Ruslan Gafarov (hereinafter referred to as R): - Dim, introduce yourself - it is better if you do it so that you correctly present, because Netflix does not have, of course, managerial positions, engineering - the structure is completely flat. What is your role inside called?
Dmitry (hereinafter - D): - You already told me everything. Why tell something? Well, my name is Dmitry, I work at Netflix. About two years ... No, for more than two years. Yes, Netflix is ââthe largest streaming service in the world: a person pays a monthly subscription specifically and gets unlimited access to films and TV shows. I am an engineer, working on projects that allow me to build, in particular, the first screen when a person opens and sees a list of recommended films; you can go even further - see movies divided by genre. In general, I work on systems that are related to these things.
R: - Why did you choose Netflix?
D: - I like their approach to work: Netflix has two principles - freedom and responsibility - this is freedom and responsibility. The man here is free to choose what to do and how to do, that is, make decisions only if he is ready to take responsibility for these decisions.
Netflix culture in one phrase
D: - I went a little deeper and realized that I really like Netflix culture: I will decide what to do, but then you will ask me if something is wrong. That is, I prefer to speak from the point of view of a professional. Unfortunately, I didnât have any acquaintances here and friends who could be asked to referral to get your resume and give it to recruits here.
How Dmitry managed to get into this company, bypassing the thousandth competition for the vacancy
The easiest point is to go to the website of any company, go to the "Work" section and "go" there. This usually works poorly. I just know that some vacancies here receive 1.5â2 thousand responses, that is, getting through such a shaft of resume is very difficult. So I decided to write to recruiters, I found Netflix recruiters on LinkedIn and wrote directly to them simply: guys, I'm looking for work, I'm very interested, let's talk. And recruiters, by the way, answer, because they see that the person is interested, and it is easier for them to do their job when the person has already written to him and does not need to try to interest the person, to talk about the company.
And then I went to meet-ups - meetings that are often held here when Netflix presents some new technology of its own, they practically advertise the technology so that people can start using it, because, as I already previously said, we have a lot of âopen sourceâ in open source, that is, we give a lot of what we use internally to other people - they can freely use it: technology, projects, libraries and so on (âITâ). And I went to these meet-ups, I met people, speakers, and I simply approached the speaker after the meeting, saying: are you recruiting people? If you type - let me send you a resume - maybe I will come in handy for you?
And in the end, I donât know which way worked ... Seriously, I donât know, because I wrote to recruiters at one time, âloadedâ on the site through âWorkâ and I sent resumes to the speakers, that is, I met people and sent them my resume . In the end, the recruiter wrote to me: I have your resume - come for an interview. I came for an interview ... I still do not know how I got. I still donât know which of these channels worked. And Iâm a little ashamed if suddenly one of the speakers advised me; and I donât know about it, and I did not say thanks to him.
Itâs best to get into the top company ... Itâs best to use all the ways and just break through all the doors, windows, because you want to get here (not only at Netflix - at Google, Facebook, Amazon, and stuff, stuff) - there are a lot of them. Unfortunately, getting into Netflix from another country will be practically impossible. Netflix sponsors visas, but only for very, very unique people.
Truth or myth: Netflix has 35% of all US traffic and 15% of the world
R: - I heard a figure: they have 35% of traffic in America and 15% in the world. It's true?
D: - Yes, during peak periods it is.
R: - Imagine? Can you imagine? 35% of all traffic in the world ...
D: - Not in the world. IN THE USA.
R: - A, 35% of all the traffic that is generated is Netflix. And in the world there are such statistics - 15%. Can you imagine the volume? Itâs kind of strong.
From Ukraine to the innovative company of America. What for?
R: - How did you come up with such a thought - to work at Netflix, to go to America? So many people work outsourcing somewhere, they are sawing something, but it doesnât even occur to me to get to the place where everything innovative is born. How are you all that way, I donât know ... crazy, or vice versa? Well, that is: how did you decide to leave here from Ukraine and get a job here, tell us about this?
