Pros
When I first joined Rigetti over two years ago, it was an entirely different place. Given that in the last two years of my employment, the company more than tripled in size and then went through numerous amounts of turnover. The concept of attrition didn't exist in the company. Many key valuable leaders who held exemplary traits were fired or resigned as they realized their "voices" meant nothing. However, that being said, in the very beginning, people were so excited and they loved their jobs. They were willing to work night and day because they were truly passionate. I, myself surprisingly put in countless hours working because I felt like I was truly a significant part of what could be an amazing company. The culture was growing into this sort of supportive, fun, peer mentorship sponsored environment. Where coworkers were focused on being in a team and helping one another in whatever field they were interested in learning about. The main reason I stayed at the company for so long was for the people. The people were amazing and I felt that bad management, mistreatment was a trade-off for being able to work with some of my best friends. We truly believed that the long hours, doing other people's work was going to benefit the company and us in the long run.
Cons
(Continuing from the pros as this in my opinion was the turn of events.) The key point here, is that we all held on to hope. This idea that the company was built on collectivism and we were all contributing to a main goal and were acknowledged as doing so. This concept quickly turned into the brutal reality that "we" did not exist. Every individual was for themselves. I would describe the CEO as an ontological arrogant. "His goal truly is to get everyone to surrender to his ideas. The book Conscious Business literally describes the CEO and the company culture in a couple of phrases. "His self-righteous assertions antagonize those who hold different perspectives. His behavior polarizes people and touches off quasi-religious was in which each camp tries to prove that it owns the truth. This prevents groups from integrating the information of all their members into a more inclusive perspective." I won't point entirely to the CEO, as his many one time right hands became his exact replica in their own form. There was no humility. Every department was fighting to prove their importance or that they could define which direction to go. Clearly nothing was working and this department failure tricked down to individuals. Where individuals started competing and this culture of honesty, willingness to learn from others, collaboration quickly turned into lies, betrayals, unwillingness to understand other opinions. I personally felt as though I had to be compliant. Although majority of the terrible leadership was fired, unless the CEO can truly change his unconditional blame games, essential selfishness and ontological arrogance, the company will keep facing the same cycles over and over again. The cycle of a gossip culture where everyone indulges in talking garbage about one another and broiling up their own feelings in a pot with everyone else's feelings. This became a way of coping with an exasperating work culture. Don't force your employees to quit from being emotionally and intellectually exhausted.