Pros
- Mission driven organization with very ambitious and admirable goals to make big changes to Education, Science, and reform for critical areas like Criminal Justice, Immigration, and Housing Affordability. - More work/life balance than you'd typically get at other technology orgs, especially startups. It should be noted that this experience did vary depending on the team in which the employee worked. - Company is well funded so teams were not often constrained by resources and/or budgets. This also helped with innovation and experimentation which were usually supported and encouraged.
Cons
- Culture plagued with high turnover, layoffs, reorgs, poor employee engagement scores, challenges with inclusion, and constant ambiguity. It's unfortunate that the company's commitment to equity and fairness externally doesn't extend internally to its employee population. The environment created fear among employees when it came to things like voicing an opposing viewpoint, raising management issues, etc. - Communication was cloudy and lacked transparency. It became increasingly difficult to tell facts from "fake news" as the perception was that leadership would often "spin" information to support their own narrative. - Priscilla Chan was hands-on and incredibly passionate about the work happening externally; however, as the CEO she appeared uninvolved or distant from the business/people, especially given the small size of the company. This was particularly problematic when you had an inexperienced leadership team as it contributed to major cultural and organizational issues. - Company lacked typical checks and balances or accountability for organizational decisions. Although being a well funded startup can be a positive, it can also have negative consequences when decisions/growth strategies are not well thought out at the leadership level. For example, hiring people or departments too early resulting in layoffs, people departures, or general dissatisfaction.