Netflix used this as a title slide in its 125-page culture deck (which I recently reread).
The point was simple: Values aren’t what you claim. Values are reflected by who gets rewarded, promoted, or let go.
Four themes stood out to me:
✅ Culture is determined by who you hire, promote, and let go.
✅ Values are nice, but only those decisions reinforce them.
✅ The higher the focus on talent, the fewer rules a company requires.
✅ Collectively, that’s how entrepreneurial spirit survives scale.
When the people-focus fades, rules multiply, speed drops, and performance erodes. That’s when bureaucracy quietly replaces the entrepreneurial edge.
Takeaway: Choices reflect values more than anything written on a wall.
What do you think matters most in building a strong company culture?
Note: The original deck has since been replaced with the link available below. You can still find the original by searching “Netflix Culture Deck.” The first culture deck was written in 2009, but I couldn’t find a specific date for the footnote.