Good Place to work - Manager Affle Employee Review

None that I can think of

I was a senior Senior Sales Executive at Jampp and initially enjoyed a positive work environment (pre acquisition). Initially, after Affle acquired us, things seemed okay—they stayed out of our way as long as the numbers were good. But everything dramatically changed after the tech industry crisis in late 2022. Out of nowhere, they fired our founders without any explanation and replaced them with their own people - CRO Anuj Kumar and CTO Charles Yong. These new leaders have no clue about technology sales. They genuinely think that revenue can be increased by just “spending more time with clients,” which shows their total lack of understanding. After the founders were gone, they started promising bonuses to keep people from leaving, clearly terrified of a mass exodus. Empty promises - only to be followed by layoffs of some of the very people promised bonuses. Much of this directly involved their CEO Anuj Khanna - he’s obsessed with micromanaging every little detail, creating a stifling and unproductive work environment. On the surface, the company appears to be doing well in the stock market, but that’s only because they keep buying companies and their revenue. Their organic growth is completely stagnant. They’re masking their lack of true growth by acquisitions rather than innovation or improvement. They constantly make promises they don’t keep, and they fire people without providing the appropriate compensation. This company is a sinking ship. Avoid at all costs.

I struggle to come up with any Pros. At one time, I worked with many great people there. Sadly, most of them left after Affle's leadership (Anuj Khanna) showed their (his) true colors.

Like many at Affle, I joined the company by way of acquisition. Affle's business model largely revolves around their aggressive (predatory?) acquisition strategy. In fact, virtually all of the "growth" Affle sees is INorganic growth (i.e. producing higher revenue by buying companies vs. growing the companies they already own). You're probably wondering: "How could that be possible? Are they just buying failing companies?" Nope. Anuj Khanna & co. actually possess a mindbogglingly strong skillset in value destruction. They acquire high performing companies, strip them down of the things (people and other resources) that made them succeed and replace them with cheaper alternatives (sometimes the "cheaper" alternative is nothing at all). They're more like a private equity shop that buys up businesses and makes them more profitable -- only, they do the opposite. The next obvious question is, "why would they take this approach? It seems counterproductive." Sadly, the answer is that they (Anuj Khanna) can't help themselves (himself). They (he) are blindly prideful (narcissistic?). There is an underlying culture within Affle that "anything you can do, [Anuj Khanna] can do better". Sales? He can sell any product to any client. Bidding algorithms? He can write the code in his sleep. HR? Don't worry even worry about it. Naturally, you may think: "this sounds like a review by a disgruntled employee who was fired". Nope. I left the company voluntarily after it became unequivocally clear to me who these people (Anuj Khanna) are. It's unfortunate, because many employees there don't have a choice but to stay. I'll close this review with a couple fun (scary) facts about life at Affle: - Affle leaders fire people and say they left voluntarily. Also, people leave voluntarily and Affle leaders say they were fired. Sometimes, someone gets fired but they say that the employee "took a long vacation" -- and then present it as a voluntary departure when vacation ends. I wish I was kidding. - Also, the positive reviews on here are bogus. But you already know that.