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The Knowledge Project · 3 min · Jun 10, 2025

Netflix separated entertainment from workplace conduct

Reed Hastings recounts how employee protests over a Chappelle special exposed a conflict between content and workplace values. Netflix amended its culture memo to clarify the distinction.

Reed Hastings

Reed Hastings is cofounder and former co-CEO of Netflix.

Co-founded Netflix and led it as CEO, then became majority owner and chair of Powder Mountain.

  • Shane Parrish, Host · Founder, Farnam Street

    Former intelligence agency employee; wrote the bestseller Clear Thinking.

About this segment

Reed Hastings recounts how employee protests over a Chappelle special exposed a conflict between content and workplace values. Netflix amended its culture memo to clarify the distinction.

From “Reed Hastings: How Netflix Built a Culture That Fires Good People”, Jun 10, 2025. Watch the full episode

“And we were creating a hostile work environment, which got them to protest internally.”
Reed Hastingsat 32:33 · The Knowledge Project32:33

Takeaways

  1. Employees felt the special undercut Netflix’s inclusive workplace.
  2. Netflix distinguished entertainment from workplace behavior.
  3. Clarifying expectations helped most employees move forward.

In this episode

Full episode
  1. 1:01:36Hastings says his weak sales judgment held Pure Software backPro pick 3:24

  2. 31:12Netflix separated entertainment from workplace conduct3:00

  3. 21:56Creative work needs variation, not manufacturing-style consistency2:33Up next

Transcript

Transcribed by machine (Whisper) from the episode’s audio, so a word may be off here and there.

  1. 31:24

    stimulating entertainment or not? The other show that I want to talk about is the Dave Chappelle caused a lot of controversy. How is that handled internally inside Netflix and how do you see your role in terms of what you air or don't air sure um you know back in 2018 2019 uh let's see we probably did our first chapelle special in like 2015 or 14 um so we had a great relationship with dave um and uh had done a number of his stand-ups and they were super popular some of our most popular stand-up shows.

  2. 32:03

    On the same hand, we were trying to be very inclusive and to have many people be able to thrive at Netflix's employees, including our transgender employees. And so the tension became, we said to our trans employees and their allies, hey, we're very trans friendly. If you're fantastic at your job, you know, again, it's great. And we're an inclusive place of work. And then some of them felt that in doing the Dave Chappelle show, which had some trans jokes, which I don't believe that Dave is anti-trans, but he definitely takes on some of the issues, that they were being undercut as employees.

  3. 32:45

    And we were creating a hostile work environment, which got them to protest internally. So that was the storm in maybe 2019. And it was good for us to realize that we were not resolving this conflict between customer entertainment and employee values. So, for example, in many of our shows, people have guns and blow people up and shoot people. And yet we don't want a workplace that's filled like that.

  4. 33:14

    And so we realized entertainment is an escape where various things get said and done that are not endorsing that as workplace behaviors. But we hadn't really clarified that. And so we sat down and we did an amendment to the culture memo and tried to really explain that entertainment is not always going to be stuff that you love or that you emulate or is admirable. There's lots of stuff in entertainment that's not admirable.

  5. 33:43

    And if you don't want to be in the entertainment business, that's fine. But if you do, this is a core part of entertainment. And then because we clarified all those expectations, you know, a few people left, but for the most part, everyone understood that makes sense. That's the rules. And we move forward together.