CEO Marin Tchakarov/HR Toxic Culture - Manager Kindred AI Employee Review

1.0
Apr 3, 2021
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Very hard working and intelligent group of ICs, fun to work around. WFH is very relaxed, can keep your camera off during all meetings and no one complains.

Cons

CEO is Marin Tchakarov, previous CFO. History of leading failed startups, very cagey and private, sneaky, underhanded. Previous CEO was more people-focused, open and honest. Leadership is a revolving door, VP-suite seems to cycle out every year due to misalignment with CEO. Leadership has no robotics experience, lots of head scratching decisions made and no overall shared vision of success. Not sure how they are hanging around. Lack of diversity. The leadership team turned into all white males in 2020. Toxic leadership style CEO, preaches "visibility" but makes odd moves behind the scenes without consulting SME or managers. CEO has not brought in a single leadership hire, which speaks volumes. HR is barely servicable when it comes to people operations, HR is only there to protect the business and almost clueless in just that capacity (Kindred is being sued by previous employees). Engineering seems to pivot annually, VP of Eng couldn't seem to get on board with company goals, had no robotics experience and finally left last month to go back to software. Each time the org pivots results in a massive waste of time, money, and an incalculable cost of human effort. Lots of burnout on the Eng team.

Explore other reviews about Kindred AI

5.0
Jan 19, 2026
Anonymous employee
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

The team is great, a lot of talent and hardworking people

Cons

Not too much – things definitely change quickly per normal startup culture

5.0
Sep 23, 2020
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

The work is a fun challenge: scale automation solutions that are smarter than the competition's. We're often making "firsts" in the industry and you get to see your work unfold rapidly. You just implemented something, you blink, and there's a (large) fleet out there with your work in it. We have huge opportunities knocking on our door, there's little concern about "being able to make it," we just have to keep delivering like we have been. I feel empowered to effect change, voice concerns, etc and action is taken to course correct or otherwise find common ground. Sometimes Kindred years feel like dog years, 7:1 ratio. There's so much in flight, so many moving parts, as we're often working to be "first to market" and that means we have to move quick. I joined Kindred first and foremost because of the people, and I'm still here because of them.

Cons

We've had growing pains and periods of attrition, but it hasn't impacted the experience much somehow. We've had to make hard decisions, cancel projects, redirect all of engineering, etc. This can feel a bit like a rollercoaster sometimes, but at least it's fun, and I'd rather have a leadership team willing to make the hard decision than fail on status quo. On call for the product, the flipside though is this encourages continuous improvement and learning from our mistakes.

3
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