure you that is way too low. The difference is actually Infinite, because contributions can be negative (I've seen a bad programmer set back a project by 6 months). Even worse, a programmer can create a toxic atmosphere, causing good programmers to leave.
I like the NetFlix strategy. Some people are just a hell of a lot more productive than other people. (Example: http://bellard.org/ )
Exactly. There's also the case when someone is highly productive but only for themselves. They create all their own tools, their own environments, their own platforms, they follow their own homemade software development practices, use their own testing tools, and none of it integrates with the rest of the world. But, because one person made everything, that single person is super productive (as long as they never step outside their own platform). They don't need documentation because they made everything from the ground up and their systems reflect their personal brain state.
Then you have to ask, even though one person is 10x, does it really help if nobody else can integrate with their work? Then every request, feature, bug fix is a bottle neck of 1 person no matter how much outside help you give them.
Your link also relates a lot to social platform evaporation: http://blog.bumblebeelabs.com/social-software-sundays-2-the-... — all the good people leave because too many mediocre people become a burden. Now you're left with a platform for ants.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_Pattison
... used to have a policy in effect in his car dealerships that the worst producing salesman would be fired every month.
For instance, this is remarked upon in this National Post article:
http://www.nationalpost.com/story.html?id=fb5f68f1-5946-4b46...
(search for word "salesman"). I think, no conditions were applied. Worst just meant not as many sales or as much revenue as the second worst salesman.
I told you just three days ago that if you wouldn't or couldn't stop doing this, I would ban your account [1]. This comes after more warnings, reminders, cajolings, and please-dont's than anyone has received in the history of HN by a long shot. It's painfully evident that you won't or can't stop, and it's time we applied the rules equally.
1. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9994684
Edit: the parent comment was killed by user flags. We didn't delete it or moderate it.