The most pathetic company I've ever worked for
Pros
They pay relatively high salaries (to compensate for the fact no one would want to join them otherwise - they also don't really care about making inflated offers as they'll fire people for any bs reason whenever it may suit them). Accept it at your own peril!
Cons
In more than 15 years of professional experience in multiple workplaces (some harsher, some lighter), I can confidently say CoStar is the most pathetic company I've ever worked for. Discriminatory, old-fashioned, unethical, bureaucratic, hierarchical, highly contradictory, self-defeating, utterly corporate, deluded, limited, non-existing culture! Don't believe me? Just pay attention to Glassdoor's ratings on the business here - or even better: check "CoStar memes" on Google/Reddit. I've never seen people looking so dreadful in an office before... as if their souls are about to escape their bodies. If you're in London, don't be fooled by their address in the Shard: their office is actually quite basic and extremely boring. By walking around, you can really see on people's faces that they are there just for a paycheck, hating themselves for representing that business, counting the minutes to leave. It isn't unusual to take the lift and then hear staff complaining about unfair treatment. A very 'American' company, CoStar is too culturally insensitive to the countries it operates in. Managers are left like headless chickens, running in circles. Pointless meetings, inhumane/insane decisions... a lot of the company's problems are very clearly of their own making: and they do not accept change. Don't even try. CoStar is fully controlled by its owner, who along with his creepy senior team are a bunch of fickle, chaotic, deeply uncharismatic loonies. Only unremarkable, yes-men can really thrive in this environment. The company is extremely dysfunctional, unimaginative and inefficient. It should actually be much bigger and more successful than it is, given the market it operates in. It manages to keep its relevance though as it effectively created a monopoly. Despite claiming to be a fast-growing business, with a high self-inflated sense of importance, the reality is that they still haven't even managed to get to 7,000 employees, despite being almost 40 years old. CoStar's real expansion plans have been stuck for years. The company doesn't grow organically at all: the way it grows is only through monopolistic mergers and acquisitions. They're constantly acquiring new, successful businesses in the field... to then suck the life and joy out of them, and move on to the next victim. It's sad to see the number of otherwise promising businesses that they just managed to completely empty of real talent and stagnate. Disconcertingly, they couldn't care less about playing with their employees' lives and even seem proud to not give a second thought to firing staff at will - almost always for reasons the company is fully responsible for, such as following inadequate hiring plans or setting completely confusing expectations. When questioned, they'll gaslight employees as much as they can get away with, petulantly claiming that they fire so much because staff doesn't meet its 'high' expectations... but the reality is that it's CoStar's management that is highly incompetent, and definitely doesn't meet expectations. Everyone can see it. It's the Daily Mail saying, not me: 'Ruthless' CEO of real estate data powerhouse CoStar 'created toxic environment where 1,546 of its 4,200 workers quit or where fired last year: 'Pointed a loaded GUN at one exec over Zoom and sent another a shot-up target' Can you believe it?
