-- Highly political and toxic environment which causes burnout.
-- Internal politics prevent their talented employees from maximizing the impacts of their work externally.
-- Wasted too much time in navel gazing, popularity contest and internal processes - it's a shame because there's so much unrealized potential.
-- Poor middle management - most middle managers are more concerned about managing up and politics than developing their staff.
-- The foundation is in the process of major staff downsizing but is unable to prioritize its ambitious scope of work. With ever expanding amount of work and dwindling workforce, the high level of burn-out is not going to get any better. Do not expect work-life balance.
-- When I saw my primary care physician for my annual check-up, she asked me where I worked. When I told her I worked for the Gates Foundation, her response was "uh huh...tough place to work. I have lots of patients working there. You better take care of yourself..." The foundation seems to have established a reputation for high burnout and prevalent use of anti-depressant.
-- Tools and systems are surprisingly inadequate and ineffective considering the amount of resources it has. To develop any sort of analysis, it requires significant time suck and manual work required by employees, and the results are usually suboptimal.
