Powerful: Building a Culture of Freedom and Responsibility

McCord was the architect of Netflix's famous culture document and the book is her expanded argument for what that document actually means. The core claim is that most corporate culture initiatives are backwards — they try to make people feel good about staying, while Netflix's approach makes it explicit that the company will hire, keep and let go of people based on their ability to do the job at its current stage. The argument is cold, specific, and unusual in how explicit it is about tradeoffs. For product direction the book is useful as the clearest articulation of a particular philosophy of organisational design, whether you agree with it or not. Pair with Horowitz for a different take on the same set of problems.