Pros
Pros: had all the tools for success; promise of competitive pay with quarterly raises, insurance benefits, 401k, and incredibly talented employees. Work was non client dependent.
Cons
Forced employees to move to high cost of living cities Denver or Austin for the tax break, but not compensating employees for doing so. Denver in-office location never used not out of concern for covid, but for not being up to code. Workloads started heavy and only increased over time due to scope creep. Employees that leave are not replaced, leading to more stress on already overwhelmed teams. Raise earning is based on subjective perception of top management and not on evidence of work done or feedback from team leads. Top management put on a face of being receptive of employee concerns but disposes of suggestions for improvement out of hand citing money trouble despite continued success of YouTube channels. An employee founded petition for working condition improvements discussed outside of work hours was "discovered" by invading the private computer and private Discord of an in-office Austin employee, leading to the termination of 23 staff members-skipping any warnings or write up protocol. Holiday time off has to be earned by "getting ahead" on already crunched timelines for video output. Management kept employees in the dark about company happenings generally. That combined with work from home left many employees to rely on talking to each other using a private discord server; which the use of was decided qualified as a terminatable offense. Overreaction at the discovery of trash talk on said discord server led to management illegally detaining all Austin employees with police force. Management continuing to thwart former employees from speaking about their negative experiences online, receiving unemployment payments, posting former positions at reduced pay rates, and writing their own 5 star Glassdoor reviews to offset the negative feedback.