An abundance of hypocrisy and toxicity - Anonymous employee BetterUp Employee Review

1.0
May 8, 2023
Anonymous employee
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Some of the smartest colleagues I've worked with in my career. Great misson and you can very visibly see the impact it has on people's lives. If you have never worked at a startup, you will learn a ton in a short time.

Cons

1) Decisons are made in an ivory tower with executives who take no consideration of implementation or the human element. Never share a dissenting opinion with leadership because you're only wasting energy. That is unless you're a Mckinsey or Bain alum in which case they are all ears and will implement what you say immediately. 2) Abysmal communication and working in silos are the norm and often promoted. It's the "year of the manager", but managers get very little cascade or context for their teams and yet are penalized for the team performance. It is incredibly common for you to find out what is happening in your department from a cross functional coworker rather than your manager. 3) Inequitable support functions. Leadership only invests in other leadership and not actual support roles to do the strategy execution. How do you expect any progress to made when you continue to increase Director/VP bloat and not in people who do the actual work? Groups like IT, Brand, Analytics and Sales Ops are selective in who and what they support leaving the rest on their own. 4) No opportunity for vertical progression unless you play internal politics. If you're connected to an OG, don't worry about this. You will get promoted/a bonus/a raise no matter what. If you're not connected, good luck on not getting "downscoped" this year if you already haven't but don't worry you can keep whatever title you want on LinkedIn and that's what's important. 5) Another reviewer put it perfectly - gaslighting. It is so prevalent here and starts from the very top. No matter how bad the emotional abuse or burnout, if you don't feel and act obsessively grateful for working here at all times, the strong implication (and often verbalized) is you shouldn't be here. They dangle the carrot of lives being impacted which sucks you in to take on more abuse. 6) You also saw this in other reviews - it is incredibly common to weaponize the high impact behaviors against you. When you try to hold someone accountable, you are not exhibiting extreme ownership and a bias towards action and should do their work as well.

Explore other reviews about BetterUp

5.0
Jun 17, 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Amazing team Rewarding cross functional work Interesting tasks Learning opportunities Flexible work schedule

Cons

As this is a contractor role, there are no benefits

5.0
Jun 10, 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Nearly 8 years in, and the work still pulls me forward. What keeps me at BetterUp is that the problems are genuinely hard and genuinely worth solving. I came from engineering, so I'm wired to care about infrastructure, not just features, and this is one of the rare places where you can build something foundational and actually see it move metrics, clear escalations, and unblock a whole go-to-market motion. The mission isn't decorative here. I can feel the thread between the work and the outcome. BetterUp also trusts you to figure things out across lanes. I've written SQL, prototyped with AI tools, facilitated workshops, and co-designed vendor strategy, all as a PM, because the culture doesn't penalize curiosity or reaching into adjacent territory. And honestly, some of my closest friendships came out of this place. The people I work with, on engineering, on cross-functional teams, and in peer mentorship, are people I genuinely learn from and, in some cases, people I can't imagine not having in my life. That combination of meaningful infrastructure work, real trust, and people who challenge you and become your people is not easy to find. The benefits span beyond general work-life-balance, if you're curious about something, there's always an open door to learn and contribute. As a woman in tech, I cherish the fact that our colleagues listen to women, and our insight is taken into account instead of just ignored. It's nice to feel safe at work, able to speak your mind freely.

Cons

If you want a boring job, this is not the place for you.

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