D: - I guess I got bored. I purposefully went to IT, I knew what I wanted to do, I was interested in computers when I was still in school. I was wondering how everything works, so I purposefully prepared to enter a particular faculty, a specific specialty, that is, it was my conscious decision. And when I worked, I realized that the ceiling of the level of projects in the first place in Ukraine is quite low, so I probably got bored, and I asked myself the question - where are the best projects in the world? Of course, in Silicon Valley, if we talk about IT. Well, this is Silicon Valley - everyone knows about it.
How it works: about the methodology and business processes in Netflix
D: - For example, we had a business trip to Los Angeles last week (an hour of flight by plane), and each person himself decided how to get there, because a lot of people were coming from here. And all the people themselves chose how to come when. Someone arrived in a day, someone came in two, someone arrived on a particular day. Netflix is ââready to let you do it all. Itâs just that you then upload your spending to the system, and Netflix returns the money because you took responsibility. But if you are asked why you went three days before and paid for the hotel there - why did you need this? If you are ready to answer this question (most likely no one will ask it) ... But if you yourself are ready to answer it, "Netflix" - okay. It happens that the teams themselves decide how they work: someone uses the same methodology, someone can use the "sprin", someone can not use it, but the teams themselves decide what they should be.
Those who work in the IT industry, it will be interesting for them to ask a question: what is your code review process? And we do not have a code review process! The team itself determines what process you have (roughly, a âfeatureâ) and how it gets into production. We have no process. That is, each team can decide for itself. For example, in my team there is no process.
Insight number 1
R: - Guys, Iâll just tell you this: thanks to Dima and the Netflix company, I also let go a lot of things and donât worry, because, indeed, sometimes itâs easier for me to fix something by giving apparently responsibility for them to commit an error; and then, if it is completed, I will correct it, but most importantly, people will get the experience of making this mistake, and in the future they will, as it were, take more responsibility to prevent such things from happening again. It really works. And Netflix also employs 3 thousand people today ...
D: - 5 thousand people. 3 thousand engineers.
About Netflix capitalization: FAANG term - why is it loved on Wall Street and what does it mean?
R: - Capitalization is now more than 100 billion. That is, 5 thousand people in total and more than one hundred thousand million capitalization of this company. 35% of traffic in America and 15% of traffic in the world are produced by this organization.
D: - If we talk about capitalization, there is an interesting term - FAANG. This is the term that went off Wall Street. It means: Facebook, Amazon, Apple, Netflix, and Google. It was the top 5 companies by growth, the top 5 favorites on Wall Street by growth of capitalization. And these five companies set as an example to all the others that: look, they have crazy growth. When you invested in these companies (as now, in principle) ... But now these companies have reached such a size that such a growth rate is no longer possible. But a few years ago, when you invested in these companies, you should almost certainly have earned money. And so it happened. That is, this term on Wall Street meant that they were top companies, top in terms of growth, in terms of growth stability, and everything else.
Insight number 2
R: - Look, guys, it is very important to understand (Iâll add) that these companies - just Dima said - they also rely on culture, they also shout a lot about how they work, they also pay a lot of attention to interact people within teams, help them find their destiny for each team member within the organization, show where they go in principle as an organization, what their mission is. They all have principles. If you want to make some kind of company that will also bargain on Wall Street, which will be Wall Street's favorite, which will be a blue chip, you need to bet not on any particular business model, not on some an administrative resource, specifically on culture, and culture will do the rest. It will make those people who can make the product that no one else can do, and you will simply be out of competition, like Netflix now.
Moving to the USA and getting a work visa
R: - You came here not alone, with Tanya. Tell me ... Youâre just complementary to each other! We, probably, also remember Alina and you, laughing that you are very similar to each other and you are real, like two pair boots, the real Bonnie and Clyde. Tell me how you met Tanya, what is the role of Tanya in your move here?
D: - The role of Tanya is probably the main role in terms of sustaining all this. Like the wife of the Decembrist! The move was actually very difficult for us. Now itâs quite difficult to get a work visa and having an âofferâ does not guarantee you anything, the number of work visas per year is limited - 65 thousand for the whole world, and plus another 20 thousand - for those who have an American Masters diploma, thatâs all 85 thousand. And applications in those years when I tried to get it, more than two hundred thousand came. There was a lottery, and for two years I had seven offers and seven innings, respectively, for a work visa. And I did not win.
