The land of the lost, overworked and underpaid
Pros
Most of the people working (non-executives) at Blavity are truly amazing with few exceptions.
Cons
How bad can a place be to work for, really really really really bad if multiple people are quitting without a job in a pandemic - even the one white man left after less than a year. Supposedly the mantra is making black people happy, they have failed miserably when comes to the black people in their own company - who are miserable. The company culture with people working remotely is still toxic mainly due to bad leadership. Most of the reviews about Morgan DeBaun are shockingly true, there is a small percentage of exaggeration. Morgan should definitely be removed as CEO, her inflated ego directs poor decision making. As other reviews have mentioned day to day, you are not sure what you are dealing with based on Morgan’s mood swings which results in tantrums that disrupt the business. Morgan has a reputation for being mean for no reason, talking down to employees and treating people horribly because of her own personal failings. Her communication style is often haphazard, for some strange reason she thinks she knows everything and controls communication flows that makes everything worse. Morgan literally translates things incorrectly from one meeting to the next resulting in bad direction and incorrect outcomes for projects which leads to the famous Morgan "cutdown". She thrives on making people feel small and that they are incompetent - when it is MORGAN that is incompetent. If you are creative be leery of interviewing at Blavity they (Morgan) have been known stealing ideas, profiteering and giving no credit to the creator. Aaron Samuels/COO and Jeff Nelson/CTO the other cofounders of Blavity noticeably checked out, both barely paying attention in meetings until called out by Morgan. Aaron is also very emotional when on those rare occasions checked in because Morgan put him on the spot. Aaron is way out his league, poor communicator, has poor memory of meetings/conversations, holds personal grudges that effect daily business functions and gives absolutely no value to employees. People Operations will be of no help to any employee since it is now lead by Aaron who has no idea how to support, mentor or grow employees. The current leadership in People Operations have probably opened themselves up to more lawsuits that they cannot afford. Blavity is not a tech company and never will be, why that is part of the description I have no idea. A tech company has engineers and product managers pushing innovation, not leadership that barely understands basic tech terms or flexibility to learn what they do not understand. Employees working at Blavity are there for what it stands for, most have no loyalty to the company leadership - Morgan or Aaron. Most of the people working (non-executives) at Blavity are truly amazing with few exceptions. Many employees work very long hours, 10-14 hours a day while being underappreciated and dealing with negatively charged working environment. It is not worth the paycheck, like one other review "Run Forest RUN!".
