Flexport reviews

Ryan Petersen here, founder and CEO of Flexport. I was pretty sad to read this review, so thought I'd take a moment to respond. We take this kind of feedback very seriously, and we do everything we can to encourage radical candor. So I want to encourage the reviewer to bring their concerns directly to me, or, if they feel more comfortable, to their manager. Here are my responses to the specific points: "Disorganized office and chaos as a result." We are the only freight forwarder in the world with no stacks of paper or file cabinets anywhere in the office. We're not disorganized at all although I can see where that perception comes about: We move people's desks every few weeks to make space for new people. There is remarkably little chaos for a company that has scaled as fast we have: We have clear lines of reporting with everybody knowing exactly who they report to, what teams they are part of, and how those teams fit into the greater goals of the company. Maybe the reviewer is someone who joined from a bigger company with more established processes and a more static org. "Hiring lots of new grads, overworking them, and not paying them much while promising "development" without actually delivering" We pay both new grads and experienced people not only more than other tech startups, but also more than any other freight forwarder. I'm proud that we hire better people than would typically go into freight forwarding, and pay them more than our competitors. We also pay above average for startups at our stage. As for overworking people, I agree, some people work too hard here. I wish folks would go home earlier. The verb "overworking" implies an action by the company. But that's not true. Nobody forces anybody to come early or stay late. Everybody sets their own schedules. There happen to be a group of incredibly ambitious people here who really want to change the face of international trade, build an amazing company, and lay the foundations of an incredible career with us. We also have a great group of star performers who have obligations at home, and leave the office at reasonable hours to get back to their loved ones. And there are and always will be career paths for people like that at Flexport too. The notion that we promise development without delivering is just wrong. We have consistently promoted star performers, sometimes within just months of joining. We have 100 people today, and in 5 years we'll almost certainly have several thousand. The folks who are here now will be the leaders tomorrow. The data speaks for itself: 100% of the managers in our engineering, design, sales, operations, data science, marketing, recruiting, and procurement teams joined as individual contributors. "Equity compensation is diluted, heavy headcount for a Series A company." -- We are always transparent about the number of shares outstanding in our offer letters, so candidates can judge this for themselves. "Mediocre company benefits, should be improved" -- We've benchmarked ourselves against dozens of startups at our stage, and we are in the top 10% of benefits. We cover 100% of healthcare including full vision and dental, and even cover dependents as well. We also offer free lunch everyday for all employees, plus free dinner for people staying late. We recently launched a 401k plan as well. "Hiring bar has been lowered for operations quite a bit. Need to compensate fairly." Our hiring bar is amazingly high and hasn't changed. Even for entry level positions, you need to be good enough to have been hired at the world's pre-eminent consulting firm. That's because we put all candidates through almost the exact same interview process as the Boston Consulting Group. The one thing I'm proudest of in launching Flexport and getting it to where it is has been the quality of people we've been able to attract to a non-obvious, old school industry. We are going to win because we have better people than our competitors at every position. And we've been able to to attract that talent because we compensate them well, and provide very real career growth. If any prospective employee wants to discuss any of these or other concerns, you can reach me anytime: I'm just ryan@flexport.com