[grantc]

The companies paying Kail know enough to never mention this to anyone else at Netflix. They know what they are doing. And this is why it is common in industry--it's commonly undetectable, and, sadly, that alone will influence many folks' moral compass heading.

One point that was mentioned that was interesting was...

> "When an inquiry from the Netflix CEO ensued, Kail falsely denied that he was formally working with Platfora."

This data point suggests that Kail was pushing underwhelming or otherwise odd-shaped vendor products frequently and/or persistently enough that people at Netflix suspected he was a shill for vendors. The fact that Reed Hastings is presumably calling Kail out for this means the bad smells were pretty powerful. Kail probably does not have final boss-level skills at reading the room.