A Forbes business article by Dorothy Pommerantz discussed Netflix, Inc. (NASDAQ:NFLX)’s culture of innovation, which helped the company to be nominated for as many as 31 Emmys, up from 14 last year, as well as landing the position as the 30th World’s Most Innovative Company on the Forbes annual list.
Pommerantz noted that while all companies use “innovation”, “responsibility” and “freedom” when talking about corporate culture, to lots it is no more than a word, as behind the curtain, it’s business as usual. Netflix, Inc. (NASDAQ:NFLX) however, puts a lot of muscle behind the words, she wrote.
She backs up her statement by saying that Netflix, Inc. (NASDAQ:NFLX)’s CEO Reed Hastings and former Head of Talent Patty McCord provided together a 129-slide presentation on the culture they were building at Netflix, Inc. (NASDAQ:NFLX). They updated it in 2011 and it has become a touchstone in Silicon Valley. In the presentation, generous severance package and rewards with more responsibility and great pay are promised, irrespective of the amount of work hours. Ideas are welcomed, and employees who have them are expected to put groups together to discuss them and get input from different departments.
Forbes’ World’s Most Innovative Companies annual list gives the company a 47.15% innovation premium, which indicates how much investors are valuing stock above the value of its existing business.
Tawni Cranz, the current Chief Talent Officer at Netflix, Inc. (NASDAQ:NFLX) says that the company is giving its employees freedom to try things and the responsibility to make those ideas work and sees it as a major factor in some of the company’s best innovations. The company states the problems it is trying to solve, and then lets its employees to solve them in their own way. Some of the innovations that came up this way include a section for kids, full seasons of new shows released at the same time and engineering improvements.
“We think about getting out of the way of great storytelling. We give [our show creators] a lot of freedom from the beginning and that helps them.” Cranz Tawni was quoted as saying.
During this year, Netflix, Inc. (NASDAQ:NFLX) has been nominated for as many as 31 Emmys, up from 14 last year, in its only second year that it is eligible to compete for an Emmy, which is more than Fox, Showtime or even prestigious AMC received. The company won 3 Emmys last year, and there is a real chance it can achieve even better results when the award show airs on Monday night. Pommerantz concluded by saying that if Netflix, Inc. (NASDAQ:NFLX) does walk away with some major Emmy on Monday night, the old guard studios may start offering creative talent more freedom and responsibility as well.
Carl Icahn‘s Icahn Capital LP owns slightly over 1.75 million shares of the company as at the end of the second quarter.
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