Netflix fires 3 senior marketing execs for secretly complaining about their company’s top brass over Slack, report says

• Netflix fired three senior execs for criticizing company leadership, The Hollywood Reporter said.
• The execs had aired gripes on Slack about the VP of original films marketing, Jonathan Helfgot.
• Their criticism was also reportedly directed at Netflix CMO Bozoma Saint John.
• See more stories on Insider’s business page.

Netflix has fired three senior executives within its film marketing team for airing complaints via private Slack messages about company leadership, The Hollywood Reporter reported Thursday.

The executives, who accounted for around half of Netflix’s staff at that level according to the publication, had also criticized their direct boss, Jonathan Helfgot, the VP of original film marketing, THR reported, which said that while Helfgot himself was reluctant, he ultimately gave in to pressure from more senior leadership to fire the three employees.

Netflix did not immediately respond to a request for comment on this story.

Netflix is known for a unique company culture that it famously outlined publicly in a 127-slide deck in 2009, which stated that it valued “radical transparency” – a value that leads to intense feedback during its annual 360-degree reviews.

A Netflix insider told THR given the company’s emphasis on candor, it may have actually been the way in which the executives communicated their gripes – through Slack messages they believed to be private – rather than the substance, that got them fired.

The messages weren’t private however, an employee who discovered several months’ worth of the conversations reported them to Netflix, according to THR.

The executives’ gripes also targeted Netflix chief marketing officer Bozoma Saint John, according to THR. Saint John, a rising star in the company, has gained a reputation for her connections to political luminaries like the Obamas and fashion icons like Anna Wintour, and is known as unapologetically outspoken and a role model for women of color who have been notoriously underrepresented at the executive level of major companies.