--- title: You wrote it to two groups. Nobody knew which one they were in. source: https://talkforimpact.com/writing/you-wrote-it-to-two-groups/index.md lastmod: 2026-10-28 --- # You wrote it to two groups. Nobody knew which one they were in. Netflix's layoff memo was a decent one, and its gaps were there to see before it went out: when people would know, why, and who to ask. {{< img src="img/writing/you-wrote-it-to-two-groups/01.jpg" alt="Ted and Greg billed as the stars on a Netflix opening screen, beside the red N" caption="" >}} On Wednesday 14 October everyone at Netflix, about 16,000 people, got the same email from their co-CEOs, Ted Sarandos and Greg Peters. Netflix would let go of roughly 6% of their colleagues, close to a thousand people, with the greatest impact in product, tech, legal and HR. Leaders, it said, "will be connecting with impacted employees soon". [The memo](https://www.screendaily.com/news/netflix-lays-off-6-of-workforce-in-streamers-biggest-cull/5221473.article) was signed "Ted and Greg", and it was written to two groups. One paragraph is for the people leaving: "If you are leaving, please know that we will support you". The next begins "For the rest of the team". On the day it landed, almost nobody reading it knew which of the two they were in. ## A decent memo Read the way its authors meant it, it does a lot right. It is short and it does not hide the number. It says the top priority is the people leaving, it promises them "as much clarity and context as possible", and it thanks them in words that sound meant: "What you've built, and the care you brought to Netflix, have made a lasting difference and we will always be grateful." Then it turns to everyone else: the mission, to entertain the world, a business that is "strong and growing", investment in high impact areas, and a close about meeting the moment together. ## Two groups, and nobody knows which It is written as a letter, one group after another, which works when each group gets its own part. Here everyone got the whole thing on the same morning, before the calls that would sort them. Someone in product reading the thanks and the promise of support has no way to tell if it is addressed to them, nor, a few lines later, whether "let's stay focused" and "meet the moment, together, like we always do" are. "The greatest impact" in four teams tells everyone outside them that they are affected too, just less, and nothing says by when they will know. The managers who will make the calls have to carry each half into a room, and some of them may not know yet which half is theirs. ## What else it leaves people without I ran the memo through Drift, which we use with leaders to read a message before it goes out and find what it leaves each group of readers without. I gave it only what the co-CEOs had before they pressed send: the text, who receives it, what was going on at Netflix that week, and what the memo says it is for. Nothing from the earnings call. Drift picked up the timing gap as well, but most of what it found was about the reason. "Our business is strong and growing" sits right next to 6% leaving, with "disciplined about where we prioritize our people and resources" and "focused choices" to bridge the two. Someone leaving could take it that the cut was about them. For someone staying it could mean that cuts come at any time, even in a good year. And people could fill in the reason themselves, from what they already knew: the share price at around $70 on the day, against about $122 a year earlier, and the chief content officer leaving the same week. "We know you have questions, too" is followed by the mission, the forecast and investing "aggressively in high impact areas", with nothing about who to ask. A manager across the table from someone in product has a strong business and "focused choices" to explain it with, which is very little to answer "why me". I don't know what Netflix's people took from the memo. Nobody has published it, and they may well have read it more generously. The gaps, though, were in the text before it went out. ## The reason arrived on the call Six days later, on the third quarter earnings call, an analyst asked about it. Dan Kurnos of StoneX: "I recognize that you may not want to get into specifics, but how should we think about the thinking behind it?" Peters took it. "I can provide some color here." Much of his answer is the memo again: the mission, "we do not take these decisions lightly", the members, partners, employees and investors. Two ideas are new. Netflix has grown fast in a market that keeps changing, and he doesn't find it unusual that "there are some areas that we built quickly and we ended up over-invested in, or there are opportunities to adjust how we are operating." And "sometimes the team needs a forcing function. The company needs a mandate that requires the whole organization to ask hard questions." That is the beginning of the reason the memo left out. Given to staff first, it could have come with someone there to take the next question. It arrived in an earnings call instead, where someone in product can now read it alone in a public transcript and take "over-invested" as a verdict on their own area, with nobody there to say which areas were meant. There are things a company can't say to its people before it says them to the market. But the memo itself says "we know you have questions, too", and then leaves the one about why unanswered. ## Built for the day it arrives When we write ours, the check is the same. Before it goes out, read it as each group will read it on the day, all of them at once, and see what each is left without: when they will know, why it is happening, who to ask, what their manager can say. Most of that is a few sentences. What takes longer is the question Drift would have asked Ted and Greg, and that any of us can put to ourselves before sending: is there a reason we can share for why these teams, and why now? ## Now run it on yours We built a way to do this before you send. Paste in the next announcement you are about to put out, and it shows you where your people could take it differently from what you mean → [run Drift](https://app.talkforimpact.com/try/drift?utm_source=website&utm_medium=article&utm_campaign=you-wrote-it-to-two-groups). ## Find out where you stand [Take a Snapshot](https://app.talkforimpact.com/try/snapshot?utm_source=website&utm_medium=article&utm_campaign=you-wrote-it-to-two-groups): six questions about your last high stakes moment in front of your people, to see where your message may be drifting.