[makeitsuckless]

You realize your company has an HR policy that is illegal in most civilized countries, because it is considered unethical for an employer to treat employees that way?

The issue here is that some (many) people need more guidance, because it's not their company, and they have no idea what it considers "the right thing". Should you hire such people, you can't just dump them like thrash because you can't be bothered to manage them properly.

Netflix is going to get into a truckload of legal issues if it tries to scale this practice internationally in countries with decent employee protection laws, which is most of the Western world outside the US.

Netflix sounds to me like a Randian cult.

[brown9-2]

I'd be curious where this is illegal in.

I don't think they are saying "we have zero policies whatsoever", but exaggerating the level of trust. For instance I am sure that new parents are given a fixed amount of paid leave.

[e12e]

I don't think it is illegal anywhere. It might be illegal for Netflix to fire people over "violations" of such a "policy" -- but I don't really think that'll be an issue either. It's not a policy that lends itself to firing people because some manager didn't like them (which, incidentally is illegal many places anyway). But if someone were to actually "work against the company's best interested" repeatedly, that'd typically be a firing offence anyway. That'd be stuff like not actually doing work, stealing, sabotaging and/or leaking company secrets etc.

I think it sounds great to not have a lot of pretend-policy that does no good other than pretend to cover the ass of inept management.