Tatyana (hereinafter - T): When you are a student, for example, you have enough fun, it is interesting to live in a hostel with some strangers in the same room or in the same house. We are already such retired adults who are accustomed to comfort, and here we set ourselves the goal that we want to move here. It would be interesting for Dima, first of all, to develop professionally, to work in the top companies of the world, because he is a qualified, smart guy.
D: - We thought, thought and decided that hoping further on a work visa is a too low chance ... I can continue to stamp these âoffersâ ... Itâs just that the lottery runs once a year. Two years have passed, that is, a year or three has passed - you did not get there, you are waiting for the next year. And again, you are looking for new companies, because the company is not ready to wait for you all year to submit a second time, because now it needs to close the position, and not in two years. And therefore, this is a new process every year, it is quite difficult (I went through it two times in two years), and we decided that apparently we need to look for other ways, and in the end I went to university here. The University of San Jose, which understands that people who come from abroad are mostly not local, because it is located in Silicon Valley, and most of the students they have are people from other countries. And so they made the schedule in such a way that it was possible to learn from them how to find a job with the help of Internship.
âInternshipâ is getting practice: the company comes to the university and says - we are ready to take your students to work for us (for some small money, because students are powerless people and most often without experience). And they conclude an agreement between themselves, and the university made such a schedule that it was convenient to work. That is, I had classes on Mondays from 6 p.m. to 9 p.m. and on Saturday-Sunday from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. every day, and 5 days a week I went to work because I found myself an Internship.
R: - Many organizations are trying now ... to convey the principle of family within themselves, and for many it works well - it really works cool. Tell me how it works at Netflix.
D: - Netflix just says: we are not a family, we are a team of professionals gathered together. And there is a good comparison, there is generally a document that fully describes the culture of Netflix - Netflix Culture deck.
BONUS!
R: - Guys, if you are interested in accessing the Netflix Culture deck translated into Russian, pay attention: below is a link to our Telegram channel (http://bit.ly/2MSWc5w). Be sure to join the "Telegram" channel, enter in the search "Netflix Culture deck" and find the translated document there. And in this Telegram channel you will find a huge amount of various other materials - from Apple, from Google from Facebook, about venture, about how startups are launched. All this information, which is available to us here in English, we translate it not just into Russian, but we make it more understandable for those who read our Telegram channel. Therefore, if you are interested in gaining access to ready-made templates, instructions, check lists, then follow the link to our Telegram channel, enter it and receive information every day from the most technologically advanced places on Earth.
D: - And one of the principles described there, says that we are not a family, but we are a team of professionals gathered together. A good comparison may be, for example, with a basketball team. That is, some good players have gathered, and they know that their goal is to win the cup ... or something like that. I'm not very good at basketball, what kind of competition do they have? But every professional in this team - he knows that he is a professional playing Dream Team. He did not go out with his relatives to the park to play. They have a common goal, they know how to achieve it and how to go towards it.
R: - In short, there is such a cult here that if you came here, then you are a pro, you are a special forces; just, you know, with a knife in his teeth, with a gun, with an under-barrel grenade launcher, with a collimator sight. If you came here, you donât have to say what to do, how to do it, lure you, and so on. You have chosen to be here for yourself, which means you can and will do the best of what you can.
Student Life in the USA and Challenges in Silicon Valley
D: - When you get a student visa, the second person in the pair does not have permission to work, because the visa is F1. You can somehow dodge and at least get an Internship, there is such an opportunity, because the university did not take any of those who had a degree lower than a bachelor. That is, people didnât come there completely without education - accordingly, they could immediately find Internship. Immediately, almost everyone instantly found Internship, because the demand for people here is very high. That is, you can socialize normally.
This is hard: you work 5 days a week, then study 2 days, then work 5 days a week, study 2 days a week. I remember that I had 2.5 months of such, when 2.5 months without days off - I already died practically, fell from my feet ... But it doesnât matter. But at least you get tired physically, but you donât feel marginalized.
