10y
Wow, I'm surprised to have such an unhappy employee, and I would be happy to chat in person about this as well. Let me try to explain my thinking on the points you raise.
Content licensing: We license our content (a few reviews or snippets) to help propel our brand. We don't license all of our reviews to anyone (that I can think of). So while the API is helpful to many companies, and we have hundreds (if not thousands) of license partners, we love the fact that they are helping us build our global brand. I acknowledge that there is a risk that we are enabling travelers to find our content without visiting TripAdvisor, but I'd argue it has worked stunningly well for the past 15 years. Hard to prove, but I don't know why our current API/program would change the successful dynamics of the past decade.
"Speed Wins": Speed wins is an important cultural aspect to this company. It means that we value going fast, rather than long strategy planning sessions, bi-annual product roadmap sessions, and other hallmarks of big, slow companies. Speed wins does NOT mean we ship crap code, or ignore what users want in the name of 'going fast', or any of the myriad of ways that phrase can be misused or misunderstood. I subscribe to the 'done is better than perfect' mantra, which irks some, and worse, is sometimes used as an excuse to ship something that embarrasses us. We've made mistakes, of course, and I've publicly acknowledged that we have some technical debt to take care of... but we are making good progress. I'd love to hear your thoughts/suggestions on how I can better communicate these values to everyone in our company. I'm sure you aren't a fan of 'slow and perfect' as a motto, so better communication of "Speed Wins" is even more important at 3000 people than 30 people. Culture is important, and this is one of my most important challenges as we grow... how to instill/maintain a sense of 'what does the traveler want', and 'how can we always press ourselves to deliver what they want, faster, more efficiently, with high quality.' As you likely know, we are actively working on the “culture question” at the organizational level, making sure that we have clear, well-understood values and supporting professional development opportunities, as I also recognize its importance.
Product Direction: Where does our product roadmap come from? It certainly does come from what our users want, but we also try to forecast what they will want in the future. We don't always get it right, but we try. We're happy to copy ideas from other sites, buy companies that have done something well and integrate it into our product, and invent new functionality.
Quality control of the PM's: We have a weekly product review meeting, which is open to the company. I think that is great. It’s an open meeting, so anyone who wants to learn what we are planning on can attend. It is meant as a communication forum, where a product manager can present what they plan to build, and all potential interest stakeholders can ask questions, comment, or simply nod in approval. It is quite efficient in that goal. Please don't view it as "quality control", as that is not the purpose. The fact that this meeting is weekly is also something we are proud of... we do a lot each week. Lots of small projects, some large.
My micromanaging ways: True enough, I have some micromanaging habits. Some I feel are justified, some I need to change as the company continues to grow. I care a lot about the people in the company, and how we run as an organization, so I like to be involved in many aspects of the business. I used to not only approve job openings across the company, I used to interview every single new hire (in the final round). I really want to hire the best. That didn't scale, and I stopped interviewing everyone. I do approve open requisitions, because I am interested in knowing where our headcount is growing, and how we are resourcing against our most important priorities. That said, I try hard not to be a bottleneck in the hiring process. I also care a lot about the product and the technology. I use our products daily, and express my opinions and file bugs. Why? Because I want to contribute in as many ways as I can to make our product better. Is that scalable? Nope. But I do it anyways because I care. Some interpret that as micromanaging, but I view it as a positive.
Finally, I am a believer that the best companies are the ones that move fast and are the quickest to adapt. While our business is very healthy, we continue to 'reinvent ourselves' each year to be better for our travelers, better for our clients, and better for our employees.
Steve
