Best Business Books of 2020

How Netflix Exported Its Unusual Corporate Culture Across the Globe

An interview with Erin Meyer, co-author of ‘No Rules Rules,’ one of Marker’s ‘5 Best Business Books of the Year’

Kaushik Viswanath
Marker
Published in
13 min readDec 17, 2020

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A view of the Netflix logo on the exterior of its corporate office at Sunset Bronson Studios in Los Angeles.
Photo: AaronP/Bauer-Griffin/GC Images/Getty Images

In Marker’s analysis of the “best of 2020 business books” lists, the book that appeared on most lists from the business media and booksellers was No Rules Rules by Reed Hastings and Erin Meyer. Hastings, co-founder and co-CEO of Netflix, and Meyer, a professor at the business school INSEAD and author of The Culture Map, take turns narrating this book about how Netflix’s unique organizational culture evolved and how it works.

Built around maxims like “We are a team, not a family” and “Adequate performance gets a generous severance,” doing away with controls like vacation limits and expense approvals, and allowing all employees to have visibility into the company’s decision-making and finances, Netflix is, in many ways, a culture of extremes. This has led it to become one of the most effective workforces of any business, earning nine times more per employee than Disney.

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Marker
Marker

Published in Marker

Marker was a publication from Medium about the intersection of business, economics, and culture. Currently inactive and not taking submissions.

Kaushik Viswanath
Kaushik Viswanath

Written by Kaushik Viswanath

Previously: Creators & Marker @Medium and business books at Penguin Random House.