She also had an F2 visa, which forbids you anything at all. The only thing you can do on F2 is to go to some English courses, and she went a bit to English courses. But then we had such a situation that we needed to pay for tuition and we needed to spend on housing here, and it costs a lot here. In the Valley, living without money is very difficult, to put it mildly. That is, it is very expensive. And accordingly, she was forced to not work, not study and just stay at home, and this is quite difficult.
I am very grateful to her for this, that she did not say: âI donât want to, everything went to FIG, I had a business there in Ukraine, society needed me there, I didnât feel on the sidelines of my life, I was doing something , I developed there, I was free in my actions, no one restricted me, but here I came and I have to stay at home because I donât have money to go to study, because I (Dmitry about myself) pay for my university (and at Internship "You wonât earn much), and I canât work, I canât study, everything is new here; I am in a new country and I am sitting in four walls. "
And to sit in this mode for several years is quite difficult. Well, actually I donât know how I could stand it.
T: - We had a very interesting story: we all lived at one time in the same house with absolutely strangers, and as if student time was recalled right away. Why student time? Dima studied at the university - they lived with some people there. Immediately, such "student time", in principle, allowed somewhere to rejuvenate by the nth number of years; on the other hand, of course, it was a little complicated, because the new country, a little more difficult living conditions than we had at home. Well, it was still very interesting: every day was somehow new, interesting.
It was quite difficult for me, because for 2.5 years I didnât have the right to work at all, and the first time when Dima studied at the university, I didnât even have the opportunity to study fully, that is, âfull timeâ. But I could go to some language courses. I went to learn English for 4 months. Well, when we arrived here I kind of knew a little English, but somehow ... Why not? It helps to better integrate into the environment, improve, you have daily practice. And I decided to go to a language college - why not?
âGood performance gets a good severance payâ
D: - We believe that we should not motivate you with bonuses, because you should already be motivated. Here we have a good expression: a good performance gets a good severance pay. Because if a person works just fine, then he can be fired from here without any problems, but at the same time Netflix will pay him 4 monthly salaries. Because you worked well. Netflix believes that working well is not enough - you need to work better than good. And one of the managerâs tasks is to constantly answer the question: âHow much am I willing to spend to leave this person if he wants to leaveâ? And if the manager tells himself, specifically on this question, that "I am not at all ready to spend money," then this company is not needed. This means that this person should not be here. And the manager is constantly in the process of answering this question.
But at the same time, if the manager answers this question in a different way: âI am ready to spend the amount nâ, and the person receives ân minus somethingâ, minus 10%, for example, then the manager must go and increase his salary. Because the manager must ... Forgot the word in Russian.
R: - Monitor the salary market and increase ...
D: - Monitor the salary market and tune. âSet upâ salaries relative to the salary market.
R: - That is, you do not need to, roughly speaking, go to beg someone that you are more expensive and if you just do your tasks cool (returning to the fact that you are doing the best that you can), you will definitely notice even if you donât tell this to anyone, and theyâll certainly make you feel more comfortable in terms of money. When a person comes, as I see, they try to find his wick, set fire to this wick and step aside.
D: - We had three bedrooms there, but they were all tiny. We lived in every possible way in this house. One person in our country was sleeping in the kitchen near the refrigerator on an air mattress. We lived in every possible way, we rented a room, it turns out, and that was ... After you live in Kiev, in a nice apartment (we probably had an apartment about 90 meters there), and you come and rent a small room in the Manufactured House. And the âmanufactoriesâ, these houses, they usually stand in the very, very same areas - people below average live there.
T: - Suppose, in Ukraine, in Kiev, we had good living conditions, that is, some kind of social circle. But here the circle of friends was also cool: guys, that's all, we are on the same wavelength. Very interesting, but it was a little difficult when your space in the house is only your room is small - 2 by 2, very small; when you are quite limited - letâs say, in movement, because for some period I did not drive a car, I had no right; we had one car. That is, we bought some normal car for cash. Dima drove her. And since we are in America, the transport system is rather poorly developed here and we had to travel by public transport.
