Netflix was not always a streaming company. It moved from mail-based delivery of movies to one of streaming videos online. In order to achieve the foundational paradigm that would deliver seamless video streaming. These ideas are still aspirational for many companies today, trying to catch up to this modern model of management:
- Culture of Innovation – ability to respond to opportunities as they presented themselves
- Data Analytics – this allows for comparing changes and determining if it works through real data (truth)
- Decentralized Decisions – the empowerment of employees to procure resources on-demand as needed
- Agile and Self-Service Deployment – the ability for developers to deploy but also be responsible for their code
This led to what was called a culture of “Freedom and Responsibility.” By empowering employees and holding them responsible, and through incredible innovations in cloud and deployment technologies, Netflix was able to achieve unheard-of responsiveness to customers. As a result, Netflix continues to be a market driver and the standard in movie streaming experiences.
What all of these ideas have at their core is an understanding of one core belief: Speed Wins!
When comparing the efficiency of managing the volume of material and delivery of content, or the velocity of delivering changes to those systems at scale – Speed always wins because at scale you can’t expect efficient, perfect solutions. Things will always break at scale and you’ll need to respond quickly to fix and correct those issues in your system. Therefore, all best efforts for perfect designs up-front and efficiency models in delivery lose, and only speed (for responsiveness to customers and infrastructure issues) can drive sustainability into the system.