Carta

It is a very fast-paced environment where you have to navigate the constant ambiguity thrown at you by the CEO, who thinks he is an AI genius.

There were failed acquisitions, including Vauban, Capdesk, and Accelex. The CEO is unable to stay calm, have a clear vision, and delegate. Instead of delivering a clear vision, he goes into the weeds of implementation and confuses technical solutioning with product vision. The problem is the CEO. Again, just to be clear, it is the CEO. He laid off the whole French engineering team of Accelex or Carta LPPA for economic reasons while claiming the business is doing very well. Management turnover is very high.

The CEO does not expect you to constructively engage with his vision. You need to exactly agree with what he says and be a yes-man. Otherwise, his management, or what is left of it, will take care of laying you off with random reasons, such as a PIP or making you work on no projects. Most of the management is from an ethnic and cultural background quite dominant in Silicon Valley, where challenging authority is a big no-no. It is no surprise they are successful there. The greater point is that there is a lack of ethnic diversity. If you are not from that background, it is unlikely you will be promoted into a managerial role in the engineering department.

There is a dying solution with the threat of AI and better competitors with more innovative solutions. Everyone knows about this CEO because of his behavior and lawsuits. Initially, I was siding with him and thought critics were just haters. However, you would not believe how these lawsuits are just the tip of the iceberg, and no one respects this CEO, even in his own company. The best is that people on his side treat him like a genius child who needs to be minded and have translators so normal employees can understand him. The worst is that people see him like Elon Musk, but minus the talent and with a ton more of anger and sadness, as he would share why he is divorced.

Advice to the board: please note that this company's reputation is getting noticed globally, including in Asia, and that this CEO should step down to let a CEO operator take the helm.