Pros
The people that work at CreativeLive are incredible. Never in my career have I worked alongside so many intelligent, talented, fun and hard working people. They truly care about their work, each other and the company. We’ve got a great product. Hearing stories from our audience around the world about how our classes have changed their life is pretty powerful. It’s really rewarding to work on something that isn’t fluff. We’ve got our problems (see below), but there are a lot of people actively trying to better this company. They’re transparent, they listen, and most importantly, they’re honest about our failures and shortcomings and are open to talking about how to fix them.
Cons
There is a deficiency of strong leadership in this company. We have a lot of talented employees who are ready to put in the time and effort to get us where we need to be, but between the absence of any tangible goals or strategy and lack of people who have been enabled to make and execute decisions, working here has turned into an uphill battle…but no one seems to know what we're all battling about! This is largely attributed to the inherent lack of trust between the CEO and the staff here. Everything, and I do mean EVERYTHING, needs to be run by Chase before a move is made. New hires, changes to the website, the color of the walls, basic marketing graphics, the list goes on. This dis-trust has fostered a fear amongst the staff. People are hesitant to be innovative or to pull any triggers out of fear of having their hand slapped when it doesn’t fit in with Chase’s ambiguous vision of our brand. When we do go through the proper channels to be innovative, it will take weeks and months only to have the idea scrapped or completely changed by Chase. He talks a good talk, but is standing in the way of this company making progress. We’re focusing an enormous amount of our time and effort on vanity projects and “looking cool” instead of strengthening the core of this company. It's really draining the morale and of this team. Also, the amount of talent we have let walk out the door because we didn’t manage them properly or allow them to meet their full potential is pretty upsetting. Between the high turnover, the atrocious way we’ve handled exits, and the wide understanding that the CEO will give a position to someone he can see himself drinking a beer on his boat with, as opposed to the right person for the job, I’ve lost a lot of faith in this company.