A total fear of failure permeates the ranks. Netflix basically gives you a warning on your first mistake, and then fires you after your second mistake. This is why the annual turnover rate is well over 20%. Since there is an entirely new set of employees every few years, nobody knows what process to follow, and everything is chaotic. HR solves this by saying "there is no process for anything! Make it up as you go along!" Sure, if I fired all the employees every few years I'd stay away from process too.
The key problem is that with all the firings most employees spend the day simply trying to find cover. The ass covering at Netflix is legendary. Nobody wants to innovate. Nobody wants to reach outside their comfort zone. Netflix has created a culture of fear, and the way in which they manage terminations reinforces the culture of fear (they immediately demonize the terminated employee, and try to make the termination serve as a lesson to others).
The culture of fear is so ingrained in Netflix that many managers only have one tool for managing their directs, and that is to threaten to fire them. There simply is no other process for managing poor performance (remember, there is no process - they will admit this to you if you ask).
And finally, the last thing you should be warned about is their "high performance" culture. Their justification for all the firings is that the fired employees weren't high performers. But since there is no process, no record-keeping, there is no objective measurement of performance. So "high performers" end up being the employees that get along with the boss and keep a low profile. "High performers" at Netflix are not employees that take risks, interact with outside groups, or produce a high volume of work.
Netflix loves to talk about high performance but they have the lowest standard for high performance that I've ever seen. They are completely happy to manage with fear, however. If you put those two insane concepts together you end up with a rather hysterical environment.
