Proud to be part of an Authentically Good Company
Pros
As a veteran of the dotcom bubble and having worked for many companies, big & small, over the years, MuleSoft is the most Goldilocks like when it comes to having the right combination of people, product and culture. Our products take on the Big, Hard challenge of enterprise integration. We don’t help people take selfies sexting each other. We help hospitals get more accurate patient information, insurance companies process claims faster, governments run more efficiently. Silicon Valley startups are all full of smart people, but ours smart ones are genuinely nice. Culturally we still lean toward the no non-sense side of things and there is almost a zen-like avoidance to the artificial funkiness so common at other startups. Compared to other startups, we have more veterans of the industry, the Qui-Gon Jinn’s and Obi-Wan Kenobi’s who have been through the ups and downs and don’t get cowed by the challenges at hand easily. Couple tidbits worth noting: The true colour of the company was unfortunately illustrated through a tragedy. A brilliant young colleague of ours unfortunately passed away unexpectedly. The company really put in the effort in a humble, low-key, respectful and compassionate way to support his family as well as memorialize him. A very sad incident yet provides an authentic insight into the company culture. Ann Winblad’s VC firm was in the company’s seed round (as well as subsequent rounds) and Ms. Winblad has been on the board ever since. Ms. Winblad is a true pioneer and trail blazer in the VC and tech industry, and she is and has always been a great positive influence on the company.
Cons
Right now the company is like a rocket that has just lifted off from the launchpad, and it’s either the orbit or a fiery death. For some people who haven’t been through this before, the rattle and stress from trying to go full thrust at all time can be quite unnerving. And this has caused many to freak out and bail out. (For others, it’s merely time to tighten the seat belt and be epic. After all, being a shooting star is overrated.) As the company grow, there is increasingly more hierarchy and some of the newly hired managers are taking that hierarchy too seriously. On a related note, only a few years back majority of the company was technical enough to build a demo Mule app if needed in a pinch. Nowadays most of the people in the company are so non-technical they can’t connect themselves out of a paper bag. The company needs more technical people (engineers & developers) and very willing to hire them, but the supply really has gone dry (failure of American education?) so that puts a lot of stress on the existing technical folks.
