Since launching in 1998 as an online DVD rental service, Netflix has had to reinvent itself over and over again. Today, it captures the imaginations of hundreds of millions of viewers in over 190 countries. In No Rules Rules: Netflix and the Culture of Reinvention, Netflix co-founder Reed Hastings and management culture expert Erin Meyer reveal the unorthodox culture behind one of the world’s most innovative pioneers in the entertainment industry.

From the beginning, Hastings established counterintuitive and radical management principles, rejecting the conventional wisdom under which other companies operate to instead build a culture focused on freedom and responsibility. When Hastings and his team first devised these principles—from valuing people over process to emphasizing innovation over efficiency—the implications were unknown and untested, but they have led to unprecedented flexibility, speed, and boldness and allowed Netflix to adapt and innovate as the needs of its members and the world have transformed.

Drawing on hundreds of interviews with current and past Netflix employees from around the globe plus never-before-told stories of trial and error from Hastings’s own career, No Rules Rules dives deep into the controversial ideologies at the heart of the Netflix psyche, which have generated results that are the envy of the business world. In conversation with Sheila Johnson, co-founder of Black Entertainment Television (BET), CEO of Salamander Hotels & Resorts, and founder and chair of the Middleburg Film Festival.

Funding has been provided to Sixth & I from HumanitiesDC and the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) as part of the 2020 Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security (CARES) Act of 2020. Any views, findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed by Sixth & I do not necessarily represent those of the National Endowment for the Humanities.