Powerful ideas from top nonfiction
Try Blinkist to get the key ideas from 5,500+ bestselling nonfiction titles and podcasts. Listen or read in just 15 minutes.
Start your free trial
Blink 3 of 8 - The 5 AM Club
by Robin Sharma
Listen to the Intro
No Rules Rules summary
Reed Hastings and Erin Meyer
Netflix and the Culture of Reinvention
22 mins
Table of Contents
No Rules Rules
summarized in 6 key ideas
Audio & text in the Blinkist app
Key idea 1 of 6
Netflix has been successful because of its unique company culture.
It was the year 2000. Reed Hastings, co-founder of Netflix, was in Dallas, Texas. He was shaking in his boots as he waited to meet with the CEO of Blockbuster, a giant company worth $6 billion, which boasted 9,000 stores all over the world. It was 1,000 times the size of Netflix, Hastings’s scrappy young start-up.
Hastings and his partner made a pitch to the CEO – buy Netflix for $50 million and let them run Blockbuster’s website as an online video rental service. The CEO flatly refused.
This proved to be a mistake. Ten years later, Blockbuster filed for bankruptcy because it couldn’t keep up with Netflix, which by then had 167 million worldwide subscribers and was producing its own award-winning films and TV shows.
How was Netflix able to nimbly pivot, succeeding where the behemoth Blockbuster failed? That’s easy.
The key message here is: Netflix has been successful because of its unique company culture.
The Netflix culture values people, prioritizes innovation, and has few control mechanisms.
With this as a foundation, Netflix has built immense value, growing 300 times faster than the NASDAQ stock index over 17 years. What’s more, a 2018 survey rated it the top place to work in Silicon Valley.
Perhaps most impressively, it’s responded nimbly to four seismic industry shifts. Netflix started out as a DVD-by-mail subscription service, then transitioned to streaming. From there, Netflix began licensing original content produced by other studios, and finally, it began producing its own in-house movies and TV shows.
Hastings believes that all this stems from the fact that at Netflix, his employees enjoy more freedom than any other company he knows of. That freedom inspires them to make better decisions. It also makes it easier to hold them accountable.
But you can’t just set your employees free and expect your business to automatically do as well as Netflix. True freedom comes from careful planning. Three things are necessary to unlock the potential of radical employee freedom and the responsibility that comes with it. First, high talent density. Next, high levels of candor between employees and managers. And finally, the courage to remove controls which waste everyone’s time – and company money.
In these blinks, you’ll learn more about each of these three mechanisms. On the way, you’ll also hear Netflix’s start-up fairy-tale story, and how one plucky company became one of the most recognized words in the world.
Want to see all full key ideas from No Rules Rules?
Key ideas in No Rules Rules
More knowledge in less time
Read or listen
Get the key ideas from nonfiction bestsellers in minutes, not hours.
Find your next read
Get book lists curated by experts and personalized recommendations.
Shortcasts New
We’ve teamed up with podcast creators to bring you key insights from podcasts.
What is No Rules Rules about?
No Rules Rules (2020) sets out the principles of Netflix’s unique company culture, based on employee freedom and responsibility, and optimized for maximum innovation. In doing so, it charts the incredible journey of Netflix, a start-up fairytale.
Who should read No Rules Rules?
- Anyone who works at a start-up
- Fans of the film The Social Network
- Those who are wary of Silicon Valley’s increasing dominance
Categories with No Rules Rules
Books like No Rules Rules
People ❤️ Blinkist
Sven O.
It's highly addictive to get core insights on personally relevant topics without repetition or triviality. Added to that the apps ability to suggest kindred interests opens up a foundation of knowledge.
Thi Viet Quynh N.
Great app. Good selection of book summaries you can read or listen to while commuting. Instead of scrolling through your social media news feed, this is a much better way to spend your spare time in my opinion.
Jonathan A.
Life changing. The concept of being able to grasp a book's main point in such a short time truly opens multiple opportunities to grow every area of your life at a faster rate.
Renee D.
Great app. Addicting. Perfect for wait times, morning coffee, evening before bed. Extremely well written, thorough, easy to use.
People also liked
Start growing with Blinkist now
26 Million
Downloads on all platforms
4.7 Stars
Average ratings on iOS and Google Play
91%
Of Blinkist members create a better reading habit*
*Based on survey data from Blinkist customers