Circle

Free lunches 1-2 times per week Unlimited PTO Flexible WFH Most employees genuinely believe in the company's mission Benefits are decent

Pay is below standard market rate, and the company doesn't understand this, and doesn't understand why most candidates turn them down.

The environment here is toxic. Employees smile at each other one minute, and then stab each other in the backs the next.

Employees are encouraged to report each other for minor infractions. I was reported for kidding with a coworker at an after-hours party that she was being nice to me because she was drunk. This statement was made in a purely platonic sense, and the coworker I said it to didn't have a problem with it. It was reported because a member of the PeopleOps team overheard it. The company threatened to fire me for this and a handful of other similarly innocuous statements I had made that most people outside this company would consider ordinary conversation.

When I suggested that if anyone had a problem with anything I had said, they should try to resolve it with me, I was told absolutely not, on the grounds that that was the same thing as telling a rape victim she should have to resolve things with her rapist, rather than report him.

The company is trying to be a fun startup, but has no idea how to be one. For example, many forward-thinking companies are renaming their HR teams to PeopleOps to emphasize that they care about the human touch, and care about everyone as individuals. This company also calls its HR team PeopleOps, yet that team continues to be very rigid, and is quick to call everything under the sun inappropriate for work, as in the example above. What has happened is that the company has seen other successful startups call their HR teams PeopleOps, and decided to emulate them without understanding why they did it.

The company regularly makes poor business decisions, and presents them in a positive light. For example, it chose to hire the same PR team that managed Uber, which has a terrible public image. This was presented as a positive sign of growth during a company meeting.

The company has no clear vision. It started out as a way to trade Bitcoin, and then stopped supporting Bitcoin, so came up with a new mission statement. It's a company that exists to make a profit for its founders and its investors, but has noticed that successful startups have clear mission statements, so has tried to emulate that, shifting its mission statement as appropriate.

The company tries to present itself as open, yet is paranoid about security. Employees are recognized in front of the company for verifying that people in the office are supposed to be there, even when they are.

Make a genuine effort to understand why startups do the things they do, rather than trying to emulate them.

Listen to employees who try to give you advice on how to become a successful startup.