Pros
- Strong research and engineering teams (although that is increasingly being hollowed out) - Great culture, no-nonsense approach, healthy debates, especially among the old timers - Competitive core technology (we used to beat Glean on search quality) but that advantage is being whittled away by poor executive leadership
Cons
As one reads the many reviews on here, one may be puzzled by how a team with great colleagues have toxic culture. Both are true, and here is how: - Act 1, setup: company founded on a vision that was valid but too unfocussed for early stage. Strong team assembled, good tech developed, but revenue doesn't pick up due to lack of focus (primarily due to founder & CEO 1). Investors get antsy and bring in another exec as CRO. - Act 2, change: CRO being a salesman, has the gift of gab - is able to influence many genuinely competent people and hire some good folks. But clueless when it comes to technology and equally unable to focus as CEO 1. Instead of helping the company succeed, CRO takes the easy path of shifting blame to consolidate power; promotes a few fast and high, the kind that also talk a lot and shift blame; openly plays favorites. Thereby the seed of toxicity is planted. - Act 3, sabotage: after a sizable Series-B, CEO 1 officially removed and CRO made CEO 2. CRO/CEO 2 builds a massive sales/GTM org (the only thing he knows how to do, other than talk), even though product wasn't mature enough to warrant large sales org at that stage. We get predictable outcome: high sales comp, steak dinners burn cash; many feature requests from massive sales/pre-sales/solutions eng. teams overwhelm tech org. To make matters worse, CEO changes product direction every 6 months. Now the company is in a death spiral - layoffs every few months, losing contracts, CEO keeps telling bigger and bigger stories with hefty sounding words that he doesn't understand. There is still value in the teams for someone to acquire, but it is unclear if the ego of the CEO will allow him to sell instead of running the company to the ground.
