By far the biggest, most toxic mess I’ve ever seen in my 12+ years of working, and I’ve worked in some pretty bad gigs ie ad tech and food / retail. Kustomer is much worse in terms of dysfunction and how they treat people.
They just cut the entire design department, and QA earlier in the year. They have churned tons of clients and NRR around 70% which is effectively a death sentence in SaaS. The tragedy is there’s smart people here (a dwindling few left at least) and this failure is 100% the fault of abysmal leadership that can somehow micromanage every decision while refusing to providing a clear strategy or direction. “Figure it out” but also “if it’s not exactly what I pictured in my mind I’m gonna be upset” at the same time. It’s a manipulation tactic whether or not it’s on purpose. Offset all of the decision making onto the ICs so they can be blamed for a leadership failure when needed, If you read their mind and it succeeds, they can take credit cause you implemented their vision. If you read their mind and it fails, then they can throw you under the bus cause they never were on the record about wanting it done that way. If you try to seek clarity you’ll be gaslight about how you lack initiative or scrappiness.
AI has made a bad problem so much worse. Narcisstic c-suite who intentionally surrounded themselves with sycophants and interact with AI all day, Naturally, they are mentally unwell and disconnected from reality as a result of that and their enormous wealth. They think they’re (“absolutely right!”) about everything despite glaring and growing evidence to the contrary.
NPS slowly trickling down as the CEO vibe codes major and poorly integrated changes with no product review, design, or testing. If you try to make it production ready, you face the wrath. Simple fire reacts in slack and merge it in if you want to keep your job. CEO literally scoffs at user feedback and dismisses it; thinks they just don’t appreciate his genius vision. Bugs also going up and critical incidents happen practically every 2 weeks now. This is all a predictable outcome of not valuing quality or user experience. The brand’s reputation is going in the toilet and they’re not getting new sales. I fully expect them to close shop and maybe sell to PE within a year.
Then there’s everything else: poor comp, expectation of working burnout hours, horrible employee engagement and churn, lack of diversity to name a few. Stay far away from this rotting carcass.
