Zoox

Great food. Smart and hardworking colleagues.

Oh, where do I start?

Zoox misses milestones constantly by a significant margin. They are putting more pressure and squeezing employees rather than fixing the system. The plans are horrifically unbelievable, and when they don’t lead to results, they throw people under the bus.

Milestone planning and execution is so reactive and myopic that they go through tons of revisions, rescoping, and priority changes; they’re essentially a constant churn and chaos.

Amazon, if you’re seeing this, you need to really look closely to save your investment.

Increasingly critical of each other in a toxic way. You need to cover your butt with documentation constantly just to survive in some cases.

Clueless VPs and directors having too much power and making people’s lives miserable.

With Waymo already so far ahead and Zoox failing to keep its own schedule, which is already far behind, the business outlook is grim. This is reflected in a very slow growth of employee equity.

Oh, and the equity (ZARs) vests in 6 years with a 2-year cliff. If you can survive backstabbing and leadership throwing you under the bus, you will then pay full income tax on ZARs, unlike other forms of equity. And you have to sell it immediately if you ever leave.