Veeva Systems

Work from home… for now.

Doesn't lay off people every time the stock dips.

RSUs are available quickly.

Growing fast from having the right products at the right time.

Co-workers are nice and helpful (management is a mixed bag).

Very top-down organization. Don't expect to have any input on anything unless you are a VP.

Obsessed with features over engineering or process. Chaos is standard for every release.

Minimal planning and design creates constant urgency. Teams are rushed to finish and fix half-made features and deal with feature changes, infrastructure changes, and design flaws in the 11th hour. It's hard to grow when you are constantly scrambling to fix, learn, or finish several features and changes at once.

Don’t implement work from the office.

Part of Veeva’s culture is autonomy. Having set hours and a cap on PTO has already put a strain on that. Forcing work from the office will make Veeva “just another software company.”

Veeva hires nice, quick-learning, hardworking employees because they won’t say no, they figure out things quickly, and work hard to keep up with overloaded and poorly planned schedules.

I have lived through this story before. At some point, the short-term mentality and chaos will catch up with Veeva, but as long as they keep growing fast enough, that could be years away.

Once Veeva stops growing, things will get ugly. They will need to cut 30+% of the company. The culture will dramatically change from a huge layoff and require an entire management overhaul, from a speed- and growth-obsessed model to a value-based efficiency model, which might come in the form of a VC buyout.

If that’s Veeva’s plan, enjoy the ride and the payout. But if Peter is truly serious about becoming a 100-year company, he will need to figure out how to phase in some value-based planning, tools, proactive design, learning, and efficiency thinking into the culture now, instead of after the bottom drops out.