Netflix founder Reed Hastings explains why “family” is a bad metaphor for your startup

It used to be a classic metaphor for companies was the family. And you'd hire them, and you'd be like, we're a family. You know, we look after each other. And it's kind of baloney because, you know, you'll lay someone off in a way that you wouldn't. You know, your sister. And so, you know, it's like you want them to work for you like they were a family member for free and cheap, but you're not really prepared to treat them like a family member if you're honest. And so really, the professional relationship is like a sports team. And if you want to win a championship, you got to have incredible talent at every position. And so we say, look, we're like a professional sport. Not like your kid's soccer team, but no, like a professional sports team where we pay people well, we want them to win. And if you have one good bad game, you don't, like, lose your position. But ultimately, you're fighting for your position every year. And that's how we feel about it. And as long as we're honest about it, it's exciting because then you can play really sophisticated sports. So to do a blind pass in soccer and you just know the person's there, that's an art. You need great teammates that you are so well rehearsed. So to do that, you need great talent, and that's fun to be around.