Pros
- Was a small company with a jovial atmosphere and a passionate team (8 people as of May 2018). - The company always managed to hire talented people. Everyone there could have been somewhere else earning more, but stayed because they felt like a part of something worthwhile. - Nick (CEO) was always generous and kind to his employees. - Nick (CEO) was once passionate and enthusiastic about what was possible, and it was infectious. - Company was highly profitable. - Product development was fun, challenging and offered variety.
Cons
- Nick (CEO) is just plain fiscally irresponsible, wasting time and money on self-congratulatory crap, like a "museum" for past versions of the product. His private and personal expenditure is disproportionate, which I personally believe lead directly to the redundancy of *all* of the remaining staff after I left (5 in total). Frankly, a highly profitable company was needlessly run in to the ground due to his recklessness. - Nick (CEO), despite hiring good people, never truly took on board their views or advice, individual or collective, frequently becoming tyrannical. - Nick (CEO) lacked the ability to make coherent medium to long-term product ownership decisions, leaving engineers and managers feeling "aimless". It was common to ask questions of managers only to realise they had the same questions themselves. - Nick (CEO) effectively abandoned the company for 6 months, spending *very* little time in the office during an important product development phase. Even his management team couldn't meaningfully reach him. On the day he laid us all off, I was actually pleased to see him walk in to the office. - Despite claiming to value time above all else, Nick (CEO), when present, was often found pedantically, one could argue obsessively, fussing over operational minutia. - Nick (CEO), despite having only a few years of software engineering experience, and only having run a startup consisting of a handful of people, for a handful of years, built around a modest, niche, open-source product (which he inherited), believes he can be the next Steve Jobs. At first this can be seen as pure zeal, but there is a point at which is becomes blinding.
