The (Once) Great Culture Couldn't Save it from It's Core Flaws
Pros
Smart, passionate, fun team. Mission-oriented, high-quality product. Half-off subscription to the meal kit. Discount on wine. Convenient HQ location in Flatiron, Manhattan. Unlimited vacation policy, well lead-by-example by leadership (and so trickles down). Relaxed policies for arrival and departure time. Snacks + happy hour.
Cons
All of those pros may now be moot post-IPO and CEO swap. Leadership seemed to be making it up as they went along, substituting talking the most/loudest and working at all hours in place of effective strategy and leadership. Leadership seemed to act impulsively in terms of goal setting and new initiatives. Leadership was not good at delegating/granting autonomy. Often resulted in too-many-cooks frustration and miscommunication. Why did we do wine again? And how much research did you do before you decided on the smaller bottles? I've switched to Winc... Employee's professional growth (whether through training, promotion, stretch projects, etc) was not made a priority. Many careers stagnated, while those with the few great managers flourished. Suffered from a meetings-run-rampant syndrome that resulted in most leadership and middle management being forced to do their "actual work" outside office hours (which had a trickle down effect). HR was poorly run. Problems could take days of emailing to sort out. Intranet was developed seemingly without any thought to actual user needs. Cliquey. No 401k matching.