If, letâs say, everyone drives home on public transport, thereâs nothing wrong with that, then in the Valley the contingent is mostly quite specific, and I felt ... Well, letâs say Iâm going to college, and almost the entire bus is people who are mentally ill or they have very ... such ... "their" societies - it was scary. At some moments it was just scary. Dima never took a bus, and I had to ride for 3-4 months. And it was enough for me - very strange.
Netflix Manager How It Works
D: - The principle of the managerâs work is not a statement of the problem. The principle of the managerâs work is to show where the company and the team in particular are moving. First of all, where the company is moving, a division. Why are we going there and what do we want to achieve as a result? Then each engineer understands, most often, what he needs to do. If he does not understand - there is a principle that you need to find out, you need to find out. There is no one to give you a task. You can come, sit for a week - no one will come up to you and say: âWhat are you doing?â They will ask you: âWhat are you doing at all? How do you help the company? â That is, you yourself must understand where the company is moving and understand how to get there, how to achieve this.
You have complete freedom by the standards of IT companies, especially by the standards of IT companies from all over the world, almost unlimited. I can right now log in to take my computer without problems, log in to the Mac and fill up production, no problem - just turn it off; and I have such freedom. But at the same time, I have a responsibility: if I do this, then there will be questions to me: âHave you done this in the best interests of the companyâ? Because everyone should answer the question: âAm I acting in the best interests of the companyâ?
I spend money, as I said, on a trip - am I acting in the best interests of the company or not? I am specifically performing this task now, I am working on this system, I am making this system - am I acting in the best interests of the company? If you answer the question, âYes, I act in the best interests of the company,â then the company says, âOK, do it.â
âWe removed the processes and saved a lot of moneyâ
D: - Netflix even declares that after we removed the processes, we saved a lot of money. For example, the vacation process. We do not have any requirements for the amount of leave, how much you can take per year and when to take it and how. There is only a request that some teams believe that you should coordinate with the team, because someone should replace you, cover you and so on. But this is logical, because the process is going on, the process should go and your vacation should not affect the process. But at the same time there is no limited vacation - two weeks, three weeks, four weeks a year - this is not.
That is, each person can answer the question himself, can I now go on vacation; Does my project (how many people depend on me) allow me to go on vacation safely and, if I want to go, some people depend on me, then I will ask someone to cover me. That's all. That is, constant communication. Well, here itâs even trivial to remove people who control holidays, how many people take holidays, to remove all these mechanisms ... Well, let there be an electronic system, but someone should do it anyway - to control, to look after. By removing even this corny one process, they were already able (as far as I read, I did not see the numbers, there are articles on this topic) ... The company was able to save money. People did not uncontrollably use the vacation, because people here are responsible. People just don't get approve now. And those who gave approve, now they get paid for it. It makes no sense.
R: - And in fact, a lot of people become unnecessary: ââthose involved in approvals, signings, studies. There is no process - there are no people who are responsible for this. Just responsibility for each of these people who work in teams, and they can always be asked the question: "Have you acted in the best interests"? If you can answer yes, then Welcome, You are Welcome, please!
D: âAnd in the end I got a work visa at the startup where I was Internship - they submitted me, and they got a work visa for me.â I continued to work for them, just as I worked, that is, they had Internship, I went through practice, and then they got a working visa for me - I continued to work for them further. But at the same time, a spouse visa, when you have H1 - it is H4, also prohibits you from working and studying. And again, the man had to sit still without work. Further, in the end, when Netflix already submitted documents for a green card to me ... This is a rather long process, we have not received it yet, but at least when you apply for a green card, the USA gives a work permit to all applicants - finally. And after that, finally, Tanya was able to do her own business, now she is creating her own business.
So I think about the fact that she had to sit for almost three years just on the sidelines, because there was neither money, nor the opportunity to work, even corny to go to the store just for the sake of socialization, because in a new country. And you just have to sit at home - it's hard enough.
T: - Dima and I met more than ten years ago, it was very interesting. And we met online, on a dating site.
R: - Does it work yet? 10 years ago even?
T: - Well, 10 years ago it worked. Now I know, not from my own experience ...
R: - So she blabbed. She is bored while you are at work.
