- Very chaotic, in ways that are avoidable. Be prepared to cancel holidays from lack of basic planning. - CEO doesn't have a clear vision, likely due to inexperience building consumer products. Big on vanity metrics, like fundraising and media coverage, even when users aren't sticking around. - No real leadership structure. The executive team doesn't have autonomy; they're usually scrambling to chase the CEO's flavor of the week. - Multiple large projects have been scrapped for reasons that were predictable and obvious to the team before they were started, but ignored by leadership (CEO) - CEO regards himself as a visionary, which handicaps the product and design teams - Founders, especially CEO, have maturity issues and often lead from an ego-driven place. It's almost like they watched one too many startup movies. They behave as if they have some kind of special sauce, so when their employees disagree with them, it's because they just don't get it. - CEO is often petty and vindictive when dealing with conflict, both internally and externally. (just check out his twitter feed for external examples). - Very little transparency from the top. CEO makes heavy use of reality distortion internally and externally. Even when he is clearly wrong after pushing the team to do something they didn't agree with, he seems unable to admit fault. Instead will usually spin it as "life in a startup".
