Confluent

The leadership understands the power of the technology well. Hiring practices are largely successful in finding people who get along well and match personality-wise. There's an open communication style and humility present in the leadership team, which trickles down to the whole company in an effective way. The company is quick to take action when it's clear a direction isn't working as expected. People are encouraged to grow into roles.

The middle management is inexperienced, which leads to some rough edges around internal processes. For example, meetings can be inefficient and lack outcomes, and cross-team collaboration can be bumpy.

Continue the strong investment in culture. This is working and works even better at scale. While this is true, don't forget to work at those internal processes.

Middle management needs to work together across teams to prevent a "land grab" sub-culture from developing.