Wow! Where to begin?
* The exec team has little understanding of the business and the underlying drivers of building a strong and mutually reinforcing network of readers, content, and advertisers.
* The board appears to allow conflict of interests to exist, which confounds the company's progress, angers advertisers, and mystifies its audience of readers, subscribers, and event attendees.
* No one seems to know what the finances actually are nor can confidently forecast revenue and expenses. In less than a month, the company moved from hiring an impressive slate of senior managers to executing two RIFs, eliminating ~35% of the workforce.
* Further, the company is ill-equipped to operate a digital media offering in 2016. It has little understanding of its readers, their interests, or what will bring them back to VentureBeat. It's inexcusable for a media site — especially one that claims to be at the forefront of tech and growth companies — to know so little and to have thought so little about how to build and maintain a valuable and engaged audience.
The company is now lost, reactionary, panicked, and unable to do right by longstanding employees. This is the worst work experience of my life, and it is unlikely that any future experience will come even close.
