- company struggles operationally
- tends to naval gaze and chase shiny balls
- senior leadership turn-over has been high (company isn't sure what it wants and/or it's difficult to succeed and so they either move on or get fired) which makes it very difficult on middle management and individual contributors (need to start relationship building from scratch, goal posts to measure personal success are constantly changing),
- difficult to tell if the decision making is strategic or insane (sometimes there's a fine line between genius and crazy)
- at times very high work loads, crazy hours/deadlines