Netflix: A Creative Approach to Culture and Agility

By 2018, Netflix had been credited for revolutionizing how viewers consumed entertainment—shifting from ad-fueled linear network programming to a highly personalized, on-demand, all-you-can-consume, ad-free model. The company was riding a long wave of revenue and subscriber growth as it expanded internationally and into original production. From its earliest days, Netflix leadership had fostered a workplace characterized by such values as excellence, maturity, transparency, accountability, candor, and autonomy. The Culture Deck, later dubbed the Culture Memo, documented how Netflix’s culture had evolved and enabled the organization to repeatedly innovate, disrupt, and pivot. The case examines the company’s history and delves into ways leadership continues to nurture its unique culture through an emphasis on concepts such as “freedom and responsibility,” “context, not control,” and “highly aligned, loosely coupled.” The case allows students to assess CEO Reed Hastings’ view that the culture is capable of further scaling even as headcount surges and the company continues its expansion into new geographies and even more content production.