Illumio

Illumio is family friendly and tries hard.

The positioning and product market fit are great.

The engineering team is in a constant state of disarray. The original eng leaders at the top are conflict avoidant and incapable of making hard decisions at scale. Last year a new exec was brought in on Eng (at the boards request too) to operationalize the work and make things hum. No one gave him any power to do just that though so it’s all still a cluster. Certain teams can’t hire because the whole team of”founding engineers” is so toxic they can’t hire people who might challenge them.

The HR, finance and legal teams are all starved for humans to do work and the time to do it. Burnout is real and the whole company is suffering for it. If the people who take care of the people are burnt out, no care can be taken. I’ve heard we have a new chief of people, so maybe they will get things on track.

CEO’s ego is massive, and is focused on growth and getting back the office. He can’t take feedback and needs an internal comms handler because it’s obvious he can’t stay on message. He doesn’t seem to know how to invest at scale or how to motivate the new sales force he’s hired to achieve their very challenging goals. They are demoralized whenever he comes and talks to the team.

Legacy employees primarily related to Customer Success are better for smaller stages of companies, though at least the new VP seems to have his head on straight. Maybe he can take over soon?

Overall, I really question if Illumio can survive scaling. It’s always hard to do it, but it shouldn’t be this hard.

One false start is an iteration, a few false starts is a pattern.

I hear you don’t want to hear what is on Glassdoor lately.

I’m not surprised, you haven’t created a culture where you can hear feedback directly and internally.