BetterUp reviews

I don't fault BetterUp for doing layoffs during this unprecedented time. This is an extremely hard time for businesses in general, and BetterUp has not been meeting its revenue growth targets even prior to COVID-19. I get it, they needed to drastically reduce costs. With BetterUp's mission to, "help professionals everywhere pursue their lives with greater clarity, purpose, and passion", I expected the company to be an exemplar of approaching layoffs in a humane way. Instead, it felt cold and calculating, with little recognition of the humans that were impacted. BetterUp also had one of the first layoffs among the cohort of Silicon Valley growth-stage firms, and there was little mention of other ways to significantly cut costs before the layoff. I've also heard from remaining employees that many have lost significant trust for the leadership team due to how this was handled. After reading the letter from Carta's CEO about their layoff, I can see very clearly the gap between what a candid but humane approach might look like, and the cold distant approach BetterUp actually took. My recommendation to candidates: BetterUp is still a pretty good place to work, but remember that it is a business first and don't be fooled into thinking all the positive psychology talk will save you from a sink-or-swim workplace.

TL;DR - Don't go work for this lousy organization. I know this sounds like sour grapes but I can't tell you how much my life has improved after exiting. Read the reviews and every obviously drummed-up "good" one lists the cons as "this is a fast paced start up, if you didn't come to work hard, this isn't the place for you." <-- comical. I've worked in massively successful startups and have the receipts to prove that this isn't how life works. They treat you very poorly at BetterUp. CEO Alexi is in over his head and won't admit it. Good startup executives know when it's time to hand over the keys to competent and experienced C-level people to take a start-up to the next level. He and his co-founder COO Eddie must be driven solely by ego. I was told in no uncertain terms by upper management in confidence that the hope was that Alexi would step to a CXO role or SVP role out of harm's way and put very specific people in charge who were/are capable and ready. But nah. They just blame economic downturn and "people who don't work hard" for their woes. They did well during the pandemic. Great, lots of companies did. The leadership they have surrounded themselves with is a bunch of yes-men/women. You don't fall in line with this failed direction, you're gone. The saddest thing is that the mission of this company is to bring more resilient, empathetic leadership skills to their customers, creating psych safety for their people and bringing better living (personal and professional) to all employees...of their customers! None of that is practiced in-house. The weasels that they create who turn on their co-workers in pursuit of this "mission" usually find themselves turned on at some point too.