Simon Bolz

They want your work, not your ideas. Where to begin... the CEOs present the company as having more resources, infrastructure, and manpower than it really has. I walked into this job expecting that certain key tools and processes would be in place, especially when compared to other companies that have been around as long as they have (namely, because I was told in my interviews to expect them). But it's a man-behind-the-curtain situation. I quickly found disorganization, conflicting personal agendas, and a disregard for process at every level of the organization obstructing my work. The work environment is scattershot and chaotic. You can expect to move from crisis to crisis without conclusion, and often without regard for the scope of your job or personal abilities. Work-life balance has become a thing of the past as things have gotten more desperate. The COVID situation has only exacerbated this. You can expect Slack messages at 11 pm with urgent and unreasonable requests and weekend assignments without being asked if you're available. You have no recourse because you will likely be reporting directly to the founders/CEOs. There is no discernible strategy guiding the company at this point. What structures where in place (in the form of OKRs and KPIs) slowly faded into obscurity in 2019, and were not so much as a thought in 2020. This may have been because the company lost or fired its entire executive team by mid-2019. This seemed to be the beginning of a bad downhill trajectory for the company. You are assigned tasks without being given the tools you need to succeed. I often felt like I was being set up for failure. I was asked to create strategies to guide my department (more than once). I would spend weeks creating and iterating these strategies backed by research and benchmarks. And once the strategy was approved, it would immediately become irrelevant. I never got to execute any of the strategies I created, as the CEOs would declare a new initiative that took priority. If this was stated outright, I could have adapted. But it's the charade of asking for your expertise and then quickly casting it aside in favor of simply using you for your labor that made going into work a demoralizing experience. Moreso because it felt that these decisions were spurred by a momentary panic. There is a VERY high turnover of regular staff. When I started, there were about 30 people in the NY office. I was with the company for 11 months and by the time I left, I was one of the senior-most members of a team of 11 in NY. I was going to skip this review entirely. But the icing on the cake came after I gave my two weeks notice. One of the co-CEOs/founders whom I worked beside in the NY office and saw every day for a year didn't say a word to me during those final two weeks. Not a thank you, not a good luck. Didn't even Slack me an emoji. Nothing. This to me perfectly illustrates the rinse and repeat nature of how management views the workforce. I am glad to be gone from this place.