T: - Dima, get out of here.
T: - Well, nothing like that, met, sat, like liked. Here it is. 10 years now together.
R: - 10 years have passed. Do not regret?
T: - No, I never regretted it. Let's just say this, as my parents say (and my mother sometimes asks; they have lived together for more than 40 years): "Have you ever had a desire to get a divorce?" He says: âKill - yes, get a divorce - no!â We didnât have such a thing that Dima steers, and I follow. That is, we sit down, if someone has some kind of thought, we, as a team, sit down and discuss.
R: - Respect, cool. "Scrum" team. Who is your âproduct-onerâ, who is the âscrum masterâ?
T: - My roles are changing, because sometimes there are some ideas born in Dimaâs head, sometimes in my mind.
R: - One from above, then another from above, yes?
Insight # 3: Which Netflix Book to Read?
R: - Guys, look, I'm just in the process of reading a book called "The Strongest Netflix Rule of Operation" (something like that, look). This book was written by a girl who instilled this culture here. Netflix had a problem: they developed very quickly, a huge number of new capacities were needed, they changed the business model, by the way, they left the model that ... Do you know what they were doing from the beginning? They distributed DVDs by subscription and they had nothing to do with IT. They simply sent by mail. And by the way, Dima told us that in the 17th year they only sent out discs for rent for $ 50 million. And they, it turns out, were moving from this model with disks when they broadcast video streaming - streaming, broadcasting movies directly over the Internet.
And when they switched to this new model, they needed huge huge capacities, servers, a bunch of new people, new approaches. They simply would not have time to write all the processes - how to do it, how to do it. Just came a girl who said: âThat's it. We remove all processes completely and make the main principle - that every member of the Netflix team should do what he does in the best interests of the organization. â And if you are based on this principle, and we openly give each other feedback, then everything will be fine with us. And indeed, there is a rule that they agreed on inside (I donât know now, is it there, no) that periodically inside teams people face each other face to face (in many companies âperformance previewâ is done through some anonymous letters, and here - face to face) say, for example, P:I suggest that you continue to do this if you are doing something well; I suggest you stop doing this if, for example, you donât like something in your colleague; and this I suggest you start doing - for example, if a person sees that you still donât do something, then start doing it. Is there such a thing?
D: - We have a review, but now we use a system for review, because there are so many people. Three thousand engineers only. Itâs very difficult to give a review to everyone you want to give a review in person. But there is a system, and once a year each person can go in and write about any person. More precisely, not about any person, but to any person any message, directly review. There are just three of these points: continue, stop and start.
R: - So this culture is so preserved?
D:- Yes, she is. And this is an open review, that is, I see when someone writes something to me; if I wrote something to someone, then the person will see that I wrote something to him. And then we ... Specifically, in our team, we have a "meeting" (meeting) for about an hour on the topic of discussion of the review. If someone has questions why they wrote this to him, he can ask the person. If someone wants to say openly, he can say it too.
How does the Review system work in Netlfix? Continue / Stop / Start
For example, due to the difference in cultures (we have people from so many countries working in Netflix, dozens of countries, and everyone has a different culture), some people may look at the same events differently. For example, somewhere actively people like to express their opinion, somewhere less actively, somewhere it is considered normal if people start arguing during the rally, somewhere it is considered unacceptable. These are the differences - they often get feedback on the review - that's what I saw. Then, for example, involvement: someone thinks that he is less involved during the rallies, someone thinks that a person should be more involved and speak his mind more often. And a person, for example, does not know about it, because he sits carefully, listens, thinks, and then speaks. And someone believes that he should more actively express his opinion. Basically this is generally.
I have never seen reviews on a technical topic even once: you donât seem to be there using this technology, so take it, Iâve never seen anything like this. Maybe they donât write to me; maybe others write this. I dont know. But most often these are soft skills. That, in any case, I see and write to others.
What is Netflix's biggest success? How did she manage to move TV and become No. 1?
