Not structured for scale - Anonymous employee Tripadvisor Employee Review

When I interviewed for my role, every person I talked to emphasized that we're a "speed wins" culture. Now that I'm in the company, I realize it's just words. You can't actually do anything without approval from the CEO. Every request for new headcount requires his approval, and in some cases takes month to finalize. He often pushes back on headcount requests for reasons such as "don't agree with years of experience" or "role should be a level J, not a K". I haven't been able to figure out if he's a micro-manager or if he doesn't trust his leadership team (or both). Additionally, I believe the company is grossly inefficient. Many acquisitions have been made, and it doesn't appear as though there are any plans to integrate the companies. I understand sometimes that is done for strategic reasons, but I don't see how the company will scale with so many engineering teams, so many marketing teams, so many distinct sales organizations, etc. Sadly, everyone I've talked to who has joined TripAdvisor from larger, more established companies seems to feel the same way. The company has such a strong employment brand, but then you join and can't wrap your head around how the company has been able to be successful at all. I suspect TripAdvisor is trying to hold on to the "small company, start-up type" culture, but sometimes a company needs to accept that they're not small anymore (almost 3k people now) and needs to start acting like a larger company.