No Rules Rules: Netflix and the Culture of Reinvention

Penguin Press, September 2020  •  Erin Meyer – Reed Hastings

Review and personal recommendation by
Leitner György (SEED Faculty Member)

It was really an uplifting experience to read this book, I liked its out-of-box and bold approach to organizational taboos like expense reports and holiday.

In today’s extremely complex business environment, simplifying or even abandoning on certain rules and on strict processes may unleash innovation and increase employee engagement.

Reed Hastings created a very successful organizational culture in Netflix, which promotes flexibility, employee freedom and innovation instead of error prevention and rule adherence.

About the authors

Erin Meyer is the author of The Culture Map: Breaking Through the Invisible Boundaries of Global Business and co-author with Reed Hastings of No Rules Rules: Netflix and the Culture of Reinvention. She is also a professor at INSEAD, one of the world’s leading international business schools. Her work has appeared in Harvard Business Review, The New York Times, and Forbes.com. In 2021, Erin was selected – for the third time – by the Thinkers50 as one of the fifty most influential business thinkers in the world.

Reed Hastings is an American billionaire businessman. He is the co-founder, and executive chairman of Netflix. Hastings founded his first company in 1991, Pure Software which produced products to troubleshoot software. In 1997, Hastings and former Pure Software employee Marc Randolph co-founded Netflix, starting as a DVD-by-mail rental service and spawned a slew of award-winning original television series, made available over 100 million hours of content, and redefined what it means to watch and create TV. He is an active educational philanthropist and devoted a great part of his life to speak about educational issues, remarkably charter schools.