1. 0 customer empathy. The company claims to be mission-driven, community-based, insert any Silicon Valley, save-the-world false narrative here. However, the product absolutely does not reflect what's best for "community members", which are the 80% of hard-working Americans living paycheck-to-paycheck. Tipping is supposedly optional and meant to encourage people to "pay it forward." However, I've painfully listened to customers express utter confusion about why their maxes went down when they decreased their tipping amounts followed by their realization that they have to submit to the game Earnin is playing by increasing their tips to get the maxes back up. Also, if you look at Earnin's social media posts, so many customers are even desperately reaching out to each other to ask for help in increasing their maxes, and Earnin is exploiting this desperation. Despite all of this friction, the CEO regularly dismisses the idea of understanding customer needs to inform product decisions. Instead, product ideas come from him or one other long-time employee who has no product background and regularly comes up with ideas on a whim vs. rooted in data. The CEO has no personality when interacting with real customers, so it's absolutely critical to root product decisions in customer needs that come from research and data. As a result, many bad product ideas have been launched and rolled back while competitors have quickly advanced past us.
2. 0 employee morale. I never understood the definition of gaslighting until I came to Earnin. On more occasions than I can count, the CEO would ask for something, and when you delivered what he asked, he would dismiss or reject it (as if he never wanted it in the first place) and make you doubt and question yourself. Oh, and, Earnin loves firing people. Even if you push back, respectfully, against leaders, expect to get pushed out. So people throwing each other under the bus to protect their jobs is a regular occurrence.
3. Fake, positive Glassdoor reviews written by HR.
4. Earnin loves "leveraging" the perspective of its minority employees only when it benefits them. Stop tokenizing your employees and just talk to your actual customers and respond to their needs.
5. Uncertain future. I thought that because Earnin is disrupting the payday lending industry and is backed by Tier 1 investors, the company was on a strong path. The lack of leadership and employee morale are making me question even staying here.
