Buzzword, Jargon, and Fluff - Anonymous employee Local Motors Employee Review

This company is so misguided it’s sad. The original concept, which was about 17 pivots and a few business models ago, had some serious potential. But, for whatever flicker of brilliance the CEO had in his original model, that has all but been extinguished by his (mis)management and the C-Suite he has hired to agree with him. Management has gotten so appallingly nearsighted that strategy documents were only out six months into the future. Year on year the company looks entirely different from products to purpose. Whether this was done to appease investors or ego, it has destroyed any chance for future success. The company has been through multiple models, numerous funding rounds, and after nearly a decade still has no real path to enough revenue to pay for the bloated operational costs racked up by the hubris of the CEO, let alone any chance for profitability. There is still no concrete vision for what the company should be when it grows up. The only consistent vision the CEO had was the desire to open more Microfactories, it now has six facilities internationally, costing insane amounts every month just to keep the lights on, but all together generate little to no revenue. This expansion without growth was something everyone outside of the C-Suite was uncomfortable with, but the expansion happened over the silenced objections of those who actually understood that opening locations costs money, which they weren’t making as a company. The company seemed to shift focus to whatever buzzword or industry jargony word was getting headlines at the time regardless of the core competencies of the underlying business. This was used to create headlines and raise capital, but there was almost no ability to bank on the company to execute the promises and statements the CEO made in public presentations or to investors. The company evolved into caricature to generate investment and not an actual business venture. The CEO spends most of his time raising funds, and the rest micromanaging details, which in the long run meant nothing to overall company direction. He is so detached from the regular functioning of the company, that any calls he makes usually derail any chance of success his team is trying to achieve in spite of him. When it counts the CEO almost always makes the wrong call, and he has yet to show the ability to lead, let alone push and guide his team through the inevitable difficulties that come with a startup. When it gets hard for the company, he pivots to something else, which seems “easier” or at very least is popular at the time and can milk it for some more headlines and investment capital. The CMO (as described in other reviews) is a complete disaster; the fact that she is even at the company and allowed to run a division is a prime and glaring example of just how bad the CEO is at running the company. She was hired over the objections of other (former) C-Suite members, and she remains over the objections of just about anyone who has worked with or for her or regularly interacted with her. The epic waste of investor funds on advertising for products they couldn’t or didn’t sell was maddening to say the least. Every single campaign that the CMO ran had a massive cost due to either terrible ideas or her use of vendors who were 10 times the price for half the work, and all of these efforts netted ZERO return on investment. And to top it off the internal marketing department still doesn’t do any research. The company is still shooting in the dark when it comes to product market fit. Anything LM has created has been guesswork (pulled out of thin air) with no research, or “charisma” in negotiations, the CEO’s degree pedigree is basically all they are banking on at this point. The CFO has one glaring problem, he is forced to say yes to every expense. He is either not allowed or incapable of telling the CEO and CMO no. It’s difficult if not impossible to financially right a ship when it is constantly spending and taking on debt/and diluting equity to do so. It would be one thing if they spent money wisely, but I think the only entity in existence worse at wasteful spending is the federal government. Co-Creation would be awesome if LM actually did it, but to this point Local Motors has still not co-created an entire vehicle. It has been used for industrial design and a couple of other projects, but it has not been used for any real engineering. It feels like the company doesn’t even buy its own line about using the crowd to make things faster and cheaper, because it barely uses the few community members it has kept. This platform could be the only reason the company exists and makes money, as is the only part of the company that has been monetized in the slightest. But, the platform has been managed so poorly up to this point the former CIO never put the effort into making it right, and under the CMO it will never succeed because she is incapable of the job. Internally there were and are some people who understand how this company could actually make money and run like a real business, but none of them are listened to. Sadly, any negative internal commentary has been silenced, or eliminated from the company. It’s now impossible to internally say, “that’s a bad idea” or “we are going the wrong direction” as dissent is something that is no longer allowed. Employees stopped taking surveys for fear of reprisals, and many stopped answering truthfully for fear they would be found out after the company conducted witch hunts for bad reviewers. Do not trust the #alternatefacts which have been released by LM in the form of 5 star reviews. They were and are 100% marketing spin for the multitude of truthful terrible reviews being posted here.