Pros
Context: Figure Eight was a data annotation platform startup acquired by Appen. I, along with other Figure Eight employees were acqui-hired into Appen. My criticism is directed at the executive and senior Appen leadership.
Cons
tl;dr: Appen is a soulless, bumbling global corporation that thinks it can compete with actual tech startups. Employees are resources to be exploited in pursuit of the bottom line. It seems that every quarter or year, Appen has an identity crisis and redefines how it does business, but one thing remains consistent: that its employees are resources to be exploited in the pursuit of profit. This unfortunately makes sense because Appen is a global company that has grown primarily through acquisitions to further its bottom line. After acquiring a company Appen imposes its bland corporate culture and boomer technology and heavy-handed IT practices onto the acquired company. Along the way, Appen absorbs anything it likes. For example, for Figure Eight, Appen kept the shiny veneer of a tech company, while gutting the day-to-day tech that enabled Figure Eight to feel and operate like a startup. Appen also adopted Figure Eight’s values of grit, honesty, performance, and humility but rather than embody these authentically, it used them as cudgels or paid lip service to them. The prevailing feeling among acqui-hired employees is that the tech and company took a step backward from what it once was. The sad reality of working at Appen is that the actual people are good people and want to be proud of their company. It’s upper management that is prideful and doesn’t care to listen to input, or selectively hears what it wants. The result of this was a sizable exodus (still ongoing) of Figure Eight employees and some legacy Appen employees into the waiting arms of its competitors. Thank goodness for California’s employee-friendly laws. Furthermore, when the themes of racial injustice entered the social mainstream consciousness in early 2020, employees petitioned for about a year for d&i initiatives that would result in accountability, such as a C- or VP-level d&i officer. Bafflingly, the most Appen offered employees was the chance to form a supervised d&i committee responsible for workshops and newsletters. A step in the right direction, but still woefully short of any meaningful change. Appen learned the hard way that “woke-washing” can’t address any racial blind spots the company as a whole might have via a very public and embarrassing paper bag test and a tone-deaf apology that missed the point entirely. Further conversations with the exec team only cemented their unwillingness to learn from their mistake. “We’re sorry- we could have communicated this better” is a recurring theme in conversations with the execs. Cut scene to a few months later when Appen suddenly decides to re-org and lay people off. Entire teams were disbanded, and anxiety abounded. Many were caught off guard, though it wasn't the first time that customer-facing employees learned about big news through social media than from Appen leadership. Suddenly, Appen decided that the Figure Eight way of doing business (as a tech company) was the right approach after all. So, for about a year we had put up with several new layers of management and a re-brand into a services (but not a SaaS) company that happened to have a data labeling platform. Now, after most of the people that had made Figure Eight great had left, Appen in its infinite wisdom decided to go back to the old way of doing things. Appen execs take great pains to gaslight and to condescend to employees to the contrary- “We’re the best we’ve ever been!” “Good numbers are up- but time to work harder!” “Employees are happy here!” But the world execs live in isn’t the same world inhabited by the remaining employees. Asking simple questions about how the numbers they share were obtained, the facade being sold starts to crack and crumble. This unwillingness to change, to innovate, and to retain talent makes me think that Appen is perfectly fine with being a mediocre company. As an Appen employee I asked myself how Appen execs can be trusted when over and over again they’ve demonstrated that they do not value us, our ideas, or our input. It reminded me of the patterns involving toxic relationships. Appen is the one saying “Baby, baby please, I’ll get it right this time. C'mon, we’ll do it your way” and then goes off and does whatever it wants. Instead of leadership, we get platitudes. Instead of inspiration, we get fear, uncertainty, and doubt. The cherry on top is that Appen touts "ethics in AI" and "fair pay" to data labelers. It's embarrassing (and hypocritical): ethics for some, but not for others isn’t very ethical. How can one lay claim to an ethical/moral high ground when the ethics/morals at home are lacking? But I digress. The AI and tech industry isn’t slowing down, and there’s lots of demand for the kinds of talent remaining at Appen. I'm heartened to know that the colleagues who have left are happier and being compensated more fairly. Knowing what I’m worth was extremely helpful in making the decision to leave, and it’s a matter of time before others do the same. Then, it just becomes a question of whether the company will offer a competitive compensation package and totally revamp its culture or if it will be business per usual for Appen: too little, too late.
