How does the "only A players, adequate performance gets a big severance package" idea play out in reality? That seems like it would be a constant source of stress unless you were clearly in the top 10% even at Netflix.
It sounds far, far worse than it is. This was a really big fear of mine going into the company almost 4 years ago, and so far I've been fine. I think it is a common fear that new hires have.
Netflix is much faster to let people go (famous for no PIPs, etc). But I've never seen anybody shown the door with 0 warning.
That's a little relieving; if anything, making the policy sound more brutal than it really is probably sets better expectations than making the policy sound more lenient than it really is. For example, as far as I can tell, the PIP ceremony is just that, a ceremony. Not that nobody has ever survived a PIP without getting fired, but it's typically a mechanism to manage people out while minimizing the company's liability. It's probably an improvement to replace an expensive, bureaucratic mechanism that keeps disgruntled low performers around with a lump sum of cash that gets them out the door ASAP (assuming the "generous severance" tradeoff is accurate).
Also, every company talks a big game about setting a high bar and only wanting the best performers, so if you want to accurately convey the notion that you really do set a high bar and really do only want the best performers, you have to overstate the point to a degree that sounds brutal or even sociopathic.