R:- What do you think is the main success of Netflix, what is its main difference from all other organizations? And most importantly, its essence - why is she like that? Why is she number one? Why is she really beating all previous business models today? This company has now moved television as a whole, that is, people have begun to watch TV less - they just download some movies from Netflix and watch them. This is really a very large company that has changed the business model. And this business model, you all need to understand, too, is being tried by many other companies - HBO, Disney is now entering this market, Apple is making its films, Amazon is making its films ... That is, they just really made a revolution, actually created a new niche. Now other large corporations are also trying to stop by.Youtube also makes some films of its own - they make a paid subscription and try to make some films. And Netflix gave birth to this business model. What is their main feature? Why are they so cool? How did it happen?Your opinion is interesting from the inside.
D: - My opinion is from the inside: that in time they saw a new niche, because there were a lot of DVD rentals, there were a lot of them. Netflix had a good recommendation system - it made it possible to become quite successful on DVD. But if they just continued the DVD, then most likely Netflix would no longer exist.
In time, we saw a new model (what the Internet can allow us to do) and in time we figured out how to implement all this and were flexible enough to keep up with the growth.
Insight number 4
R: - Guys, my main insight after talking with Dima (how he got into this company) is that Dima learned directly about the organizationâs culture itself, about which Netflix screams very loudly through its open source products, through Netflix Culture deck, which is openly posted on the Internet, through a book that describes how they interact here, that is, they tell how they interact. And the people to whom this resonates, they respond and really want to get here. And this is one of the main tricks - that we often in the CIS countries try to âchaseâ someone, specifically set the task for some HR or recruiter: who we need and so on.
Here we started this process a little and made the most interesting people come here because they heard or saw somewhere what exactly is their inner kitchen, what are their principles, where are they going, âwe are not a family, we are a team of professionals. â If this resonates, it is people like Dima who come. That is why this organization has been growing multiple times in recent times in capitalization.
How does Netflix retain user attention? What data does she know about you?
R:- You said that now you are working just on a service that helps to give out the necessary posters so that a person clicks. Because Netflix is ââactually one of the companies that analyzes all the data very deeply. She knows if you closed the film, specifically at what minute, specifically you (conditionally Vasya), at what minute do you most often close the video, and what moment happens (emotional, overwhelming, or vice versa - enthralling, or positive) . She thus analyzes each user and understands about the user, maybe even more than he understands about himself. Based on all the data that she collects, she offers you the following films to watch - accordingly, she makes your hobby for Netflix as maximum. Tell me about what you do? This is the future, then,what many companies want to understand today. How to keep a person, how to keep a user's attention?
D: - We have a lot going on on this topic of reasoning and ideas on how to keep a person. This is a rather complicated topic, it is a very complex topic - I canât talk about it in detail. Just the idea is to invite a person to watch what they most likely want to watch. So that he does not leave. And enormous resources are being spent on this, and a lot of work is being done. We are constantly testing new approaches, new ideas - the so-called âAB-testingâ, when a group of users shows a new idea, looks, and then it is considered whether, for example, some specific metric that we measure has increased. And depending on this, the idea is either reclined or taken into service. But the topic of recommendations is very complex, and I'm not sure that I can talk about all things.
Work and life planning
R: - Do you even watch Netflix yourself at home?
D: - Yes, of course I look.
R: - Okay, such a question for you: in five years, who are you anyway with Dima? Where are you, what are you doing in five years?
T: - Honestly, from a certain moment in my life I havenât been making any guesses. Because sometimes you make plans, you make plans for yourself, and life just comes and says this: âDude, you're ridiculous! Iâll tell you everything now! â I somehow try to make plans more for short distances.
R: - Which ones?
T:- Yes, probably a month, roughly speaking. I am never in the long run now ... How would I be a little careful with this. Because if it does not work out as you plan, life will make its own adjustments - it can be difficult for you to orient yourself. Of course, there are some dreams, desires ... But this is not a plan.
R: - Okay, thanks, Tan. It was nice to chat. I never asked you any extra questions?
T: - No.
R: - If it werenât for the camera, I would never have asked.
T: - Well, I donât know - maybe he would have asked if we had more communication, because ... Why not? If you communicate with a person, it is always interesting to learn about him a little more than what was before you. Especially if it's university friends, school friends. You know them from this age ...
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