May 12, 2017
Flexport Response
9yRyan Petersen here, CEO of Flexport. Something struck me as off about this review as soon as I saw myself described as a "workaholic." Nobody has ever called me that, and anyone who knows me or worked with me will find it funny. Also we have not lost a salesperson in 11 months so I suspect this person is not who they claim to be.
That said, it is true that our team works really hard. We grew revenues 60% again this month (May 2017 vs April 2017) and have maintained ~20% compound monthly growth for over 3 years. Hard work is the price of working at one of the fastest growing companies in Silicon Valley. It's simply not true, however, that we don't care about our people. We've designed our entire organization around cross-functional autonomous teams that are empowered to make decisions without requiring instruction or permission from above. Our goal is for these teams to behave like immune cells, where they see a problem and attack it, rather than forming a committee to get approval from a "clique" at the top of the company. We also have a large and growing team dedicated to enablement, training, and process improvement, who conduct workshops to identify problems and help the teams find solutions through new product features or processes. We do performance reviews quarterly using the "nine blocks" methodology, providing objective findings to every employee so they know where they sit and what they need to get ahead. And our global rotational program each quarter gives 5-10 of our stars at all levels of the org the opportunity to transfer to a new function or geography. We believe in developing well rounded, cross functional people who understand all aspects of our business. Our model works—we maintained an NPS in the mid-60s for over a year since we started measuring it. Our Culture Amp scores from our confidential internal surveys routinely show that we are in the top few percentile for employee engagement. And we wouldn't be ranked the 4th best place to work in the SF Bay Area this year if Flexport was as this poster describes. In the end, the thing I'm most proud about in building Flexport is our investments in our people, culture, and organizational design. We have built an organization that empowers people to get work done without the BS bureaucracy that cripples so many companies. And it's precisely that culture of autonomy that allows me to not have to be a workaholic. I'm sorry that it didn't work out for the original poster. High-paced startups aren't for everybody. I wish him or her well in future endeavors though. PS I always use neatly formed paragraphs when I write too, this site just sucks at formatting.
