Most bad companies rot from the head down. This place is no different. The CEO causes most of the issues.
He's smart, the problem is he thinks he's the smartest guy in the room. He's a typical sales-guy, bro-dude who was probably an athlete or fratboy in college. He can't take negative feedback well and he hates people who question him or show him up but he's got no experience managing people or running a company. He hires really smart people but when they give him honest criticism or question his views he drives them away. Two old friends that he begged to come help bail him out, fix the company and mentor him he chased away because he hated the fact that they weren't constantly telling him awesome he is. It's sad to watch his new favorites, knowing that at some point he's just going to turn on them too.
The company is his baby and he expects everyone else to act the same way. The problem is, if the company gets bought out, he'll be rich. Employees have some stock options but most of the people don't make enough money to exercise those options and even if they do the money they make won't be life changing. They're not going to get rich, they might make enough money to pay off some credit cards or take a trip. They aren't going to be able to retire or even take years off of work. He doesn't understand this. Most employees are underpaid but they took the job with promises of stock and raises that never materialize. To them it's just another job. He expects everyone to work 70 hours a week and respond to his late night and weekend emails, texts and phone-calls. They're overworked, underpaid and underappreciated but if they don't finish an assignment on time or produce results, instead of understanding, he just gets mad and rants He doesn't understand that the employees aren't going to get rich like he will, so of course they aren't going to be as passionate as he is. Since he rarely takes input, there's no sense of ownership because no one sees their great ideas in action.
He constantly reads books and listens to podcasts. Between that and constantly hiring new executives, he's always changing directions, priorities and management styles because doesn't have the experience to have a style of his own. Instead of hiring new leaders and telling them that there's a plan in place and they need to follow it, he brings in people who want to change everything and he lets them. So the staff just starts a project, then gets a new project, and a new project, and a new project and a new direction. No one ever gets to finish anything. Do you know how demoralizing that is, to never get to finish something and look back at it with a sense of pride? Instead of taking responsibility for that, he just blames the employees. Then tries to make up for the bad feelings of the staff by buying beer and throwing yet another "party".
The worst part of this is that so many employees were hired to do one job, then because they offended him, he read a book or listened to a podcast, or hired a new manager or director or vice president they've all of a sudden got a different job that they weren't hired for. Some of use moved across country because of this, and then ended up in a new city with no friends or family and a job we didn't want and are blamed because we aren't qualified for.
Proof of this? Look at how many people are calling out the fake positive reviews. Instead of reading the bad reviews, reflecting on the honest feedback and then fixing things, he just writes another fake review.
There's no career growth here. No promotions. No 401k. No accrued vacation time. No training. The only way to get a raise is to threaten to quit when things are going really bad.
